Snapedom

Unbreakable

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 08:48:37 GMT

“I have your word that you will do all in your power to protect the students of Hogwarts?”

Snape gave a stiff nod. (DH33)

*

“Will you, Severus, watch over my son, Draco, as he attempts to fulfill the Dark Lord’s wishes?

... And will you, to the best of your ability, protect Draco from harm?

... And, should it prove necessary… if it seems Draco will fail… will you carry out the deed that the Dark Lord has ordered Draco to perform?” (HBP 2)

How did our clever and cautious arch-Slytherin let himself get manipulated into doing such a foolishly Gryffindorish thing as to make an Unbreakable Vow with Draco’s mother—and without so much as requiring her first to spell out her terms?

Had he learned nothing at all from his previous blank-check dealings with Tom and Albus?

Oh, but of course. Severus was stampeded into it by Bellatrix’s insults and doubts. She was questioning Snape’s loyalty, courage, and commitment, and Severus panicked at the thought that she (and Peter) would report back to the Dark Lord that Snape lacked dedication and would balk when finally asked to fit his actions to his words.

Yep. That was it.

Um—but taking the Vow with Cissy (as opposed perhaps to doing so with Bella) didn’t show his loyalty to the Death Eater cause.

Because Narcissa was planning to ask Snape (at the least—of course Severus couldn’t have predicted her zinger at the end) to help and protect her son. Not the cause.

Only, the Dark Lord had made it quite clear that he didn’t want Narcissa’s son—Lucius’s son—to be protected or helped. The entire set-up of Draco’s “task” was an elaborate psychological torture directed at (otherwise safe-in-Azkaban—and how bad are things if Azkaban is a shelter?) Lucius, to punish Lucius for losing Tom that Prophecy and eleven of Tom’s scarce slaves.

The Dark Lord expected and wanted Draco to fail, and everyone except Draco understood this.

So Severus knew going into that Vow that he’d be committing to work against the Dark Lord’s known wishes.

Odd method of demonstrating his unswerving loyalty.

*

Well, of course, it was really Narcissa’s tearful blue eyes that made Severus indulge in such folly. The sight of a lovely mother risking her own life to plead for her son’s awoke the deepest feelings in Snape’s shriveled heart.

Narcissa’s action evoked not only Snape’s own memory of turning (treacherously, and in utter desperation) to Albus to beg him to save Lily, but also Lily’s subsequent death at the Dark Lord’s hands while entreating him to spare her son.

The poor man just lost his head when lovely Cissy (mother of Purebloods!) knelt at his feet, crying, and kissed his hand in gratitude at his offering merely to try to help.

And then begged her dupe to swear to it, to swear to her he’d truly give the little help that he’d dared to offer.

Albus had accepted a stiff nod as an absolute guarantee that Snape would protect the students to the very best of his ability. Albus knew that a nod from Snape meant more than a vow (or a Vow) from anyone else. But Narcissa didn’t know Snape that well and would require a more formal assurance.

So, carried away by his need to reassure this mother that he would protect her child as best he could, Severus rashly consented to make a Vow to give Narcissa the comfort of believing that he would indeed “help” Draco.

He was rewarded by Narcissa’s slipping in that last clause, when Sev couldn’t back out without looking suspicious. Or maybe, magically, couldn’t safely back out at all—we don’t know how that spell works, except that Snape was already two-thirds bound when the last clause hit him.

Poor Severus, betrayed by his own impulsive compassion for a desperate mother!

*

Of course, it had been entirely predictable that Narcissa, once she had Snape under Bellatrix’s wand, would seize the opportunity to bind Severus, not merely to “help” her son with that one “task” as Snape had actually offered, but to protect Draco in general “to the best of your ability.”

What (canny Slytherin) mother could possibly fail to make full use of such an opportunity? And Snape knew Narcissa to be a Black born, as well as a Malfoy wife and mother—the absolute epitome of Slytherin breeding for ruthlessness (“any means”) and cunning, in achieving such an “end” as protecting the life of her beloved child.

However, Severus couldn’t possibly have predicted that Narcissa would insert that third clause and thus remove all option of his backing out of murdering Albus. No one else, after all, could be expected to come up with the headmaster’s bright idea that “the only … thing to be done if we are to save him from Lord Voldemort’s wrath” (DH33) would be for Severus to anticipate Draco and do the deed himself.

I mean, it’s not as though Narcissa had already asked Snape to…

Oh wait.

“You could do it. You could do it instead of Draco, Severus. You would succeed, of course you would, and he would reward you beyond all of us—“

Oops.

*

Well, what would happen if Narcissa DID again ask Snape to perform “the deed” as part of his Vow, and Severus accepted (or had to accept)?

Well, it’s not disloyal to the Dark Lord, not really, not when both parties know that Snape is already You-Know-Who’s intended assassin.

But afterwards… if the Dark Lord should order Severus to allow Draco to die trying to kill the headmaster (or to fail so obviously that jolly Tom has an excuse to punish the boy by death), Severus would die if he obeyed.

In fact, if Narcissa managed to phrase her clauses cleverly enough, Severus’s life would be forfeit for ANY failure on his part to protect Draco from the Dark Lord’s wrath.

And the Dark Lord still has need of (or at least use for) that particular good and loyal servant.

*

The Vow had no actual effect on Severus’s choices or actions.

Severus had already committed himself: to watch over Draco, to “do all in [his] power” to protect Draco (and all the students) from harm, to offer “help” to Draco, and to carry out Draco’s assigned “duty.”

That Vow never constrained Severus. It constrained TOM. Who suddenly had limits put on what he could do to Draco without paying a price Tom would be reluctant to pay.

Tom now HAD to allow Severus to protect and defend Draco, and finally to step forward and lift that “deed” from him.

Or forfeit the services of his most valuable slave. Who of course would loyally obey the order if given, and die.

*

Of course that Vow, when Tom learned of it, might perhaps expose Narcissa to the Dark Lord’s anger. For foiling the Dark Lord’s clever plan to punish Lucius through his son, by enticing Severus into that Vow.

But a mother’s sacrificing herself to save her son’s life is not a circumstance entirely unfamiliar to Severus. Indeed, Narcissa’s coming to Snape when she’d been ordered not to speak to anyone would prove that she was already doing so.

And in the event, Tom’s devoted Bellatrix had to share the blame with her sister. Indeed, it was mostly her fault; Severus had been offering meaningless reassurances to Narcissa, when Bellatrix, who’d questioned his service to their Lord, provoked him into proving his commitment by agreeing to the Vow Narcissa had suggested.

*

So. Let’s remember Luna’s maxim (in my fanfic “Protean Charm”) for figuring out the machinations of the smartest Slytherins: you must at least consider the possibility that what did happen is what they meant to make happen.

What did happen as a result of this Vow was, Tom was prevented from venting his worst wrath upon Draco.

One of the children whom Snape had sworn to “do all in his power” to protect.

So is there any way that Severus could have manipulated Cissy and Bella into making that Vow with him?

*

Look at the conversation leading up to the Vow.

.
What did Narcissa originally hope to accomplish by coming to Snape?

When they finally got to the point of discussing the “plan,” here’s her initial request and Severus’s answer:

“Severus… please… You are, you have always been, Draco’s favorite teacher… You are Lucius’s old friend… I beg you… You are the Dark Lord’s favorite, his most trusted advisor… Will you speak to him, persuade him—?”

“The Dark Lord will not be persuaded, and I am not stupid enough to attempt it,” said Snape flatly. “I cannot pretend that the Dark Lord is not angry with Lucius…. Yes, the Dark Lord is angry, Narcissa, very angry indeed.”

She plucks every string she can to influence him, and his refusal is absolute. And he hammers on certain points. Yes, Narcissa is correct that the Dark Lord assigned Draco this task as a death sentence to get revenge on Lucius. No, the Dark Lord won’t let Draco off. And no, Snape’s not stupid enough to make a useless attempt to change his mind.

“If you are imagining I can persuade the Dark Lord to change his mind, I am afraid there is no hope, none at all.”

So then Narcissa comes up with Albus’s bright idea. She seizes Snape’s robes, cries on his chest, and begs Severus to do it in Draco’s place.

Here’s Snape’s response:

Snape caught hold of her wrists and removed her clutching hands. Looking down into her tearstained face, he said slowly, “He intends me to do it in the end, I think. But he is determined that Draco should try first. You see, in the unlikely event that Draco succeeds, I shall be able to remain at Hogwarts a little longer, fulfilling my useful role as a spy.”

“In other words, it doesn’t’ matter to him if Draco is killed.”

“The Dark Lord is very angry,” repeated Snape quietly. “He failed to hear the prophecy. You know as well as I do, Narcissa, that he does not forgive easily.”

She crumpled, falling at his feet, sobbing and moaning on the floor.

*

For now we’ll leave her sobbing on Snape’s floor to consider the conversation before “the plan” was ever alluded to. Severus started his show by inviting Bellatrix to vent her reasons for mistrusting him, so that he could reassure her. Bella’s reasons boiled down to: what have you done for The Cause, really? When have you exposed yourself to danger to fulfill the Dark Lord’s wishes? What have you sacrificed or suffered or risked?

And Severus essentially confirms her impression that the answer was, “Well, nothing.” He’s been a useful source of information, no more. Whenever it came time actually to do anything dangerous, difficult, or unpleasant, he was always elsewhere.

And he doesn’t apologize for this; he repeatedly TAUNTS Bella that his craven cozying up to Dumbledore had been of more ultimate use to the Dark Lord than Bellatrix’s heroic, desperately loyal, self-sacrificing (and, incidentally, criminal and depraved) actions.

“He’d have me!” said Bellatrix passionately. “I, who spent many years in Azkaban for him!”

“Yes, indeed, most admirable,” said Snape in a bored voice. “Of course, you weren’t a lot of use to him in prison, but the gesture was undoubtedly fine—“

“Gesture!” she shrieked; in her fury she looked slightly mad. “While I endured the Dementors, you remained at Hogwarts, comfortably playing Dumbledore’s pet.”

“Not quite,” said Snape calmly. “He wouldn’t give me the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, you know. Seemed to think it might, ah, bring about a relapse… tempt me into my old ways.”

“That was your sacrifice for the Dark Lord, not to teach your favorite subject?”…

“… I had sixteen years of information on Dumbledore to give him when he returned, a rather more useful welcome-back present than endless reminiscences of how unpleasant Azkaban is….”

Later,

“But what use have you been?” sneered Bellatrix. “What useful information have we had from you?”

… “If he chooses not to share it with you—“

“He shares everything with me!” said Bellatrix, firing up at once. “He calls me his most loyal, his most faithful—“

“Does he?” said Snape, his voice delicately inflected to suggest his disbelief. “Does he still, after the fiasco at the Ministry?”

Finally he dismisses her actions and her:
“What’s done is done.”

“But not by you!” said Bellatrix furiously. “No, you were once again absent why the rest of us ran dangers, were you not, Snape?

“My orders were to remain behind…. And—forgive me—you speak of dangers… you were facing six teenagers, were you not?”

Then, the very last thing Snape says before finally inviting Narcissa to speak her piece, is to invite the sisters to admire how untrustworthy he is. “I have played my part well…. through all these years, he [Dumbledore] has never stopped trusting Severus Snape, and therein lies my great value to the Dark Lord.”

For the entire conversation, Severus responds to Bellatrix’s accusations that he didn’t act in the Dark Lord’s interests not by providing counterexamples, but by taunting her about (her) bold, brave, self-sacrificing actions that had not proved useful. While his information (gathered while he stayed cozy, safe, and idle), had. That’s his “great value” to the Dark Lord—not that he has sacrificed or accomplished anything, but that he has “played a part” and induced someone important to trust him incorrectly.

Having deliberately invited Bella to air her concerns and told her he’d attempt to assuage them…. Severus could come up with no instance of crime, no distinguished trait of depravity or recklessness that might rescue him from Bella’s attacks, or at least, by the preponderance of viciousness, atone for the idleness and virtue of many years?

(To paraphrase Miss Austen.)

He couldn’t come up with one instance, even one, where he’d clearly risked danger in the Dark Lord’s service? Or even discomfort? Or dirtied his hands?

Well, maybe his hands really were lily-white, and maybe a cursed position he didn’t actually want was the greatest privation he’d ever suffered for supporting the Dark Lord. Or maybe, he was encouraging Bella and Narcissa in their belief that he had indeed always somehow managed to slither out of everything asked of his fellow DE’s that was difficult, dangerous, or criminal.

That he would slither out again unless he were forced in some way.

And his closing argument is to remind them that he’s a professional deceiver. They cannot trust his bare word; no one can.

*

Having established all this, he turns the floor over to Narcissa, and she makes her original plea. (Intercede with the Dark Lord to save my son!) He slaps her hopes down hard, while reinforcing her fears.

And after she collapses in hysterics, Snape lifts her up and says: “Narcissa, that’s enough.”

“It might be possible … for me to help Draco.”

She sat up, her face paper-white, her eyes huge.

“Severus—oh, Severus—you would help him? Would you look after him, see he comes to no harm?”

“I can try.”

*

Severus had told Narcissa “flatly” what he would not do: attempt the useless and dangerous task of trying to persuade the Dark Lord to let Draco off.

When it came to what he would do, he gives that evasive, “I can try.”

Not (God forbid!) “I will help your son.” Not even “I will try to.” “I CAN try.”

Er, yes, Severus, you can. You are perfectly capable of attempting to help Draco if you so choose. And you haven’t actually committed to a thing with that statement, except to the abstract proposition that it’s possible that you might be able to save the boy if you could be bothered to make the attempt.

Really reassuring to a desperate mother trying to prevent her child’s death, isn’t that?

Narcissa has to have noticed that Snape has not made any promises; he hasn’t even actually made any offers. He’s made soothing noises to get her up off his floor, because her grief and despair are making him uncomfortable. If she falls for his line of patter, his empty reassurances that, yes, he “could” look after Draco and help him, if she leaves without getting some firm commitment, the slippery bastard will do nothing. He could help and protect Draco. He could save Draco entirely by doing the task himself. He’s admitted as much! He’s even admitted the Dark Lord means him to do it in the end! But it’s clear he won’t lift a finger just to save his own student or his old friend’s son. Unless he can be forced. Or lured.

Snape seems to have made his half-hearted non-offer out of discomfort at her despair, as he’d made his admission of being the intended assassin when she clutched at him and cried on his chest. Whereas her attempt to invoke his friendship for Lucius and Draco had fallen entirely flat. He’s always been susceptible to a pretty face, and he used to be a bit in unwilling awe of the elegant and accomplished Black sisters—look how’s he’s gotten back at her sister today in revenge for her contempt. And the scrawny little half-blood has always craved recognition from his betters.

