Snapedom

Original poster: peignoir

this is partly a response to this essay, this essay, and this thread.

My discomfort with analyzing Snape as an instance of the nerd archetype comes from the fact that I see it as an insufficient description. I'm not saying that it never makes sense to look at Snape in the context of the nerd in fiction, or say that a few aspects of Snape's personality could be described as nerdy (it does help to explain his intellectual motives for studying the Dark Arts, for instance). But there is also something diagnostic about the term: it covers a constellation of traits without revealing something more about what the sum of them means. What information does it add about Snape and his experience to call him a nerd? On the other hand, what information is reduced or left out by this reading?

Snape is too much to describe using the nerd archetype, I think. The nerd carries a connotation of ivory-tower intellectual detachment, a sense of being not quite of the world. Snape is anything but—he's entangled in the world. He chooses, he acts; there's blood on his hands. The primary journey his character makes is a moral one, not a truth-quest. The archetypal nerd also tends to be the benign victim of bullying at school, so associating Snape with this identity puts the emphasis on the passive, victimized side of Snape, and gives too little attention to the active side. We identify with the lonely nerd, or at least many of us do; perhaps calling him that exculpates him a little—maybe these essays hope to reach other readers and convince them to view Snape with the same empathy that we already do. But it's actually his culpability, that responsibility for his choices from which he can't be fully excused, that makes his character remarkable by giving him the heaviest of burdens. While some parts of his character may be illuminated by looking at him through the nerd lens, others, like his central moral entanglement with the world, get obscured.

Other, relatively more minor, aspects of Snape's character are also excluded: what can a Snape-as-nerd reading say about the Snape who was taken under the wing of Lucius Malfoy, who learned to affect membership in the upper class well enough to shock Bellatrix when she first saw his house? About his skill in Legilimency and ability to hold a class's attention without effort, proof of his instinct for people? About the Snape who may have maligned Quidditch jocks, but was also the only faculty member besides Madam Hooch whom we know was qualified for refereeing, and whose ability to fly unsupported suggests some physical grace and skill? About the eloquent, droll conversationalist and the convincing actor?

Original poster: starlightforest

In this comment thread on sylvanawood's posting yesterday of the quotes from JKR's LA appearance, venturous1 quoted Umberto Eco, saying it had come up in xir "quotes du jour".

"The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else."

That was in my iGoogle quote widget that day, so I'm guessing that's where xe got it. Well, today iGoogle is offering up another pertinent quote:

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author." (GK Chesterton)

...zing!

Original poster: starlightforest

I've been going over SWM in my mind a lot in view of all the meta here lately and I think I've come up with a perspective on Severus' mindset/motivation that I haven't seen anyone else discuss yet (if so, I'd be interested to read it). I think many people are agreed that calling Lily a Mudblood is something that came out under pressure, even panicking. Of course, the question is, does he really think that, and he just cracked to show his true thought at this moment, or not?

I think the first time I read OotP I took the shock-bait, and went OMG, Snape really did believe that, no wonder he became a Death Eater. I was not one of those clever enough to grasp that there must have been some other context with Snape and Lily in that scene. But on subsequent re-readings, after HBP and especially after DH, I've usually read it as a panicked lash-out of a trapped animal. There is no logical reason that such a move would end the pain any quicker, but I don't think Severus is keeping his cool very well at that point. This much has been proposed a number of times.

Besides that, though, this was my other thought. Obviously, we don't have a lot of details about Severus' childhood. People speculate all the time about whether Tobias Snape was physically abusive, though there really isn't enough evidence to say for sure one way or the other. I am still intrigued by the idea that he learned some magic/Dark Arts early on as a means of protecting himself from his father because his mother could not or would not, but again, no specific evidence. In any event, I get the idea he was short on protective, caring female figures in his life (I think it's clear he has no sisters; we aren't shown involvement of any aunts, grandmothers, etc. either).

What if child-Severus took to Lily in this fashion, hoping she could fulfill this role? (Whether this is a fair expectation of her is something else entirely, but I don't think anyone will argue that Severus is a psychologically whole and normal person.) As "best friends", protection and caring is certainly one thing he would hope to get from her. If SWM is really after the Werewolf Prank in the timeline, perhaps he has been feeling like she is supposed to be able to protect him, but for some mysterious reason will not, as was perhaps the case with his own mother, and this is a last straw -- "you keep telling me one thing and doing another!" (Yes, she does start to defend him in this scene -- what I mean is that perhaps he thinks, irrationally, that being friends with her should have made him safe from such things in the first place.)

This is not a very reasoned line of thinking, but that's my point. The reading I am waving my hands vaguely in the direction of is something like a regressive, even somewhat hysterical "how could you let this happen to me you're even in the same HOUSE as these people can't you stop them and I thought you were my friend and if you were really magical you would have been able to prevent this well clearly you can't help me and too late now I GUESS I DON'T NEED YOU, YOU FILTHY MUDBLOOD."

Basically, not just cracking under pressure, but in fact a terrified sense of betrayal of what he thought she should have done -- resulting in a tantrum. Not too flattering to Severus, but then we certainly know that he is capable of strong emotion, for all he usually keeps a lid on displaying it in later life.

--
thoughts, rants, flobberworm guts in my cornflakes...?


ETA: I should clarify, I don't mean conscious thoughts running through his head, here. I am talking purely subconscious reaction.