Of COURSE Narcissa responds by flinging herself at Snape’s feet, kissing his hand in passionate gratitude for the offer of help he hasn’t in fact made, and trying if that will lure him into making one. In fact, go for broke—he won’t accept, of course, but he might then be brought to consent at least to making a firm promise to her. For whatever that would be worth.

*

“If you are there to protect him… Severus, will you swear it? Will you make the Unbreakable Vow?”

“The Unbreakable Vow?”

Snape’s expression was blank, unreadable.

[The last piece: will Bellatrix bite? Wait for it…. Wait for it….]

Bellatrix, however, let out a cackle of triumphant laughter.

“Aren’t you listening, Narcissa? Oh he’ll try, I’m sure…. the usual empty words, the usual slithering out of action… oh, on the Dark Lord’s orders, of course!”

[Severus couldn’t have scripted a better lead-in if he’d tried.]

“Certainly, Narcissa, I shall make the Unbreakable Vow. Perhaps your sister will consent to be our Bonder.”

*

For now, when Severus reports this little snafu of a Vow to his master, he can tell the Dark Lord, “My Lord, Bellatrix goaded me into such an injudicious action by questioning my commitment to you.”

Making Severus the first person in history to prove his absolute devotion to his master by swearing on his life to thwart that master’s known will.

And it’s really all Bellatrix’s fault.

Meta/discussion rec

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:18:07 GMT

Over on hp_darkarts on LiveJournal, there's an interesting post and discussion going on re: Severus: "That Man of Loneliness and Mystery" - Severus Snape: A Character Study, part of their Snape Week.

Severus as hero?

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:29:21 GMT

Hi, everyone! It's been a long time, I know, but I've just come across something I wanted to respond to, and this seemed like an appropriate place. Here it is.

The other day, while looking for sporking, I glanced at some reviews of DH on amazon. In a comment to a negative review, someone said, quite innocently, "Why is Severus brave? I know Harry says he's the bravest man he ever knew, but why? He doesn't do anything brave."

As I say, this was a completely sincere and innocent remark. I did not respond, because a person who cannot actually see Severus's bravery in canon certainly won't be persuaded of it in an amazon conversation.

To me, there is no question that Severus is not only a hero, but one of only two or three real heroes in the books. This is because he has courage enough to change direction, no matter how haltingly. He has courage enough to apologize when he's wrong. The only other people I can remember showing this sort of heroism - personal and moral growth - are Neville Longbottom and, interestingly enough, Ron.

That he has great physical courage is also obvious. For years, he faces down Voldemort and lies to him, knowing that he will be killed if he makes even a slight mistake.

Finally, as Terri_Testing points out, this young man, who seems to long for validation and love, has courage enough to make himself an outcast repeatedly, in order to protect Harry and his mission.

So that's what I think, very briefly. What do you think? I'd guess most of us do see Severus as a hero. If you do, why? And if not, why not? Finally, do you think there is any chance of persuading someone who doesn't see it of this character's essential bravery? (Because I'd think even those - like his creator - who don't see him as a hero, can still see that he's very brave. Being brave and being heroic are two different things, after all.)

Snupin_Santa sign ups are closing soon!

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:31:35 GMT

Come and join in the fun! Despite the name threesomes and moresomes are more than welcome! The rules are linked in the sign up posts below, please read them prior to signing up as they have changed since last year. If you need help with developing prompts lore and I will be in chat for several more hours tonight and I'll be in chat most of the day tomorrow. Sign ups originally were going to end the 15th, but lore is considering extending the deadline until the 16th. Either way the deadline is looming so hurry over! :D

http://lupin-snape.livejournal.com/1989005.html?view=comments
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/lupin_snape/830697.html

fanfic recommendations

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 22:18:17 GMT

It's friday, I've rediscovered how to post to this site (always a hocus pocus) and I've found some EXCELLENT Snape fics: it must be time for another round of fanfic recommendations!

First off, here's a finished fic: 'The Prince's Harem' by severusphoenix

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6586583/1/The_Princes_Harem

It begins when Snape's Worst Memory left, where young Sev has been debagged and everybody has had a good look at his... equipment. And been impressed. The Hogwarts Rumor Mill starts up, Severus finds his Slytherin side and exploits it, he finds some good friends and.. oh, one only WISHES his story would go this way. It's funny, it's clever and a good read. As the author says: "My nod to the movie "Easy A" & Severus in the staring role.Hogwarts Rumor Mill starts working overtime & Severus is no longer shunned by those of the female persuasion. The story is stuffed full of rather salacious humor."

The same author also writes 'Petunia's Boys', and '3 Slytherin Marauders', which I also recommend. They are both WIP's, both contain GoodPetunia, GoodMalfoys and GoodDudley. If these kind of AU's appeal to you, then these fics might be up your alley.

Now, I've found a new author which I totally love, love, LOVE. Not in the least because she is an unashamed Dumbledore-, Marauder- and Lily-basher, but her stories are always well-written, logical and in character. She just gives these characters enough rope to hang themselves and watches the spectacle with glee. And I watch along with her and chortle like mad. It's very cathargic.
Most of her fic, however, are WIPs, which is a shame.

You can find all her fic here: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1873942/Darkglare

The oldest, and most complete is 'Snape's Worst Memory', and it's brilliant. It begins with, as the title says, with the whole SWM episode, but Sev never gets to utter that infamous 'mudblood' slur because someone else decides to pull a prank. "The Marauders have more enemies than just Severus Snape, who's rotten luck is about to change. His friendship with Lily will continue past fifth year."

Possibly in the same AU universe is 'Be Careful What You Wish For', a WIP where Harry gets a wish and he wishes to 'help his happilly married parents defeat Voldemort'... Oh Harry.

Two of my absolute FAVORITE fics of all time (even though they are unfinished of yet) are 'Cursed' and 'Misschief Managed'.

Cursed is yet another brilliant 'give Dumbles and the Marauders enough rope and they'll hang themselves', and it's rife with absolute BRILLIANT little ways in which people misunderstand each other's meanings.
Sev has been hurt during the 'Prank' but things only come to light and balls start rolling when a clueless teacher takes him to investigate Mrs Evans claim that there has been a fire in Spinner's End and nobody has seen Sev's parents. I utterly LOVE this story and hope that Darkglare will pick it up again some day.

The second story, 'Misschief Managed' is equally brilliant and has been rather recently been updated, so there is yet hope : )
The Marauders have gone too far this time. Their 'little pranks' aren't so funny when they're aimed at you, are they, Lily Evans?
What happens when Lily Evans feels her life is ruined by the Marauders as a joke?

And lastly, if it is just a funny one-shot you crave, Very Small Prophet wrote a wonderful take on Snape taking Harry to the Cave to fetch the horcrux:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7714745/1/Snapes_Solution

"Snape takes Harry on his first Horcrux hunt, and shows him how to contaminate a potion. Moral: Always send a Dark wizard to fetch a Dark object and a potions master to deal with a potion."

Bring Back the Bastard! A Challenge

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 15:04:41 GMT

Hello!

deeply_horrible, a community devoted to characterisations of Severus Snape as—for lack of a better word—a bastard (no, not the kind born of unmarried parents), is hosting its first fest. Bring Back the Bastard! is a low-stress challenge for artists and writers to create entries focusing on Snape's less savoury side. You can read more about us and the fest on our profile. Anyone can leave prompts, join discussions, or rec favourite stories or art containing bastard!Snape.

Prompting runs at deeply_horrible from July 30th to August 5th!
Rules | FAQ | Banners

Here's our full schedule:

Prompting Period: 30 July-5 August 2012
Sign-Up Period: 6-12 August 2012
Prompt Assignments Sent by 13 August 2012
Assignment Confirmation: 16 August 2012
Entries Due: 28 October 2012
Posting Begins: 12 November 2012
The Reveal: 1 week after posting ends

Hope to see you there!

On Dark magic

Fri, 25 May 2012 19:40:49 GMT

From the (tiny) excerpt of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 that's recently been added to Pottermore (Ch 14; see this guide if you want to know exactly where):

Dark charms are known as jinxes, hexes and curses. This book does not deal with such spells.

edit: Re my comment to oryx_leucoryx below and whether there may be any difference between "dark" and "Dark": this was at the start of a sentence, so it's unknown whether the capitalization is intentional and meaningful or just conventional.

Well then. It would seem that the official word, consider it actually canon or not as you will (I think Pottermore is in some kind of middle ground, a bit closer to being like the books than like off-the-cuff interviews), is that "Dark" magic is neither necessarily especially "evil" nor only that which is proscribed by society/the Ministry: just things intentionally negative or damaging in some way. (Although looking for some examples I came across Molly remarking in HBP that Ron and Harry looked as if they had had Stretching Jinxes put on them, which doesn't sound quite so bad to me.)

If jinxes, hexes, and curses are "Dark charms", then just about everyone eventually knows at least some Dark magic, it seems to me. There's certainly a number of examples of all the Trio using various jinxes and hexes without this being presented as anything other than normal (and let us not forget Ginny's famous Bat-Bogey Hex).

I this kind of puts an interesting perspective on just what it could really mean to say that Severus is fascinated by or knows a lot of Dark magic.

Fanfic Friday

Fri, 25 May 2012 19:11:22 GMT

Things are rather quiet lately... So lets have another round of fanfic recommendations! (Whee!)

Now, I can't remember if I have recced any of the following before, and I'm too lazy to check every post I've made, so if it happens that if you've seen me reccing the same fic before, chalk it up to old age and fuzzyheadedness.

Now, the first two fics I heartedly recommend are Lily/Severus, and people who know me know that I really, really LOATHE Lily Evans, so if *I* like a Lily-centered fic, it's really, really good.

First of all, Come Once Again and Love Me by laventadorn.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7670834/1/Come_Once_Again_and_Love_Me

"Severus wakes up in the afterlife expecting something rather different than being almost-seventeen again. Seriously, what kind of game is this? But wait - Lily's come back, too - from 1981? Perhaps it's a second chance... but to do what?"

It's an incredibly good fic, with really excellent characterisations. It's 25 chapters and it's finished, so brew a pot of tea, open a pack of biscuits and read!

Next comes Ananke by Eunike.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3127339/1/Monsters

"A strange set of events sends the 19-year-old Lily into a terrible future where she and most of her friends are dead and the war is still on."

A very Lily-centric fic, and not the worst for it either. Lily has some growing up to do.. It's 37 chapters long but still a WIP.

A rather dark one-shot: Monsters by Unspoken Tragedy.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3127339/1/Monsters

"You could have saved them, if you had taught them better. In the end, no matter how many people try to forget or attempt to cover it up, they will only ever be four vicious boys… who got what was coming to them."

Warning: Character death!

And finally, my latest obsession, a Severus/Hermione WIP (with 53 chapters and counting). Wether you like SS/HG or not, this fic explores what might have happened if Snape had someone in his corner, some glimmer of hope. He makes a different decision on the Astronomy Tower with everything that entails. Even if you don't want to read this fic, at least read chapter 46 for a nice cathargic Snape-tells-Dumbledore-what's-on-his-mind bit. It's Chasing the Sun by Loten.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7413926/1/Chasing_The_Sun

A rather lovely fanfic-

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:40:48 GMT

Since it's Friday, I'm recommending a one-shot I just found on the genfic board. It stars Filius Flitwick, who considers himself something of an elder brother to Severus-

genfic-hogwarts.livejournal.com/375236.html

Severus' inter-Hogwarts years, 1978-1981

Sat, 05 May 2012 14:27:57 GMT

This is part of his life we know little of. Where did he live? Whom did he live with? What did he live on? What did he do as a DE?

Severus left Hogwarts as an all-around competent wizard with exceptional ability in creating new spells and improving potions recipes (possibly also coming up with new ones from scratch?) and interests in the Dark Arts and the defense against them. He also had little (if any) money and some very limited social ties with other alumni from his House and much anger or resentment for a 'system' that protected those who bullied him.

Being poor I'm guessing he wanted a source of income. He'd want to be independent of Tobias, and Eileen may have at most had some hidden stash for special wizarding expenses, nothing regular. What were his options as an employee?

In the public sector his talents might have been in demand either in the Aurors' Office or the Department of Mysteries, though I doubt he'd want to work in places so deep with the establishment he resented and distrusted. (Also, Tom wouldn't have needed to wait for Rookwood to be free to know about access to prophecy records - or even to believably pretend to do so - if Severus had been an Unspeakable for a while.) There are also the options of training to be a healer in St Mungo's or a curse breaker for Gringotts.

The private sector has apothecaries. However being an assistant at an established business would have been drudgery and starting his own business required money Severus didn't have. Which brings me to Narcissa's claim that Severus was Lucius' old friend. Lucius did have money. Even if as a young adult living with his father he may not have had full access to the family assets. And he knew people. So perhaps Lucius helped Severus start a private business of brewing potions on demand for assorted friends and acquaintances. And occasionally the requests were for potions the DEs needed. Or a DE who was injured by an Auror was sent to him for treatment.This would later become an important venue for his spying - he could find out identities of DEs as well as specific crimes they could be accused of and made to confess. (And explains why he didn't know about Rookwood - running a network of spies from the DOM offered few opportunities for injuries that needed clandestine healing.)

Does this make sense?

Historical Severus

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:08:31 GMT

I think some of you might like a look at the face of the 'real' Severus. This bust of Lucius Septimius Severus (145 - 211) can be found at the Roman-German Museum at Cologne, Germany.

Many of you may know that Machiavelli used this Roman emperor for his book 'The Prince', but he's certainly worth looking at from slightly different historical angle. The historic Severus was actually a very efficient and popular ruler.

Snape-centric prompts at The HP Friendship Fest

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:22:31 GMT

hp_friendship/hp_friendship is a new prompt-based ficathon that celebrates one of the big themes of the Harry Potter series: friendship. We would like to showcase friendship between Harry Potter characters in all its many facets. What do friends do for friends, and what do they do to them? You tell us!

There are several Snape-centric prompts still available that might interest you:

#43
Characters: Harry Potter, Severus Snape
Prompt: Severus Snape lives. Harry feels a bond with Snape and pursues him to figure it out, learn more about this man, who has suddenly become so mysterious. Do they ever become close friends, or does the friendship remain one-sided? How does Harry span the gap between learning about Snape and the past, and moving forward into his own career and future? Does their friendship affect any of their other relationships? How much does Snape reveal to Harry about his life - does he hide from Harry in the wake of giving him his memories, or does he open up? Do they still argue? Are their arguments one-sided? How does Snape live after the War is over - what is his purpose, and can he find happiness?
Likes: Strong characterizations, vivid imagery, simple/clean plots complicated by characters and their quirks, secrets, sunlight, flying, the Forbidden Forest, shadows, unattractive, snarling, fighting, silence, everything at its own pace, impatience, contrast.
Dislikes: Porn, pet names/nicknames, focus on plot instead of characters (I love plot, but I think that the characters are the most important thing).

#52
Characters: Lily Evans, Severus Snape or Lily Evans, Remus Lupin
Prompt: "If I had a camera," I said, "I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life." -Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
Likes: Everything!
Dislikes: OOCness/crack, squicky things.

#75
Characters: Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, and/or Albus Dumbledore
Prompt: Talking to portraits of your dead friends.
Likes: This prompt getting filled! Write what you like, and I'm sure I will enjoy it.
Dislikes: Extreme angst.

#76
Characters: Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape
Prompt: Post-DH. Severus Snape is rescued from the Shrieking Shack, hovering between life and death. McGonagall is there. She never liked Severus Snape, not even while she trusted Dumbledore that he really was on their side. But now, after the battle, as they're counting their dead and trying to rebuild their world, something changes, and she wonders if she ought to extend a hand.
Likes: I'd love this to be a story where McGonagall has legitimate reason to have disliked Snape. She will be aware that he's been ill-treated, including by herself, but I'd like her to be motivated primarily by something other than guilt. Complexities and contradictions welcome! Also, I'd love her either to be single (a respectful portrayal of a woman with no relationship history is perfectly great) or in a relationship with a female teacher of her generation. Poppy might lend herself nicely for this.
Feel free to let Snape live or die at the end.
Dislikes: In this one, I'd like there to be no romantic/erotic tension between them.

#79
Characters: Narcissa Malfoy, Severus Snape
Prompt: Narcissa and Snape form a tentative friendship during the war.
Likes: This prompt getting filled! Write what you like, and I'm sure I will enjoy it.
Dislikes: Extreme angst.

#100
Characters: Severus Snape, anyone
Prompt: Someone being a good friend to Severus even though he is being a big git.
Likes: Surprises, fluff, happy endings, mindfuck, crack.
Dislikes: Horror, incest, abuse, gore, dark!fic.

#102
Characters: Severus Snape and anybody from the people working at Hogwarts, be it faculty, staff, or house-elves.
Prompt: Severus is a loner and/or lonely. Show us an unexpected friendship he forms, no matter when, or with whom - but it must make a difference for him, change his (outlook on) life at least a little to the positive. It doesn't matter if he's a student, teacher or headmaster, and no matter who is befriending him.
Likes: Real people, complex characterisations, interesting backstory, realistic magical and mundane detail, banter, book canon with the exception of Snape's death, Animagi and animals in general, witty!sarcastic!Snape.
Dislikes: Weak women, OOC, extreme fluff, cruelty, character bashing.

#103
Characters: Severus Snape and any adult character of your choice. Student generation is ok if they've grown up and you show them as adults, even young ones.
Prompt: The war is over, Snape has survived and been vindicated. He wants to start over and starts a small business/shop of his own. Bonus points if it's nothing with potions or an Apothecary. Can be in the Muggle or Wizarding world. No matter if he just scrapes a living or the business blooms, he remains socially isolated. Soon, he realises his much-longed for solitude is really bitter loneliness, and that is not what he wanted. I'd like to see a friendship forming with the character(s) of your choice, against all odds - as of course Snape is pants at it, and does and did his best to scare everybody away.
Likes: Real people, complex characterisations, interesting backstory, realistic magical and mundane detail of the Potterverse, banter, book canon with the exception of Snape's death, Animagi and animals in general, witty!sarcastic!Snape.
Dislikes: Weak women, OOC, extreme fluff, cruelty, character bashing.

#104
Characters: Severus Snape, Kingsley Shacklebolt
Prompt: HBP+; They both know what "going undercover" really means.
Likes: N/a
Dislikes: N/a

#105
Characters: Severus Snape, Nymphadora Tonks
Prompt: OotP: "In another life, it could have been us (but don't ask for what's not within my power to give)."
Likes: UST; Snape being fully aware he will have to break off whatever relationship they have brutally, some day soon.
Dislikes: Woobiefication; adults acting like young teens; character bashing. Plus, for this prompt, Remus/Sirius.

There are also a few "any character" prompts that seem to be made for Severus Snape. Why don't you have a look at our List of Prompts (on DW)? And if you found something to your liking, the prompt claiming post can be found here (and here on DW)!

Hope to see you over at hp_friendship/hp_friendship!

Beautiful photo shoot with Severus type model

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:16:52 GMT

Here is a link to a Facebook album of a photo shoot featuring a young man strongly resembling Severus Snape at a slightly ruinous castle or old manor. Really beautiful shots, moody and atmospheric, nice image references for artists. And, curiously enough, the model's name is Sebastyan Smith! Hmmm...

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.155392891219014.35724.155127934578843&type=3

Chaos a Hundred Times

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 05:49:22 GMT

Another Way to Look at the Relationships
between Severus, Lily, MWPP, and Dumbledore

“Whatever you give your dog, your dog will give you right back.
If you give chaos, your dog will give you chaos a hundred times.”

Dog Whisperer: “Peanut, Sunshine, Roxy, and Angus”
Cesar Millan (Italics in the original)

Author’s Note: This article was inspired in part by the discussions on Snapedom about Snape and prejudice (Sailorlum’s original article on 2/19/10, and 00sevvie’s reply on 3/15/10). My thinking about Remus and Sirius as canids rather than people is partly an extrapolation of Mary_j_59’s essay on Snapedom that Black’s behavior towards certain characters makes more sense if we think of him as a dog relating to his pack rather than a person relating to other people. (10/26/08)

Except for minor revisions, this article was finished in June 2010, but I didn’t get around to posting it until now. Any similarities between the ideas presented herein and posts made by other people on this forum or DTCL since June 2010 are just evidence of “great minds thinking alike.”

The numbers in brackets are references to footnotes at the end of the article. There is also a link to episodes of Dog Whisperer online.

Special note to trolls: I couldn’t care less what you think of me or anything I say. Don’t waste your time commenting on this essay because I won’t reply. Snape fans don’t invade your forums; do us the courtesy of not invading ours.

I. Energy Essentials

I first read the Harry Potter books in March and April of 2009. At about the same time, I became a regular viewer of Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan, which at that time appeared on the National Geographic Channel in the United States, and now appears on Nat Geo Wild. Dog Whisperer quickly became my favorite TV show when I saw I could apply the lessons I learned from it to many areas of my life.

For those who’ve never seen it, this is how the show works: Each segment starts with clips of the misbehaving dog and interviews with the dog’s caretakers describing the problems they have with their pet. Then Cesar arrives and interviews the people. Sometimes he tells them why they’re having problems; other times, he just goes right into the rehabilitation of the dog and the retraining of the people. Depending on how serious the problems are, complete resolution may take over a year, with a month or two being a typical rehab and retraining period.

Millan uses “dog psychology” to rehabilitate dogs. That is, instead of treating dogs as if they’re people, or using traditional dog training techniques, he emulates the behaviors dogs use to control other dogs. This usually involves curling his hand into a claw shape to “bite” or touch the dogs when they misbehave. If a dog is especially aggressive, he forces it onto the ground, making it “submit” to him or to the other animal it wants to attack.

Cesar’s underlying belief is that animals of all species, including humans, communicate through the energy they project. This used to be called “vibrations” or “vibes” in the 1960s and ‘70s. One of his frequent sayings is that you can lie to other people about how you feel; you can even lie to yourself; but you can’t lie to your dog, because s/he can always read your energy and gauge your true emotional state.

This idea is my favorite thing about Millan’s work, since I am also exceptionally good at reading the energy of others, especially men, particularly if a person has a propensity for violence, dishonesty, or criminality. In some cases, I’ve been able to tell such a potential existed more than thirty years before evidence of it became obvious to others.

In his first book, Cesar’s Way, Millan wrote in some detail about the subject of energy and how animals use it to communicate with each other. With his co-author, Melissa Jo Peltier, who is also one of the TV series’ writers and producers, he said:

When it comes to energy, we humans have much more in common with
other animals than we usually like to admit. Imagine one of the most ruthless
jungles in the human world--the high school cafeteria. Picture it as a watering
hole where different species--in this case, the cliques of jocks, nerds, and
stoners--peacefully intermingle. Then a bully “accidentally” bumps into a smaller
guy’s food tray. The energy released by that interaction will ripple right through
the entire room...And exactly as in the animal kingdom, this energy shift doesn’t
even have to be as blatant as a shove. Let’s say the little guy in the cafeteria is
having a bad day. He’s failed two tests in a row and is in a weak state of mind.
He happens to look up and accidentally catch the eye of the bully. Maybe the
bully was just minding his own business, but as soon as he picks up on the
weaker guy’s diminished energy, the whole dynamic between them changes in
a split second. In the animal kingdom, that’s called survival of the fittest...

[A]nimals never cheat or lie their way to power--they can’t. Other animals
would figure them out in a heartbeat. Nature’s leaders must project the most
obvious and uncontestable [sic] strength.... (64-5)

With your dog, you want to project what I call “calm-assertive” energy at all
times. A calm-assertive leader is relaxed but always confident that he or she is
in control....

...In our human landscape, they are few and far between, but they are
almost always the most powerful, impressive, and successful people on the
block.... (pp. 68-9)

Because dogs are hierarchical animals, they need to have a “pack leader,” i.e., someone who will take charge and tell them what to do. If their human fails to lead, the dog will take over, not because s/he wants to but because s/he feels s/he has to in order to keep the pack together and functioning properly. As the saying goes, “It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.”

While humans are a more complicated species than dogs, we share many similarities: Both humans and dogs are predators who live in cooperative, hierarchical groups led by a single leader or a small group of leaders. Our basic emotions are also the same, although the greater complexity of human thought processes gives us more variations on those feelings, as well as a greater ability to distance ourselves from our instincts and hide our feelings from both ourselves and others.

When I evaluated the Potterverse characters from a Dog Whisperer perspective, it immediately became apparent to me that there are NO calm-assertive leaders in the Potterverse. I think Severus and Harry are angry-submissive (i.e., they appear defiant but are really submissive); Sirius, Voldemort, and Dumbledore are angry-aggressive (carefully disguised in the last case); Remus is anxious-submissive (I’m speaking of his energy; his behavior is passive-aggressive.), and so is Ron; Hermione is anxious-dominant; and so on.

Viewing the Potterverse in this light provides an entirely different perspective on the relationships between Severus, Lily, MWPP, and Dumbledore. The last’s complete failure to provide stable, effective, calm-assertive leadership throughout his tenure as Headmaster created a power vacuum at Hogwarts. The rest of the staff was apparently unwilling to usurp his authority, so they failed to provide proper leadership as well. Since the adults refused to take charge, various student factions were forced to step into the breach to compensate, just as dogs will take over a family when humans fail to lead. During the years 1971-78, that student faction was made up of James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter. From 1991-97, Harry, Hermione, and Ron took over, occasionally with the assistance of Neville, Luna, and others. There were undoubtedly other student factions in charge at other times for which we have no information.

I’m sure everyone was immediately struck by the similarity between the first paragraph I quoted from Cesar’s Way and the Pensieve scene in “Snape’s Worst Memory.” Just to make the comparison a little more blatant, let me quote the most strikingly similar parts from Order of the Phoenix, with the most relevant passages bolded:

Harry looked around and glimpsed Snape a short way away, moving between
the tables toward the doors into the entrance hall, still absorbed in his own
examination paper. Round-shouldered yet angular, he walked in a twitchy
manner that recalled a spider, his oily hair swinging about his face...

Harry looked anxiously behind him again. Snape remained close by, still
buried in his examination questions...when James and his three friends strode
off down the lawn toward the lake, Snape followed, still poring over the paper
and apparently with no fixed idea of where he was going...

Harry looked over his shoulder yet again and saw, to his delight, that Snape
had settled himself on the grass in the dense shadows of a clump of
bushes. He was as deeply immersed in the O.W.L. paper as ever…

"This'll liven you up, Padfoot," said James quietly. "Look who it is..."

Sirius's head turned. He had become quite still, like a dog that has
scented a rabbit.

"Excellent," he said softly. "Snivellus."

Harry turned to see what Sirius was looking at.

Snape was on his feet again, and was stowing the O.W.L. paper in his bag.
As he emerged from the shadows of the bushes and set off across the
grass, Sirius and James stood up. Lupin and Wormtail remained sitting: Lupin
was still staring down at his book, though his eyes were not moving and a faint
frown line had appeared between his eyebrows. Wormtail was looking from
Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face.
(pp. 641-5, emphasis added)

It’s clear from the reactions of James and Sirius, the latter in particular, to the sight of Severus, that they regard him as prey. The narrator even says so outright when he likens Black’s reaction to that of a dog scenting a rabbit. Worse yet, Snape acts like prey, twitching with tension, shuffling along alone with his head down, and paying no attention to his surroundings. He might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign that says, “I AM PREY. ATTACK ME NOW.” Mind you, I DO NOT blame him for acting this way. It would be astonishing if he behaved any other way given the constant abuse and harassment he had suffered for almost five years at the hands of MWPP, as well as the gross negligence he’d been subjected to by the staff of Hogwarts, all piled on top of his neglectful and possibly abusive home life.

II. Good Hounds Who Run Silent

“They are good hounds who run silent.”

“Such hounds have a way sooner or later of biting the hand that feeds them.”

Sherlock Holmes warning a woman about her hired goons in
“The Adventure of the Three Gables,”
By Arthur Conan Doyle

When we regard the actions of Remus and Sirius in Prisoner of Azkaban as those of canids rather than humans, many things are made clear that otherwise seem confusing and contradictory, immoral, or even illegal. For example, Lupin said he hid Black’s presence from Dumbledore because Lupin was afraid he’d look bad to his superior if he told how much he knew. Assuming he’s telling the truth, it could also have been because Dumbledore’s weak leadership caused Remus to dismiss him as a pack leader, so Remus no longer considered himself accountable to Albus. If this were the case, Lupin may not have been willing to acknowledge this even to himself because of his shame over his disease. Spineless and self-serving as his stated excuse was, at least it was a human excuse, not a lupine one. Similarly, Lupin’s plan to kill Sirius and Peter on his own is perfectly reasonable for a wolf. Death is the price disloyal pack members have to pay for betraying the pack and being stupid enough to return within striking distance of their former companions.

In the same way, because Black and Lupin regard Snape as prey rather than an equal, they have no reason to treat him with respect, either as students or adults. Snape’s nervousness, discomfort, and defensiveness around them advertise to the other men that he is still just waiting for them to attack him. As Cesar Millan told a couple on his show, “Fear is weak energy. Nature attacks weakness.” (“Dasher, Riley, and Fosse”) So when Lupin refuses to take his wolfsbane potion and then dismisses Snape’s fearfulness, he’s not being callous, selfish, irresponsible, or passive-aggressive. He’s putting a prey animal in its place. Snape’s Patronus is a doe, and deer are the natural prey of wolves. Wolves do not take orders from deer, nor do they care about allaying their prey’s anxiety.

Later, Remus calls Severus a “fool” who still harbors a “schoolboy grudge” about nearly being killed by Lupin as a student. Coming from a human being these are vile sentiments, but from a canid they are perfectly reasonable. As a prey animal, Snape has no right to even complain, let alone bear a grudge, about being treated as he deserves. It’s as if a deer had said, “You horrible wolf! You tried to kill me twenty years ago, and you’re still attacking me! What’s the matter with you?” Of course the wolf is going to reply, “Well, yeah. I’m a wolf, and you’re a deer. What else did you expect, stupid?”

Similarly, when Sirius says in Order of the Phoenix that Severus deserved to nearly get killed as a teenager, he’s speaking the literal truth from a canid perspective. The whole reason Snape exists is to provide food, and possibly entertainment, for his betters, the predators. How dare he complain about that!

The way James and Peter relate to Sirius and Remus is a little more complicated, since their Animagus forms are also prey animals. On several episodes of Dog Whisperer, Cesar has been called in to teach dogs with a high prey drive not to attack animals they would normally treat as food, such as rabbits, chickens, and cats. Millan accomplishes this by first establishing his leadership over the dog. Then he forces it to submit to the prey animal by making the dog lie on the ground while Cesar holds the smaller animal in front of or over the dog. If the dog makes the slightest move towards the prey animal, or even looks at it in a threatening manner, Cesar “bites” the dog with his hand. Eventually the dog learns to accept the other animal as a member of its pack and leave smaller creatures alone.

Regarding Peter, he was accepted by Sirius and Remus as an honorary pack member--as long as he stayed in his “place” by acting properly subservient to them and James. They chose on their own to enact with Pettigrew the same kind of “prey as pack member” acceptance that Millan teaches to dogs on his show.

Although James’s Animagus form was a deer, he was protected by his angry-dominant “predator” energy, unlike Peter, who projected anxious-submissive “prey” energy. So Potter combined a predator’s sensibility with a prey’s form, much like those old cartoons in which prey animals (e.g., Bugs Bunny, Jerry the mouse) violently get the better of predators (Elmer Fudd, Tom the cat).

Furthermore, many recent animal studies show members of different species engage in mutualism, i.e., two or more individuals working together to accomplish a goal neither one can achieve alone. In Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, ethologist and evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff and philosopher Jessica Pierce report that ravens cooperate with both wolves and coyotes to find food. If the birds come across the carcass of a large animal they can’t dismember themselves, they will lead the canids to the body. After the canids have torn the body apart, the ravens help to eat it. (p. 56) Similarly, groupers will invite moray eels to go hunting with them; this cooperation makes it easier for animals of both species to capture prey. (p. 70) While the Potter gang members could--and probably did--individually hunt Snape and their other victims, ganging up made it easier both to find and to overpower their prey.

Looking at the relationships between these males from a primal standpoint adds a dimension to the dynamic between Severus and James as well, since they were both males who wanted the same female, Lily. In the animal world, males usually earn the right to mate with females by defeating other males, either physically (by fighting) or mentally (by outsmarting). While the association between James and Severus may have begun and continued as a predator-prey relationship, once they went through puberty and decided they both wanted Lily as their mate, the antipathy between them escalated along with their hormones. [1] Attacking Snape went from just being entertainment--and probably stress relief--for James to a deadly serious contest to satisfy his primal need to mate and pass on his genes. For a prey animal--or any low-status male--to want to mate with the female a predator or high-status male has picked out for himself is not just offensive; it’s wrong, a crime against nature. The rival, inferior male has to be attacked repeatedly until he backs off, is killed, or somehow disgraces himself so the female will reject him. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

The mating drive provides another reason for Sirius and Remus to dismiss Snape’s anger about being set up for maiming and possibly murder. James was not just a member of his pack; he was also the leader of it. Snape’s reproductive rivalry with James meant Potter’s pack members had an obligation to help their leader get the female he wanted. If that meant killing their leader’s rival, so be it. [2] Fortunately for Severus, James either had better sense than his friends, or was operating from an ungulate perspective, in which males fight each other one-on-one for dominance and females. For whatever reason, he saved his rival’s life.

Also from a primal perspective, it makes perfect sense that Severus never found a mate, at least in canon. He spent his entire reproductive life subservient to his male peers; as an adult he dominated only those males who were too immature to present a serious threat to his mating prospects. In nature, a male that weak would probably never get to mate, and a good thing, too, since genes that inadequate would only water down the gene pool. [3]

III. The Greater Good and Someone Else’s Bad

“...Dumbledore never really gave up that attitude of ‘what I am doing is for the greater good.’ Which is a pity, because so much of what he did for the greater good ended up being for someone else's bad.”

Gehayi,
The Deathly Hallows Sporking Community,
Chapter 18, “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore”

There is one other major point Cesar Millan makes absolutely clear on his show and in his books: Whatever behavioral problems a dog has, they are always the fault of the human caretaker. As he once put it at the end of an episode, “Your dog is like a mirror, reflecting your own energy right back at you.” (“Marley and Piper”) In this way, dogs could be described as a real life Mirror of Erised, acting out, and even magnifying, their human’s deepest emotions, whether the human wants them to or not. The proof of Cesar’s statement has been shown many times on his program: After “bad” dogs spend some time with a calm-assertive human handler, their problems disappear, and they become the balanced and well-behaved canine citizens they were meant to be.

From what we know about Tom Riddle’s years at Hogwarts, the school was never run with an eye to protecting children as well as educating them. In fairness, it must be admitted that nobody is a better liar or more manipulative than a psychopath, even an immature one, so the faculty may deserve to have some slack cut in his case. But as we know, there is one person who provides a bridge between the predation of Riddle in the 1930s and ‘40s and the violence that stalked the school from the 1970s onward: Albus Dumbledore.

This is a man who inaugurated his relationship with Tom Riddle, whom he already knew to be violent, by setting Tom’s wardrobe on fire in an apparent attempt to intimidate the child. [4] Then, in one of the stupidest fictional decisions of all time, he said nothing to school or government authorities about Tom’s history, instead making sure the boy got a good, solid magical education so he could reach his full potential as a dangerous predator.

But then, what else can we expect from someone who ridiculed and slandered his brother throughout their lives, planned to treat his handicapped sister like a piece of luggage, and whose dearest youthful ambition was to take over the world as a totalitarian dictator in partnership with his One True Love? By definition, totalitarian dictators are violent, predatory, narcissistic psychopaths. There are NO exceptions to this rule.

In his usual self-serving, Galleon-passing fashion, Dumbledore tried to blame his own disgraceful treatment of his family on Gellert Grindelwald, implying that Albus himself had merely been seduced into evil by his love for Gellert. (DH 35) However, the truth slipped out when he admitted to Harry how Albus and Gellert had plotted together to torture and enslave non-magical people. This confession backed up the letter Rita Skeeter discovered in which he rhapsodized to Gellert about taking over the world--strictly for “the greater good,” of course. (DH 18; For psychopaths, the only “greater good” is what’s good for them.) Taken either together or separately, his admission and letter both mean Dumbledore knew exactly what he was getting into when he joined forces with Grindelwald, unlike many of Voldemort’s followers, who couldn’t have known what they were signing up for until it was too late to back out. [5]

If Harry’s conversation with his dead mentor was a genuine vision of the afterlife, then Dumbledore admitted to Harry he was corrupt from a young age. If it was a comforting hallucination, then Harry subconsciously admitted this ugly truth to himself. It really doesn’t matter regarding the old man’s character, since only the strongest evidence would have made poor, brainwashed, dissociated Harry admit, even in passing to himself while unconscious, that his adored Albus was a ruthless tyrant. Either way, Dumbledore is proven to have been a thoroughly rotten human being.

Some people try to pass off Dumbledore’s early foray into ultimate evil as a brief, youthful indiscretion. If that were the case, we would have seen in his later years some evidence of a change in the way he regarded and treated other people, some acknowledgement on his part that their feelings, needs, desires, and rights were worthy of his consideration. But to the end of his life, he behaved as if others were nothing but tools for him to manipulate for his own ends, objects so insignificant he didn’t need to protect them from incompetent teachers, predatory bullies, or dangerous monsters, let alone tell them he was sending them to their certain deaths. [6]

The Headmaster spent his entire adult life letting others take the blame for his own cruelties and failures. He started with his parents (for selfishly dying and leaving him to take care of his sister, which led to her death), and continued with Grindelwald, Tom Riddle/Voldemort, Snape (by not using Snape’s information to adequately protect the Potters), and the student factions that ran Hogwarts because he wouldn’t. Even if there were no convenient humans to blame, Dumbledore could always ride his favorite hobby horse, “the greater good.” It was not Cornelius Fudge who was the ultimate Potterverse politician, but Dumbledore himself: When things went right, it was because of his brilliance. When things went wrong, he was never to blame.

This pattern continued literally through his death: Rather than admitting it was his own reckless stupidity that caused his terminal illness and made him vulnerable to the Death Eaters, Dumbledore blamed Severus for the possibility he could be tortured to death by their enemies. He used this prospect to overcome Snape’s conscience and self-interest by laying a guilt trip on the younger man because Snape didn’t want to commit premeditated murder and risk his own soul. This allowed Dumbledore to commit “suicide by Snape” and deflect any murder related soul damage onto his favorite victim rather than himself. This also preserved the old man’s reputation, which would have been severely damaged if he’d taken the coward’s way out and offed himself rather than nobly suffering and dying a natural death (particularly since he was rumored to be a “brave of heart” Gryffindor), or being horribly and dramatically murdered by that awful Death Eater he’d vainly tried to rehabilitate.

Make no mistake: Dumbledore’s death was not “assisted suicide.” At least as that term is typically used, “assisted suicide” refers exclusively to giving a quick and painless death to someone who is already dying but incapable of killing him/herself. Until he’d swallowed the cave poison, the Headmaster was able to live normally and continue his ~~manipulations~~ leadership duties with both Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. After returning from the cave, he could possibly have been given an antidote and kept alive indefinitely in decent health. Even collapsed on the Astronomy Tower, there is no reason he could not have swallowed poison on his own that Severus smuggled to him under the guise of capturing him, with Snape then Vanishing the vial before it was discovered. (Since the old man was apparently dying, such a “convenient” death wouldn’t have looked too suspicious, and we know Snape was an expert at concealing the truth from both Voldemort and his fellow Death Eaters.) If Dumbledore wanted an easy death, he could have given it to himself at any time with little or no help from anyone else. Coercing Snape into murdering him was his last con job, one final chance to exploit and degrade the man he’d been psychologically torturing, either personally or by proxy, since Severus first stepped off the Hogwarts Express as a poorly dressed little boy.

I have read tens of thousands of books in my life, but only twice before have I seen a situation similar to this one, both times in true crime books by Ann Rule. Each case involved a man who was either a father or a father figure who browbeat one or more people into killing someone for him so he wouldn’t get blamed for the murders. In both cases, the killers were convinced to do something that shocked and horrified them by being told they had to do it to prove their love and loyalty to their father figure. Only if they were bad and selfish would they put their own consciences ahead of what their real or surrogate daddies needed them to do. [7]

It was disgusting to read about real people behaving so atrociously, but at least in those cases, I could reassure myself only a monstrously depraved person would even ask such a thing of someone else, let alone guilt trip his victims into compliance, particularly if those people were emotionally dependent upon him. That this kind of filth is included in a children’s book is truly appalling. That the author wants us to believe the abuser is “the epitome of goodness” and his victim “a deeply horrible person” is so revolting it beggars description.

IV. The Hogwarts Hunt Club

One of the primary needs of psychopaths is constant excitement, which normal people call chaos. If chaos is not inherent in a situation, psychopaths will go out of their way to create it. Keeping dangerous monsters at Hogwarts was one way Dumbledore kept the school in turmoil. Assigning a likable but incompetent dimwit to teach the potentially dangerous subject of Care of Magical Creatures was another, as was hiring a werewolf who was reluctant to take his wolfsbane potion.

By far the most effective way for him to ensure anarchy was to allow bands of favored students to roam the grounds and prey on other students. Under Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts became less a school than a canned hunting ranch. Canned hunting is an abominable practice in which exotic animals are raised in captivity and kept in a confined space so they can easily be killed for trophies. Because they’re used to being cared for by people, in many cases the animals don’t even try to escape when the “hunters” approach them. They just stand there and wait to be killed.

This is much the same position in which the student victims of Dumbledore’s chosen ones found themselves. Confined to school grounds as they were, the children could run, hide, and sometimes fight back, but they could never truly escape until the school year ended or they graduated. They were trapped by and dependent upon their caretakers, just as the animals on canned hunting ranches are. The animals have a couple of advantages over Hogwarts students, though: They’re well-cared for before they die, since neglect makes for less attractive trophies. And their deaths are relatively quick and painless, so their suffering is fleeting.

By contrast, the victims of bullying suffer indefinitely, living in pain and fear while they are actively victimized, and enduring potentially a lifetime of misery as their abuse is endlessly relived in their own minds and reenacted as future exploitation after they’ve been browbeaten into learned helplessness at school. They even get blamed for their own suffering, being told to “just ignore the bullying and it will go away” while it’s going on and to “get over it” once the attacks end. The reality of human predator instincts and nonverbal communication gives the lie to the first injunction. The fact psychological trauma can cause permanent disruption to the functioning of the nervous and endocrine systems proves the dishonesty of the second.

Jesus said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren you do to Me.” (Matthew 25:40) Those words are usually interpreted positively, i.e., to mean that if you do good for others (feeding the hungry, caring for the sick), it’s as if you’re doing it for Jesus himself. However, they can also be interpreted negatively, i.e., to mean that if you hurt someone else, it’s as if you’re also hurting Jesus. For Christians, which Rowling claims to be, imagining Jesus in the persons of bullying victims puts a whole different complexion on society’s practice of blaming victims and minimizing their suffering.

The title of this section comes from a horror novel by John Saul called The Manhattan Hunt Club. It’s about a group of rich and influential people in New York City who take justice into their own hands by kidnapping violent criminals on their way to prison and then releasing them in the sewers under the city. There the members of the Club hunt down their human prey. That is what Dumbledore allowed to happen at Hogwarts--except his victims were children, both prey and predators. [8]

Jesus also said, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” (Luke 17:2) When Dumbledore allowed his favorites to abuse other students, he abdicated his pedagogic responsibility to develop their characters as well as their minds, thus corrupting their souls. That made it easier for him to seduce those children psychologically and turn them into his acolytes, which means James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Lily were his victims, too. Most of these smart, talented, promising young people endured unnecessary suffering, and all of their lives were cut short just to gratify the twisted ambitions of a ruthless, selfish, and irresponsible old man. [9]

Even worse, by shunning most of his students as unworthy of protection and nurturing, Dumbledore caused some of them to seek refuge with Voldemort. There were undoubtedly others who were driven into nervous breakdowns, mental illness, and/or suicide. Because the Harry Potter books are written for children they understandably don’t say this outright, but we know this happens in the real world, so there is no reason to think it didn’t happen in the Potterverse, also. There is even a new word for suicides caused by bullying: bullycide. (Dr. Phil, 10/18/11)

The evidence is clear: Far from being the benevolent sage Rowling wants us to see him as, Albus Dumbledore was a loathsome tyrant, even more evil than Voldemort because at least the latter was honest about his racism, tyrannical ambitions, and willingness to use his own followers in whatever way was necessary to achieve his ends. By contrast, Dumbledore hid his callous manipulations behind a facade of phony concern and good humor that gave new meaning to the phrase smiling damned villain.

It’s apparent from the way he ran Hogwarts that Dumbledore never really changed his domineering and rapacious attitudes toward those he regarded as his “inferiors.” He just changed victims, moving from everyone non-magical everywhere in the world, at least some of whom were adults who could run away or fight back, to exclusively focusing on impressionable, dependent children in the closed and almost inescapable environment of the only magical school in Britain. Then he arranged things so certain privileged students could do his dirty work for him, abusing and degrading those he disdained while he watched from a safe distance that allowed him to claim plausible deniability with a twinkle in his eye.

So Albus Dumbledore became a totalitarian dictator after all, lavishing privilege and pleasure on those he favored while heaping abuse and misery on those he scorned. As he put it to Harry when he talked about enslaving non-magical people, “It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards.” (DH 35) Change “wizards” to “my favorite students,” and you can see how his attitude toward those he despised didn’t change one iota in a century. If anything, he got even more depravedly ambitious with age: As a young man, he was willing to at least give magical people their freedom. After he took over Hogwarts, he escalated his predation by forcing everybody into slavery, either directly by making them his own followers, or indirectly by driving them into the arms of Voldemort. Being coerced into choosing between two psychopathic tyrants is no choice at all. And the person who compels someone to make such a choice is just another kind of slave driver.

Best of all for his ego, Dumbledore didn’t have to share control of his domain with a partner, because if there’s one thing a dictatorial narcissistic psychopath hates, it’s having to share. He alone got to run his own private school fiefdom and army. He even managed to fool much of the wizarding world into believing he was a brilliant, gentle, altruistic leader instead of a stupid, predatory, selfish tyrant.

J. K. Rowling may have intended to write a Christian allegory with the Harry Potter books. What she created instead is a meretricious exemplar of the basest aspects of human nature disguised as a morality play.

--------------------------------------------------------

FOOTNOTES

[1] I don’t doubt that at least at first, the main reason James wanted Lily was because she didn’t want him. It must have been incomprehensible to such a spoiled and self-centered boy that anyone could reject him, particularly a girl, since girls existed only to serve males in one way or another. We see this in another part of SWM, when James both threatens Lily and tries to blackmail her into going out with him. No boy who regarded the girl he was attracted to as an autonomous equal would act in that way. Such misogynistic condescension is typical of arrogant jocks, particularly those who’ve been spoiled by their families. This is also consistent with the privileged attitude he shows in his other interactions, i.e., his wholesale bullying of other students, and his vigilante campaign against “dark wizard” Snape. In addition, James was a pureblooded wizard, and British wizarding culture is not only very sexist, it’s also socially backward when compared with the rest of Britain, so such an attitude would fit in well there.

As far as Severus goes, his contemptuous dismissal of James’s alleged superiority was probably a large part of Potter‘s antipathy toward him. How dare a poor, plain, shabbily dressed kid from Nowheresville, Muggleland, act like he was better than the scion of an ancient and wealthy pureblood family! He had to be put in his place to keep the social fabric from being irrevocably torn.

[2] Neither Black nor Lupin need consciously have been aware of this motivation for it to have been operating. Primal pack instincts could also be why Remus was so willing to forgive Sirius for setting him up as a murderer. Even if Remus wasn’t in on planning the attack, his wolfishness might have made killing his pack leader’s rival seem reasonable to him, particularly since the potential victim was a prey animal.

[3] The concept of the “right” to mate and reproduce is a human idea. While female animals can usually find a male if they want one, males typically have to either fight or engage in trickery to earn a chance to mate. One would think a Slytherin would be good at the latter if not the former, but as far as Lily was concerned, Snape’s approach was pure Gryffindor. That is, he made a series of direct frontal assaults on James’s reputation, instead of gradually undermining him with subtle disparagement. That’s the reason Severus ultimately lost Lily: He was trying to out-Gryffindor a Gryffindor. Such an effort was bound to end in failure.

[4] This act is even more egregious when one considers that serial killers usually display a set of behaviors in childhood known as the Homicidal Triad: persistent late bed-wetting, cruelty to animals or other children, and setting fires. (Italics added.) Far from being intimidated when this strange man caused a fiery explosion in front of him, young Tom was probably excited and thrilled, thinking, “Wow! I can’t wait until I learn to do that!”

Granted, the concept of “serial killers” did not exist until the 1960s, and the Homicidal Triad observation was made even later. However, it’s hard to imagine any reasonable, sane adult of any era considering it a good idea to use violence to intimidate a child who is already known to be dangerous and violent. That’s like trying to get rid of a hangover by drinking more alcohol.

[5] This is why Snape-haters are wrong when they say he is just as bad as Dumbledore. We are never told in canon why Snape joined the Death Eaters, or how much he knew about their true beliefs and aims when he joined. Voldemort was running a genocidal cult, and cults are well known for presenting a benign face to outsiders and a malign one to members. That’s particularly true when they’re trying to recruit new members.

Regarding Albus’s desire to take over the world, if it hadn’t been for Ariana’s death and Gellert’s desertion, both of which were caused by Aberforth’s demand that Albus do his duty by their sister, Albus and Gellert would have been the original European wizard dictators, and Tom would have had to settle for being their minion. Thus Aberforth was the real savior of European magical civilization, not Albus, because Aberforth prevented Albus and Gellert from forming an unstoppable partnership.

[6] People also try to dismiss Dumbledore’s setting Harry and Severus up to die as something he as a commander believed he had to do to win the war. The argument is that they both knew they could die when they signed up to fight Voldemort, so Dumbledore did nothing wrong when he sent them to their deaths. However, there is a difference between the possibility of death and the certainty of death, just as there is a difference between being a fighter pilot and a kamikaze. Severus and Harry signed up to be fighter pilots; they found out when it was too late to back out that they’d been tricked into becoming kamikazes.

[7] If You Really Loved Me is about a father who browbeat his teenage daughter into murdering her stepmother for him. Rule told of interviewing this monster in prison, describing the blank emptiness of his eyes, a telltale characteristic of psychopaths. The other book is A Fever in the Heart, in which a loved and respected coach cons some of his students into murdering a romantic rival for him.

Severus was an adult when he was pressured into killing Dumbledore, but he had a filial relationship with the Headmaster, and as others have noted, the old man deliberately kept Snape immature and dependent so he’d be easier to control. And according to Dr. Robert Hare, the world’s foremost expert on psychopaths, it’s impossible for a non-psychopath to out-manipulate a psychopath. Snape had many psychological problems, but psychopathy wasn’t one of them.

[8] It’s very amusing that Snape’s critics vilify him for joining a terrorist group, completely ignoring that what MWPP did to him and other students was just terrorism by another name.

As Vorpal Blade put it on HMS_STFU about what the Death Eaters believed, “It's not a romantic or dashingly daring and new ideology that rights all previous wrongs. It's a ‘we're superior and you're not and we have the element of fear and surprise on our side and we'll use it every chance we've got.’” (sic, 8/2/10)

That’s the same attitude MWPP took towards the people they tormented, both inside and outside of Hogwarts (the prequel). The victims of violent assaults usually don’t care whether they’re being targeted for political, ideological, or entertainment purposes. They just want the attacks to stop.

Apropos of this, I’ve said for years that domestic violence needs to be renamed in-home terrorism because it doesn’t matter whether you fear having your plane blown up, or getting beaten by a family member. If you are living in terror, you are a victim of terrorism. By the same token, bullying needs to be renamed either school,- home, or work-based terrorism, depending on where it takes place.

If anybody objects to this, I’d refer them to a quote from a Dr. Phil show in which he confronted a verbally abusive parent. He said, "Do you understand that people having bad reactions, psychologically, mentally, emotionally is seven times greater with verbal abuse than it is even with sexual abuse? They are at greater risk for mental illness and dysfunction later in life from verbal abuse than almost any other kind of abuse. This is tragically toxic for this child." (5/4/10, italics in original)

[9] I think it’s highly likely that one reason James wasn’t carrying his wand when Voldemort attacked was because James had spent his whole life having people protect him from the consequences of his risky actions, so deep down he believed he would always triumph over whatever situation fate put in his way.

Lily’s attempt to beg Voldemort for Harry’s life illustrates both a similar problem and another way in which she and James were alike: She’d spent her life using her good looks and charm to get her way, so, like James, she subconsciously expected begging prettily to win the day for her because it always had in the past.

REFERENCES

Books

Bekoff, Marc, and Jessica Pierce, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 2009

Millan, Cesar, with Melissa Jo Peltier, Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems, New York: Harmony Books, 2006

Rowling, J. K., Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, New York: Scholastic, 2007
------------------, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, New York: Scholastic, 2003
------------------, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, New York: Scholastic, 1999

Rule, Ann, A Fever in the Heart, New York: Pocket Books, 1997
-------------, If You Really Loved Me, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991

Dog Whisperer Episodes

“Dasher, Riley, and Fosse,” 2006

“Marley and Piper,” 2008

“Peanut, Sunshine, Roxy, and Angus,” 2008

http://www.yidio.com/show/dog-whisperer

J. K. Rowling Quotations

“I loved writing Dumbledore, and Dumbledore is the epitome of goodness.” http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0700-hottype-solomon.htm

“It’s fun to write about Snape because he’s a deeply horrible person.” http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1999/0999-familyeducation-abel.htm

Frequently Asked Questions

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:39:25 GMT

FAQ

General questions
Technical questions

General questions

Who or what is "Snape's Underground" or "the Underground"?

The collective members of snapedom. We had a series of polls in 2007, and the majority chose Underground as their name.

Why can't I post my stories/fanart?

There are many other communities for that. We want to focus on discussions. When we have a party, posting fiction and art is allowed. You can also post creative meta for challenges and rec your fics/art on the Friday Recs.

What is "creative meta"?

It's a term we invented here (sylvanawood thinks). Sometimes you can describe an idea better by writing a story. Creative meta should be relatively short (less than 2000 words) and under a cut. When you write creative meta, it will be discussed, taken apart and treated just like any other essay/post. If you do not want that kind of analysis and possible criticism of your creative work, don't post creative meta.

What are the "Friday recs"?

Since we don't normally allow fic/art here, this is meant as a compensation. You can rec and self-pimp to your heart's content every Friday.

How can I find older posts?

You can view all the posts in a specific year, a month, or a day in various calendar views. You can start at http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/calendar and click a specific day number or the "View Subjects" link at the end of each month, or just append the desired date to the end of the asylum URL, in the order year/month/day
For example, http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/2011/ (all posts in 2011), http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/2011/01/ (all posts in January 2011), http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/2011/01/14/ (all posts on 14th January, 2011).

For posts by topic or by author, check the tags page: http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/tag/. Please note that tagging is somewhat incomplete. Everyone is encouraged to add appropriate tags to their own posts. Just ask if you need an author tag or would like a new tag added to the collection.

Technical Stuff

How do I log in with OpenID?

If all you want to do is leave the occasional comment, it's simple. Select the "OpenID" button at the top of the comment box and enter your remote journal or blog address (such as exampleusername.livejournal.com) as the "Identity URL". The other site will ask you to log in if you aren't already and then if you want to pass on your identity to InsaneJournal to post the comment.

If you would like to "claim" the bare-bones OpenID account that InsaneJournal creates when you do this and set an email address so that you can receive comment notifications, see this tutorial with pictures: OpenID explained (Note that post is from 2008 and text/appearance is slightly different now.) Basically, you go to http://www.insanejournal.com/openid/ to log in with your off-site identity, then http://www.insanejournal.com/changeemail.bml to set an email address. An OpenID account can have a profile, userpics, and friends list, but it is not an actual journal account.

LiveJournal and Dreamwidth are the easiest sources of OpenID and have been tested to work. hafren has tested Wordpress and AOL and they worked as of July 2011. Another user has tested Blogger/Blogspot to work as well. Yahoo!/flickr and Google/G+ do not work. If you've tested any other site and can verify whether it does/does not work on IJ as an OpenID identity, please contact me at shyfoxling at eristic.net so I can add it to the list.

How do I make a "cut" (IJ-cut/LJ-cut)?

The best solution is to surround the part of the post that should be "behind the cut" with the following code. It produces the cut and also means that the entire long post doesn't show up in the RSS feed which folks on LJ might be watching.

At the point where you want the cut to be: <div class="ljcut">
At the end of the post: </div>

Alternatively, you can use the standard LJ-cut code:

At the start: <lj-cut>, or, if you want to change the default text of "Read more...", like this: <lj-cut text="I want it to say this instead">
At the end: </lj-cut>

(Note that even though the rich text editor refers to it as an "InsaneJournal Cut", replacing "lj" with "ij" does not work.)

If you use the "Rich text" editor when writing a post, use the "InsaneJournal Cut" button (eleventh from the right, next to the "Insert/Edit Table" button). Click it at the place where you want to insert the cut. You can accept the default cut text of "Read more..." or enter something else. Now, type or paste the remaining bulk of your post into the grey box where it says "Type your cut contents here."

My cut, link, etc. isn't working, but the code looks perfect to me! What's wrong?

Make sure you are not using "smart quotes", the quote marks that angle in towards the adjacent letters. If you are composing a post in a word processing program, "smart quotes" often creep in because using them is usually the default setting. They are different characters than straight quotes and will not be interpreted properly in code.

These are straight quotes (right): " (double) ' (single)
These are "smart quotes" (wrong): “ ” (double) ‘ ’ (single)

Community header and icon wanted

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:48:42 GMT

Partly because I would like to stop impinging on sylvanawood's Photobucket space, partly because I am not too fond of having Alan Rickman appear to be our main visual reference for Snape (especially since we have a tendency to pick apart the smallest nuances of canon, and he really doesn't fit them that well), and partly just for a change of pace, I would like to change the header graphic and default icon for this community.

I have the minimal Photoshop skills required to make them the right size (the banner is 899x281, so it needs to be at least that large - bigger can be shrunk but I don't want to fiddle around with the layout) and add text, but I am not an artist nor great shakes as a photomanipulator. I think it would be great if they could feature art made by a community member or members, but it doesn't have to be the case. Feel free to post about this in your own journal(s) for visibility to people who might not be members or who are only on LJ; they're welcome to leave comments here if they're interested.

So: I would like to invite everyone to make suggestions, if they have existing work they would be willing to allow as banner/icon, or feel like doing something new. I would prefer not to have to chase down permissions, so please, your own work only, unless you can show me proof the artist gave permission for me to use their work this way, or there's a findable Creative Commons license that permits it.

Rumors of Snape’s Unfairness….

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:15:57 GMT

Anonymous said (please sign next time!):
Before the first potion class, Ron tells Harry that supposedly Snape threats Gryffindors unfair. True, just a rumor. But a rumor which gets confirmed again and again in the book. And no amond of reinterpreting will make Snape a perfect teacher.

I agree with marionros that Harry was a terrible student and predisposed to read any impartial, professional attempt at imposing pedagogical discipline on him as “unfair” and proof of personal bias against Harry. I don’t agree that there were NO lapses from professional decorum on Snape’s part, but much of what Harry perceives as injustice evaporates upon close examination.

I’ll address below the probable source of the “rumor” that Snape treats Gryffindors unfairly.

But first, where, exactly, is this “rumor” “confirmed”? Much less time and again?

Honestly, if a teacher walks in at the tail end of a probable altercation to observe one group apparently behaving itself now (making faces at their enemies safely behind the teacher’s back), while the second group screams cusswords into the teacher’s face, it does NOT require hideously unprofessional bias on the teacher’s part to punish group 2 and not group 1 for their observed behavior.

Indeed, it would require overwhelming bias not to.

We don’t usually see Slytherins and Gryffindors behave the same under Snape’s eyes. The Slytherins are usually overtly obedient as long as they are under Snape’s direct observation, and they almost always address their professor respectfully rather than argue with him, scream curses in his face, or question his teaching. (The one observed deviation from that norm is Draco in sixth year—in a strictly private [he thought] conversation.) Harry and the Gryffindors… well, to put it charitably, we can’t ever praise their observed behavior as that of model students. In ANY of their classes, not just Snape’s.

So we don’t have too many direct points of comparison.

However, there are a few. We are explicitly shown several cases where we see Snape dealing with a Slytherin and a Gryffindor in parallel situations. On those occasions, Harry interprets Snape as showing bias when he treats both cases the same. Moreover, behavior that Harry considers “favoritism” when seen shown by Snape to Slytherins, Harry EXPECTS other teachers to extend to him.

The best example is the one I discussed at length in my essay “Mr. Filch has Asked: Discipline at Hogwarts.” Harry considers Snape grossly unfair, and the reader is strongly encouraged to agree, when, rivalry running high before the big Slytherin-Gryffindor game, Snape refuses to punish Slytherins for alleged assaults on Gryffindors that are not witnessed by authority figures.

[Snape] was also turning a deaf ear to the many reports of Slytherin attempts to hex Gryffindor players in the corridors. When Alicia Spinnet turned up in the hospital with her eyebrows growing so thick and fast that they obscured her vision and obstructed her mouth, Snape insisted that the must have attempted a Hair-Thickening Charm on herself and refused to listen to the fourteen eyewitnesses who insisted that they had seen the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, hit her from behind with a jinx while she worked in the library. (OotP: The Lion and the Serpent)

Yet it goes unremarked that Minerva also apparently “refused to listen to” the witnesses—though we know from HBP that if the victim’s head of house catches an aggressor in the act, that professor can assign punishment (subject to the other house head’s ratification).

I argued that this incident demonstrates that the headmaster (our dear Albus) did not allow his staff to issue punishments on hearsay or circumstantial evidence (however compelling): that Albus demanded that his staff witness either the misdeed itself or a full confession in order to punish the offender.

And we see Snape apparently bound by that code WRT Harry in several incidents. In PoA when Snape caught Harry, muddy-handed and sweaty with a fresh bag of Zonko’s goodies, in a corridor Snape already had reason to suspect might contain an opening to a secret passage to Hogsmeade. Snape tried hard to get Harry to confess to breaking bounds and attacking Draco, Vince, and Greg by the Shrieking Shack, but he failed. And, having failed to induce Harry and his confederate Ron to confess, Snape did NOTHING to punish them.

Earlier, in CoS, Snape identified Harry as the one behind an explosion that injured several of his Slytherin children; but Harry didn’t confess, and Snape did NOTHING to punish the culprit. In the altercation in GoF, Snape did not punish Harry for using magic in the corridor, which he did not witness; only for shouting cusswords in Snape’s face, which he did.

How unfair did Harry (and does the reader) think it in PoA that when Harry and Ron persisted in their unblushing lies to Snape, the professor “refused to listen to” his truthful Slytherin eyewitnesses who gave Snape full details of Harry’s transgressions?

If letting off Bletchley without punishment (for an attack no authority could attest to) demonstrates Snape’s partiality for Slytherin, letting off Harry for similar offenses must demonstrate Snape’s partiality for Gryffindor.

*

For another example of how Harry (and the reader) take Snape to be biased against Gryffindors when he treats them the same as his Slytherins, look at Snape’s first DADA class in HBP. Hermione there was the first to master a nonverbal shield: “a feat that would surely have earned her twenty points for Gryffindor from any reasonable teacher, thought Harry bitterly, but which Snape ignored.”

Yet Harry did not consider it “bitterly unreasonable” that Snape didn’t award twenty points to Slytherin for Draco’s perfectly stewed slugs first year, did he? We never, in canon, saw Snape giving points to anyone for anything. So failing to give them to Hermione is not unfair. Now, if Snape were going around awarding twenty points to Slytherin every time Crabbe passed his teacher a phial (as Sprout once did for Harry’s handing her a watering pot), THAT would demonstrate that Snape’s points-awarding might be biased.

But he does not.

We know that Pomona will award unearned points to vent her private feelings.

If Severus ever succumbed to that temptation, we didn’t ever see it. And one would rather expect Harry to note such an event (with bitter invective about Snape’s unfairness).

So it seems to be the case that Snape just doesn’t hand out points. To anyone for anything. (Whitehound points out that to people from the north of England, as Severus is suggested to be, “Not bad” is the absolute height of fulsome praise, and silence means “Good job”…..) Which makes “slighting” Hermione not unreasonable bias, but treating her the same as he does his own house members.

*

Then there’s the Potions class in CoS where Draco annoyed Harry and Ron by flicking puffer-fish eyes at them, and Harry reflected “if they retaliated they would get detention faster than you could say, ‘Unfair.’” And sure enough, a year later, Ron “flung a large, slippery crocodile heart at Malfoy, which hit him in the face and caused Snape to take fifty points from Gryffindor.” (POA 10)

Clearly this substantiates the rumor that Snape treats his Slytherins and his Gryffindors differently!

Except—there was nothing to show that Snape actually saw the puffer-eye byplay and was turning a deliberate blind eye to Draco’s misbehavior. It’s Harry’s hypothesis that if he and Ron retaliated and Snape saw all three misbehaving in the same way, he’d punish only the Gryffindors. But there’s no evidential support for that hypothesis—for example, Harry didn’t recall a past incident when such a thing happened in Snape’s class. He just assumed Snape would behave like that, and assumed as a corollary that Snape saw and condoned Draco’s wrong-doing.

Except—on several occasions (the jeering at Hermione’s teeth and the Potter Stinks badges in GoF come immediately to mind), Slytherins are explicitly noted by JKR as making absolutely sure that Snape CAN’T SEE THEM before they start to misbehave. This strongly suggests that they expect that if caught, they would be punished. By Snape. So lack of punishment more strongly demonstrates that Slytherins were good (and possibly experienced!) at not getting caught than that Snape was deliberately overlooking their malfeasance.

And wasn’t there at least one incident in which someone flicking something (a firecracker) into an enemy’s cauldron caused an explosion and potions spill that injured half the class (not THEIR half, of course)? And Snape KNEW who had to have been responsible (and had physical evidence confirming it when Hermione turned up half-cat from botched Polyjuice from the ingredients stolen from his private stores that day)—but not having managed to catch the criminal in the act or induce a confession, he did NOTHING to punish the miscreant?

In fact, Harry lobbed that firecracker into Greg’s cauldron two paragraphs—two—after Harry and the narrative voice assured us that Snape was being grotesquely unfair in not punishing Draco for flicking puffer-fish eyes at Harry and Ron!

So if we must take Snape’s not punishing Draco for flicking puffer-fish eyes at Harry and Ron as proof of Snape’s unprofessional partiality for Slytherins and Draco, we must equally take his not punishing the Trio for an explosion, multiple-injury assault, and theft as proof of his gross partiality in Harry and Gryffindor’s favor.

(Which, indeed, if we had any data points outside of Harry’s class, might be a supportable contention. But it’s not one I’ve ever seen a Potter fan make, and it would certainly have made Harry faint to consider it. But in canon, Snape lets Harry get away with assaults on his fellow students without expelling him…! Multiple times. Up to near-manslaughter, a death only barely averted by Snape’s own extreme speed in reacting and skill at healing. And Harry’s own head of house said that Snape let Harry off very lightly for that last attack…. Would Snape have let a random unfavored student off with a mere few detentions for almost killing a fellow student? Oh wait, that’s right, Sirius was let off with the same for almost killing Severus, so apparently the precedent under Headmaster Albus is firm: ALMOST kill someone, a third party intervenes to save the victim through no doing of the almost-killer, no problem! We’ll give the almost-killer a few detentions and pat hir on the shoulder—better luck next time.)

*

Now consider detentions. We see Snape giving detentions to Gryffindors six times in six years (versus McGonagall’s eight to her own house and six to Slytherin): to Ron (POA), for overtly criticizing Snape’s teaching; to Neville (GoF), for his sixth cauldron-melting; to Harry and Ron (GoF), for screaming curses in his face; to Harry (HBP), for insolence (“You don’t need to call me sir”) and again for almost killing Draco.

Note that McGonagall and Snape each gave six detentions to the rival house.

But in HBP Harry finds out by accident that Crabbe and Goyle are serving detention—for slacking in Snape’s class. Which we know Harry has done repeatedly (and we know his teacher has known it) without earning a like punishment.

If anything, that limited data suggests that Snape is HARDER on his Slytherins for the most part (at least in regards to detentions). A chronically-underperforming Gryffindor must be openly insolent or cause a serious accident to earn a detention; a slacking Slytherin is pulled up sharply for not turning in his homework.

Now, holding one group to higher standards than another IS a form of favoritism—but I guarantee it’s not the form of favoritism that Harry considers Snape guilty of.

*

Finally, consider the issue of Snape’s punishment for students missing his class. In PoA, when Draco came late into Potions class when he was finally released from the hospital wing after being mauled by Buckbeak, Harry thought it extremely unfair that Snape didn’t punish Draco for missing part of class.

Malfoy didn’t reappear in classes until late on Thursday morning … halfway through double Potions. He swaggered into the dungeon, his right arm covered in bandages and bound up in a sling….

“How is it, Draco?” simpered Pansy Parkinson. “Does it hurt much?”

“Yeah,” said Malfoy, putting on a brave sort of grimace. But Harry saw him wink at Crabbe and Goyle when Pansy had looked away.

“Settle down, settle down,” said Professor Snape idly.

Harry and Ron scowled at each other. Snape wouldn’t have said “settle down” if they’d walked in late, he’d have given them detention. But Malfoy had always been able to get away with anything in Snape’s classes; Snape was head of Slytherin House, and generally favored his own students above all others.

A few weeks later, Harry spent so long talking with the Quidditch captain between classes that he was ten minutes late for DADA. He burst in saying, “Sorry I’m late, Professor Lupin, I—”

But it wasn’t Professor Lupin who looked up at him from the teacher’s desk, it was Snape.

“This lesson began ten minutes ago, Potter, so I think we’ll make it ten points from Gryffindor. Sit down.”

But Harry didn’t move.

“Where’s Professor Lupin?” he said.

“He says he is feeling too ill to teach today,” said Snape with a twisted smile. “I believe I told you to sit down?”

But Harry stayed where he was.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing life-threatening,” he said, looking as though he wished it were. “Five more points from Gryffindor, and if I have to ask you to sit down again, it will be fifty.”

Harry walked slowly to his seat and sat down. Snape looked around at the class. “As I was saying before Potter interrupted….”

Point one regarding Harry—one doesn’t burst in with excuses on one’s lips unless one expects the excuses to do some good. Harry apparently believed that if Professor Lupin knew that Harry had been detained by Wood giving him tips for winning for Gryffindor tomorrow, Gryffindor-favoring Lupin would let Harry off with little or no punishment.

The exact same thing Harry considered gross favoritism from Snape with Draco.

Furthermore, Draco’s tardiness was indeed fully justified, while Harry’s was not (except to someone who cared more for a Gryffindor Quidditch victory than for mere academics).

Harry knew precisely why Draco had not been in class on time, and he knew, moreover, that Snape knew it too. Draco had only just been released from Pomfrey’s care. What kind of teacher would punish any student, of any house, for showing up in class the moment he’s released from medical care (but not before)? What student would expect a teacher to punish for tardiness in such circumstances? Draco’s coming straight to class as soon as he’s cleared medically is commendable, not deplorable. But Harry seriously thinks that Snape shows himself biased by not punishing Draco for having been too injured to attend class before?

Bangs head against wall to clear it. Harry: you really think a fair teacher would punish a student for having been held out of class by Madam Pomfrey? Are you, Harry, telling us that every time you missed classes because of an injury, you experienced every teacher—or every fair teacher, which might leave out McGonagall—taking points from Gryffindor and issuing you detentions because you’d missed their classes? Really? That’s been happening all along, every time you’ve suffered an injury from Quidditch or from saving the school from Voldemort, only you’ve just been too noble and self-effacing to mention to the reader how your heroic deeds and sports exploits have earned you punishment instead of praise?

No, sorry, I don’t buy it. Draco had in no way earned any punishment, by any fair educator, by turning up after class had started with that particular excuse.

However, Draco’s late and swannish arrival did interrupt the normal flow of the class.
Any late (especially if loud, announced, and prominent!) arrival interrupts the class.

Which Snape did note, and address.

Both Draco and Harry interrupted their respective classes, coming in late as they did. And in BOTH cases, Snape gave the disruptive element fair warning to stop the disruption before he proceeded to inflict any punishment.

In fact, Harry got two warnings to Draco’s one.

“Settle down, settle down,” said Snape to Draco and the Slytherins; “Sit down…. I believe I told you to sit down?” to Harry.

Draco and the Slytherins immediately complied. Harry “didn’t move” and “stayed where he was” and rudely demanded that his substitute teacher answer his challenges until Snape finally went ahead and took five points and threatened to take more if Harry didn’t obey.

(And even then Jo notes for us that Harry walked “slowly” to his seat. Aggressive, much?)

Finally, in the next book we do see another instance where a student missed part of Snape’s Potions class because the student was kept out by another adult authority.

Colin was sent to drag Harry out of Snape’s class for the Triwizard photo op. Though clearly displeased (and in fact rather obviously considering the reason wholly inadequate), Snape took not a single point from Gryffindor, nor did he assign Harry detention for blatantly missing half of his class.

Obviously, Snape’s utter failure to punish Harry for skipping half of his class (at another authority’s instigation) MUST show that “[Potter] had always been able to get away with anything in Snape’s classes; Snape … generally favored… [Gryffindors] above all others”!

*

So if you want to persuade me that Snape DID treat his house with partiality unbecoming in a teacher, don’t tell me that Ron said so and that Harry thought so. Show me canon incidents where we KNOW that Snape witnessed the same behavior from Slytherins and other students, and treated them unequally.

Because what canon shows is that marionros is quite correct: in instances where we see Snape treat Gryffindors and Slytherins the same, Harry whings on at length about how Snape is clearly favoring his own house and hates Harry and the Gryffs.

*

Finally, let’s return to the issue of that initial “rumor” of Snape’s unfairness.

Does such a rumor exist, among the general student population?

It’s unquestionable that Harry believed Snape to be unfair in general and to hate Harry personally. And it’s canon that Ron Weasley, a few days into his first school term, told Harry, “Snape’s Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them—we’ll be able to see if it’s true.”

And also that “I’ve heard Snape can turn very nasty.”

But who’s the “they” who “say” this, given Ron’s background?

Ron’s Hufflepuff neighbor Cedric says so, when he comes over to play pickup Quidditch with the Weasleys every Saturday during the holidays (as we see him do throughout Harry’s many long stays at the Burrow)?

Ravenclaw Luna says her daddy says so, when she’s over on her numerous play dates with Ginny?

Ron has read this in the Prophet, which we see him following as assiduously in first year as Hermione later does in OotP?

Er, right.

How about, none of the above?

Ron was homeschooled and the Weasley children apparently didn’t associate regularly even with their closest WW neighbors. Ron’s source of information about the WW is his family. His inside information about Hogwarts comes from his older brothers.

Charlie’s in Romania by the time Ron starts Hogwarts, and Bill’s off in Africa, but Ron still has three other brothers to fill him in about the school.

And, er, which of them does Ron seem to pay attention to? However misguidedly?

Remind me again, what was the inside information that Ron passed on to Harry about how the school Sorted new students? “Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”

Right. Ron repeats the Twins’ (often deliberate) misinformation. In this case, he’s parroting the Twins’ slanders about Snape.

*

Now, Percy’s take on Snape, when asked directly by Harry the very first night, was that Snape would rather teach Defense than Potions and that Snape knows a lot about the Dark Arts. Interestingly, Percy is here promulgating the very myth that Dumbledore and Snape have concocted between them as part of Snape’s cover.

Notice, however, that Percy has no warnings for the little firstie that Snape favors his own house. No cautions that Harry should watch himself around Snape because Snape is always looking for an excuse to take points from Gryffindor. Not even any prefectly advice to Harry to watch his p’s & q’s in Potions class because the Potions master is exceptionally strict.

Which is really an odd omission; surely Percy the Perfect Prefect wants Gryffindor to win the House Cup if anyone does? If Snape were known for docking points excessively (whether from houses other than his own because Slytherin’s Head is biased, or because the Potions master is too severe to tolerate any hijinks in his class) shouldn’t Percy tell Harry so?

Now, Percy does go on to tell the firsties that Dumbledore’s “joke” about the third-floor corridor being lethal is serious, that the forest is full of dangerous beasts, and that Peeves is a menace. So he does take seriously his duty to warn the newbies of known hazards.

Apparently the potions master isn’t one of the known hazards facing Gryffindor firsties. Apparently Percy’s impression of Snape is that he’s fair enough, and not unduly harsh. It would follow that Percy must feel that any Gryffindors who kept having points taken by Snape or been issued multiple detentions must have richly earned such punishments.

Such as, say, Percy’s twin brothers who like to mess about, who’d rather pull pranks than do schoolwork, and who aren’t overly concerned about hurting other children in pursuit of their version of “fun.”

Frankly, the thought of the Twins in a potions class is utterly terrifying, even under Snape’s closest supervision. The Twins are bright, curious, and willing, indeed eager, to inflict pain, humiliation, and injury on others: for being “enemies” (giving Dudley potentially-lethal toffee, hissing little Malcolm’s sorting into Slytherin, hexing Draco from behind, stuffing Montague into a broken Vanishing Cabinet which could have killed him), for “a laugh” (attacking and maybe killing that salamander, giving Neville the Canary Creams) or just in the interests of experimentation (testing potions on eleven-year-olds).

Harry, in his second year, injured half his class in an explosion to create a diversion for Hermione to steal from the Potions master in what they both sincerely thought was a good cause. I can easily visualize the Twins doing the same for “fun.”

I can quite believe that the Twins’ experience of Snape might well have been that the Potions master “can turn very nasty.”

Oh, I do agree that Snape can.

Thank you, Professor!

(Melts in relief as the cavalry thunders over the hill to deal summarily with the class tormentors...)

*

“Mum! We weren’t doing anything bad, not really! It was just a laugh. That git just picks on us because we’re Gryffindors. Everyone knows that Snape favors his own house….”

*

So, yes, I think we know exactly where Ron picked up that particular rumor.

*

However, whether or not Snape EVER had any general reputation for favoring his house or coming down hard on Gryffindors in general, I think he did acquire an almost immediate reputation for taking Harry Potter (The Boy Who Lived, Voldemort’s Vanquisher, AKA James Potter’s lookalike son) in disfavor and coming down hard on him.

And I think he deliberately cultivated it, as part of his cover as a spy.

“Professor Snape,” after all, was a persona. Very seldom in seven books did we see Severus when he wasn’t wearing that mask. So whatever impression Snape made on Harry—and on Dumbledore’s supporters’ sons like Ron—and on former DE’s sons like Draco—and on Ministry employees’ children—was for the most part carefully calculated (with Dumbledore’s full approval) to serve Dumbledore’s ends.

Dumbledore’s man, “Professor Snape,” (whispered among some of the remaining free Death Eaters to have shared their allegiance) seemed to loathe Potter’s Son/Voldemort’s Vanquisher? Well, of course, his personal history with James Potter would explain that….

We have seen Severus apparently out of control a few times (the end of PoA, finding Harry frisking in the Pensieve, the end of HBP, some of the Prince’s memories…).

But the moment when Snape cemented his reputation of hating Harry Potter with an irrational passion by turning to the child and snapping, “You—Potter—why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That’s another point you’ve lost for Gryffindor” was not among those.

That was an act. At Dumbledore's behest, or with Dumbledore's consent.

The real question is, why did Dumbledore insist that it be generally believed that Severus Snape hated Harry Potter?

Canon question (DH)...

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:31:21 GMT

When Voldy had just killed Harry's parents, leaving Harry orphaned, and Dumbledore is speaking with Snape about needing to protect Harry...

Snape is refusing, telling Dumbledore that the Dark Lord is gone for good and that Harry does not need protection.

Dumbledore tells Snape, instead, that Voldy will be back.

Question:How does Dumbledore know that Voldy is not defeated for good?

It can't be the prophecy that Dumbledore heard, b/c Snape eaves-dropped on it and he is not convinced that Voldy is coming back.

Severus: Secret Sex Icon?

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 06:23:08 GMT

This is a piece posted recently on Fanfiction.net by Jiang Qing. The original is here. I asked her (I assume it's a a her?) permission to repost it here because I thought it was interesting food for thought, and it's easier to quote for discussion if the content is right here in the comm post. Please note that I do not necessarily agree with everything said here, I just thought it would be interesting. I'll post my own review/comment in a comment on this post.

Severus: A Secret Sex Icon?

or

Why We All Pity the Fool, Lily Potter.

[snipped author's note about why it's posted on FFN]

After that extensive authors note, it's time to get down to business. By business, I naturally am referring to the essay's title, the complicated character of Severus Snape. It's time to get down to Severus Snape. For the sake of being disgusting, let's imagine getting down on Severus Snape. Or rather, let's not. The question is, why is Severus Snape so damn alluring? J.K Rowling quoted in one of her interviews (I'm paraphrasing here, c'mon this isn't a real essay) that she intended Severus to be a vile character; a bully, bleak-hearted, inclined to favouritism, unable to conjure any sympathy from the audience (at least, until the end). This is all true. Yet, and this is a big yet, there's something about the man that makes you want to jump him.

Let us start with the aesthetics, for it is a shallow world we live in, and I make no exception. In the books, Severus is described as 'like an over-grown bat' with 'long, greasy black hair', 'a hooked nose', 'sallow skin' and 'piercing black eyes that held no warmth at all'. Now, this is just the description from the books. Doesn't that already push some buttons? Pale skin, black hair, black eyes… I like. I like a lot. He has charisma. It is already apparent that Severus is not just another blonde surfer, grabbing his board and heading to the black-lake. Why do his eyes hold no warmth at all? J.K obviously wants us to jump to the conclusion that Severus is a HORRIBLE MAN. She goes as far to convince us that he is a HORRIBLE MAN with the way he treats Hero-Harry. However, too many of us are too intelligent to concede that Severus is so two-dimensional. Severus, with his black eyes and his sneer obviously has a PAST. And what do us women love? A PAST. We want to make him forget his PAST so his FUTURE is wonderful. We want to make it all better. We believe in ourselves that we can change this man, that we can change any man. So, Severus has become a project. Unfortunately, being fictional, he is an unrealistic project. However, let us fantasize.

I'll now be bringing this down a notch. The film-verse of Severus Snape is undoubtedly some sort of unsung sex-god. I mean… Alan Rickman. ALAN RICKMAN. I like Alan Rickman, I've always liked Alan Rickman. As an actor, I think he's PDG (that's Pretty Damn Good to all those out there who don't know). In any other film, apart from the Potters, I would rate his attractiveness at about an eight, which for me is very high. Watching HP, my love goes off the scale. Rickman's gorgeousness as Severus is one interesting little cocktail. I'll start at the most obvious: The voice. His voice is like treacle being poured over your head. You can bask in that voice. The voice alone is enough to make any woman cross their legs, hum a calming tune and hope for the best. I won't lie to you, I sat in the cinema during 'The Deathly Hallows Part 2' and sighed with dizzying pleasure every time Rickman uttered so much as one of those stretched syllables. So slow, so deep, so spellbinding… (no pun intended). The voice has the ability to create love of the unpurest sort. Then of course, the way he looks. Pale and interesting is so much more fascinating than brown and packaged. The lines on Rickman's face, although they are signs of ageing, also remind us of his TROUBLED PAST. Rickman has the 'classical' good looks; the ones that perhaps went 'out of fashion' a couple of decades ago. Whatever, I've never been a fashion junkie. This, I realise, is going on for far too long. I'll hurry it up. Rickman has Snape down to a T. The way he glides, the way he looks, his bitterness, his anger, his intelligence, his facial expressions… his mercy. If I were Severus, I would hate Harry. It's human nature. But no, he is clearly intended to be the bad guy. Right, moving along; his costume- those tight black robes complete with billowing cloak. They leave a lot to the imagination, and trust me, I'm not lacking in that. Give me a well-clad Severus any day, rather than the shirt-ripping, Twilight poser, Jacob Black.

Another main reason why Severus is quite so alluring is because he's UNTOUCHABLE. He (sadly) is still so in love with the deceased Lily Potter that he would never, ever be properly romantically involved with anyone else. He's constructed an invisible barrier around himself, and his aptitude for occlumency makes him damn difficult to read at all. The natural reaction of not being able to read someone is usually fear. Yes, if Severus was a real man, I would be terrified. So many twists, turns and hidden corners- all blocked from view, but crying out to be explored. As a character, Severus is so complex that it would probably takes years to completely work him out. Are we so infatuated that would be willing to spend years with Severus, opening up all the dark coverts of his past? Perhaps. Or is it the secrets that make us yearn for him? I have a feeling that J.K only revealed the tip of the iceberg, which is sad 'cos he died. Anyway, back to the point: Severus is in love with Lily Potter. He can't have Lily Potter, which against all odds, almost certainly made Severus hanker after her all the more. We can never have Severus Snape. And so one of the great philosophies of life raises its ugly head: We always want what we can't have. Feel free to shed those tears, go ahead and gnash those teeth. However, if you are inclined to think dirty (you can judge for yourself if I am) you can always go down the path of thinking that Severus must have been so distraught he would have had plenty of casual, angry sex. If he were an actual existent man, that is. I'm saying nothing.

Severus and his sex appeal is also applicable to the matter of his genius. Lupin referred to him as 'intelligent and cunning'. Who doesn't like a clever man? The only thing that may be appealing about a man with sawdust for brains (look and niceties aside) is to see how far you can confuse him, and in the shortest time. Harsh? Definitely. Truthful? I think so. A dim bloke, or indeed bint, will be taken advantage of in some way or another. Just check out all those Death Eaters that were used as Voldemort's human shield. It's a question of power, and anybody would like to know that they have the upper hand, even if they don't want to admit it. With Snape, he unquestionably would have the upper hand. It would be he taking the advantage. And my God, let Severus take advantage of us. Genius isn't geeky, it's something to have a downright passion for.

I'm now going to start winding down. Not because I haven't got a lot more to say, but because I'm terrified of boring you all to death. Snape is neither a good or evil person. I can't say that after I read 'The Deathly Hallows' I fell down the path of 'OMG SNAPE LOVED LILY, HE'S SO MISUNDERSTOOD AND HE'S SUCH A GOOD MAN'. Mostly because, I admit, I worked out that he was in love with Lily anyway (so what?) and also because I honestly don't believe that a 'Mary Sue' can be a sane or realistic choice to have a fixation on (YEAH Edward Cullen fans). It is common knowledge to all those who read the books that Severus dabbled strongly in the Dark Arts. Is that a terrible thing? Of course it is, and yes he should be blamed. He killed, tortured and more, devoted to it all too much to give it up for Lily until faced with her death. Lily didn't like it and neither did James, but hey ho they had been spoilt and adored all their lives. Snape went through (probable) hell through his childhood, and was bullied at Hogwarts by the erm, 'good guy'. It can be argued that Harry didn't turn to the dark side, and he had a terrible life. Well, I think it's partly to do with coping mechanisms- Severus partly felt he needed the Dark Arts, as well as getting vicious pleasure in them. Harry, a completely different person, felt that he didn't. Perhaps he was stronger than Snape, perhaps he was just plain two-dimensional and the simplest way for J.K to make her point. Whatever. Severus needing the Dark Arts makes him vulnerable in my book, and vulnerable deserves a cuddle. (Note: Harry was also adored. Not at the Dursley's maybe, but in the Wizarding world he was spoilt and worshipped by many. Plus everyone EXPECTED him to be against Volds. Just a thought). I also feel that Snape was pushed into the Dark Arts, just like Draco. He was made to feel worthless, and hey! In the Dark Arts he suddenly had worth. I'm not condoning him, just giving a differing opinion. His natural aura made his magic look dark, while James' natural presence made his magic look like 'a bit of fun'. Snape knew what he was doing. I'm not suggesting that SERIAL KILLERS ARE SEXY, just that I think he deserves about a tonne more respect than Potter Senior. With a realisation of his love, what he had done, and a massive guilt trip from Dumbledore, Severus stopped being a 'Death Eater looking for revenge' and actually became more redeemable. This was HIS choice. Both Volds AND Dumbledore let him down (DD didn't save Lily) yet he still stuck with the Headmaster. Hmm. I admire him for that. However, spying for Voldemort, he still allowed the Muggle Studies teacher to be killed, amongst other things. 'No one's that good an actor'- he wasn't good, he wasn't bad- he still admired the Dark Arts for their power, even knowing that they were wrong. He stood alone, like he did for most of his life. Not everyone can be a Gary-Stu-Harry. Besides, in 'The Half Blood Prince', Harry said in terms of the Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher 'I'm holding out for another death'. Snape saved Harry (secretly) practically every fucking year. This is getting complicated. I ADMIRE THE MAN. I don't personally think he ever 'loved' or admired Voldemort, like say Bellatrix Lestrange, but I genuinely think he respected Dumbledore. He wasn't perfect, basically. Christ, I have no idea what point I'm trying to make. Just trust me on this; it's trying to be a valid one.

LASTLY (I promise) I have a T-Shirt saying 'I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good WITH SEVERUS SNAPE', and I wore it to the cinema, and I'm wearing it now 3. Please feel free to give more opinions on why you love/hate/like Severus. I'll always be interested.

So. Severus: Secret Sex Icon?

A Snape Look-Alike?

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:05:36 GMT

So, I was just exploring some other fandoms of mine, and I came across a fan’s sketch of a character that reminded me very much of Snape.

Now, let me just preface by saying that the character himself is from a completely different fandom (though, you’re quite likely to see him again in at least a couple of my blog posts either here or on Death to Capslock) where he plays a completely different role. However, this particular fan wrote a long, drawn-out analysis of how he viewed him, and some of the passages on it look like they could have been specifically written with Snape in mind. For example (the character’s name has been replaced with Snape’s to better clarify my point):

"[Snape’s] personality is a very complex series of contradictions. At face value, it would seem that he is cold and emotionless, but underneath he is a broiling sea of repressed feeling, primary among them being hatred and need. His ever raging core causes him great fear of his own nature, and so feels it best to push it deep away, maintaining a calm, stony facade. [Snape] often maintains that he doesn’t feel anything, but he truly does, perhaps more deeply and intensely than any normal person, but he locks it away so deeply that only those closest to him could notice the slightest of changes in his demeanour. It often seems as though he doesn’t care, but he actually cares about people so much, that it sometimes hurts him, and he truly fears that kind of pain. The only thing [Snape] has ever really desired is true, unconditional love. There is still a small part of his heart that believes it could exist, but it is so heavily buried underneath his cynicism that it would take a lot of time, and a lot of love to uncover even a little."

There are also a couple of good nuggets from his past:

"There were many nights after either having things snatched away, or been beaten, that [Snape] would cry himself to sleep. It didn’t take more than a few occasions, perhaps a couple of months, for him to realise that no-one would ever come to make him feel better. He never shed another tear again."

...

"[Snape] pinpoints that as the day he gave up on happiness. The day his heart broke and realised what the rest of his life would be like. For the first time, he had been shown real love, and it had died… The most devastating thing he had ever felt."

This could be referring to the SWM drama in another context.

And then there’s a lovely long list of pointers and factoids. The most relevant to Snape are below.

"Dislikes: Everything else, among the foremost are: Emotions, selfishness, vulgarity, over-sexualization and of course, [Dumbledore].
Positive traits: He is a very clear, logical thinker, and can solve many problems he encounters in not always the ‘right’ way, but certainly the most efficient… He is determined, and once he has set himself a goal, nothing will stop him from completing it… His (sic) is, for the most part, rather honest, maintaining that he has no motivation or reason to lie… Many of his actions are selfless, or he at least claims they are, and will often help others in need, if it is not detrimental to his own plans to do so.
 Negative traits: While his thoughts may be logical, he has little consideration for ‘feelings’ or moral implications, and can often be blunt, rude and tactless in his actions… His determination can often come across as stubbornness, once [Snape] has made his mind up, little, if anything, can change it. 
Preferred clothing style: Conservative. Anything that covers as much of his body as possible.
Attracted to: In a purely non-romantic way, he admires intelligent, perceptive and selfless people.
Sense of humour: [Snape] actually does have a sense of humour, though it is missed by most people. His cynical outlook lends itself to a very dry, deadpan wit. He is also rather sarcastic, but due to his tendency to speak in monotone, most people mistake it for sincerity."

That’s Snape for ya!

"After a lifetime of people telling him that he’s ‘not good enough’, all he really, truly wants is to be needed for what he is. Just, to be loved."

The URL for the full thing is below, so you can see if you uncover any other Snapely insights. And for those of you who visit Death to Capslock, keep an eye out for this character in my posts there as well:)

http://ask-cyrus.tumblr.com/headcanon

If only Severus knew...

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 02:22:20 GMT

In my current exchange with summeriris about Albus Dumbledore's plans regarding the Elder Wand, their purpose and implications (see here and here I came up with one possible scenario by which Severus may have possibly avoided his encounter with Nagini without hampering other aspects of the plan - it leaves Voldemort believing someone accessible is the master of the Elder Wand, that person isn't the actual master. The scenario I came up with is:

However if he had been given all the information in a timely manner Severus could have modified the plan to give himself a chance at survival without harming Harry's. For instance, provoke some minor DE (preferably someone who isn't on Tom's good side) to a fight and appear to lose convincingly. When the time came he could have attempted to convince Tom the other DE was the true master. (This only has a chance of working if Tom doesn't have too much time to notice no improvement in the wand's performance, so Tom shouldn't be told too soon.)

I wonder if the community can come up with additional scenarios?

For this purpose I wouldn't consider getting rid of the Elder Wand completely, because I'm afraid this would have resulted in Voldemort setting Nagini on *Harry*, and Severus wouldn't want that if he knew that Harry had a chance of surviving an AK.

Hi y'all.

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:02:00 GMT

Administrivia:

I am now the maintainer of snapedom. I couldn't bear to see it go under, even though it's not as lively as it used to be just post-DH.

I don't expect I'll be making large changes to the rules or operations, except one: I'm considering turning off anonymous comments. I've tested posting comments with OpenID and it works fine for LJ and Dreamwidth accounts, so as long as you have an LJ (or DW) account you could still post comments. Or I might possibly set the ability to comment to members-only, which works well on another community I maintain where the subject tends to attract trolling. This hasn't been changed yet, I'm just thinking about it. Discussion welcome.

Also, I asked sylvanawood if she wanted to pass the LJ community (which has been closed since 2008) over to me as well, because if so I was thinking of maybe reopening it.

The end of snapedom as we know it

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:40:27 GMT

ETA: Snapedom will be run by someone else, it won't be shut down. We'll keep you posted about the details.

I've never made a secret out of it: this community is not moderated. People were supposed to settle their differences among themselves, like adults do. Obviously this is not possible.

And I don't have the time any more.

I can't constantly look over posts, deal with bombastic complaints from people 'from journalfen' who find this or that behaviour intolerable, have to read pompous advice from 'moderate fandom wankers' who wouldn't recognize sarcasm if it bit them in the arse and I can't always watch your posts for possible racism, sexism, whatnotism.

No one reads the rules. No one respects the rules.

Many valued members have left long ago, tired of the wank. I'm getting tired, too. I don't have time for this, I never did but it's not getting better over time.

So, if someone here wants to run the site, mail me, I'll hand it over. You do what you want, I'm not associated with it any longer. Otherwise the site will close on July 31st.
And no, I don't welcome comments on this.

To Serve Them All My Days

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 09:22:31 GMT

In the thread of my previous post there were several arguments and questions about the behaviour and discipline in British schools.

Well, in my younger days (ahem!), I followed the Bristish series 'To serve them all my days' (adaptation of the Deldefield novel of the same name, broadcast 1980, when JKR was in her early twenties).

It's about the 21 year old David Powlet-Jones, the educated son of poor Welsh mineworkers who, after serving three years in the trenches of WW I, gets dismissed (shellshock) and offered a job at a British public boarding school. David has a bit of a chip on his shoulders for not being of the right 'class' as the rest of the teachers and the students, and he still struggles with the aftermath of the war, but settles in quickly. We follow him through his career during the interbellum of the twenties and thirties.

His first headmaster is the wonderful genial Algy Herries (I'm sure that JKR thought to model her Dumbledore on him, but she sadly failed as Herries is a truly good an great man), but in later years he clashes with Algy's successor, a truly petty man (if you want to understand the word 'petty', watch out for Headmaster Alcock). Through all the ups and downs of his life, David has, at least, the love and support of Algy and Mrs Herries, most of his collegues, his wife (wives) and most, if not all, the boys in his House.
David reminds me of Snape in many ways - a man who came to teaching shellshocked by tragic events, who discovers that he can, indeed, teach and that he enjoys doing so, whose life is spun around an age old school - but alas for Snape, David has love and support, whilst Snape has not. *looks sad*

For those who want to see the series, if only to understand and see the way teachers and students related to eachother in British boarding schools, you can see the entire series on Youtube, starting from here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYgV55Uhq4U

But you can, of course, also buy the series on Amazon.

Happy watching!

Teacher Snape and Student Harry

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:27:46 GMT

The first time I've read "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", I utterly hated it. Still do, as a matter as fact. And no, it wasn't the crappy writing or the story that upset me so much, but the awful character of Harry Potter.

Now, it isn't unusual for a children's book to start out with a disagreeable child as it's 'hero', but one would expect that child to undestand, through the course of the book, that it *has* been disagreeable, and then try to 'better itself'. "The Secret Garden" comes to mind.

Harry's story was different, however. I realised *how* different when Harry's attitude towards Snape didn't change after Harry had found out that his assumptions about the man had been false. Instead it was suggested by the author that Harry hadn't been wrong about Snape because "Snape was a mean bully of a teacher".

Point is, I never saw any "bullying mean teacher" at all. I saw a teacher who, when confronted with a disrespectful student in class tries to discipline said student, only to be frustrated by a manipulative Headmaster-with-an-agenda and an author who clearly can't stand anyone, real or fictional, being in authority over her self-insert protagonist.
For instance, in that infamous "first potions class" Snape's impromptu quiz is merely a reaction to Harry's insolence; Harry and Ron are making fun of Snape's introductory speech by "pulling up their eyebrows at each other". As I've said before, I've been in the same situation as a twelve-year-old, when a teacher, who turned and saw me whispering with a classmate, thoroughly embarrassed me, catching me out with an impromptu quiz. I hadn't been paying attention, and blustered and blabbered and I got the point: pay attention! I did not resent the teacher, or thought her "mean" because I had learned to respect a teacher's authority. And there's the rub.

I was born in 1965. All my teachers learned their trade in the fifties and sixties, if not earlier in some cases. Most of them, therefore, expected (quite rightly in my mind) their pupils to have learned to respect adults when coming to school, and as an extension to that, to respect a teacher's authority. And we did. So we learned a lot.
J.K. Rowling however, is of the opinion that her hero Harry is too good and important to pay respect to *anyone* (with the possible exception to her other self-insert Dumbledore), and certainly not to... certain groups of people.

Muggles? Barely human.

Slytherins?! Don't make me laugh.

And so Snape's attempts to have order in his classroom are constantly ridiculed as ineffective and "mean" and vilefied as "bullying".

Some of you might be so influenced by the autor's "voice" that you might agree with her. Ponder, however, the following excerpt from John Rosemond's, "Ending the Homework Hassle" :

In order for one person to learn something from someone else, that person must figuratively “look up” to the other. Without respect and admiration for the teacher’s knowledge and authority, the student will not learn much of value. At best, he may absorb lots of facts, but the likelihood is he will not be able to put them to much use.
Likewise, a child who does not come to school with a previously established respect for authority is not likely to become an effective learner. He will not understand why it is important for him to pay attention to the teacher or do what she (or he) tells him to do. He may also bring behaviour problems with him to school that further interfere with his ability to put his intelligence to good use.
He will probably interpret his teacher’s attempts to discipline him as indications they don’t like him. His parents, neither able nor willing to see their role in his problems, may even support this view. As he progresses through the grades, his attitude toward his teachers, and the educational process as a whole, will probably become increasingly cynical. In his mind, school will become a battleground of “me against them.”
His inability to understand the value of an education may lead him to drop out of school as soon as he is able. Regardless, he’ll probably drop out mentally sometime around junior high school. When he enters adult society, his disdain for authority, for the system, will follow and cause him untold problems throughout his life.

John Rosemond, Ending the Homework Hassle, pp 146-147

Does this not describe our Harry to a T?

So I urge you to take off the "Harry vision" goggles and look at what is really happening in those pages. Disregard all those mood-enhancing red herrings, all those "Harry saw Snape looking at him and knew that Snape was plotting evil deeds" and "Snape sneered" remarks. What the hell is a 'sneer' anyway? A grim smile? The world-weary face of a teacher who has too much of his plate and yet has to teach and guard a shitty little boy who clearly hates his guts?

Take away the disgusting bigotted remarks against Slytherins (so we must all think the worst of Snape for being the Ultimate Slytherin), take away the personal remarks about his greasy hair, his hooked nose and billowing cape (no wonder the American illustrator gave him whiskers, he sounds like the parody of a 19th century villain who constantly twirls his whiskers!) and take away Harry's misinterpretations of the man's actions (see above), and what do you have left?