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The HMS STFU - Meta Part 2: Ron, Hermione, Jealousy, and Bad Cliches (Part 2)
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| | I don't think that the Snape-hates-all-Gryffindors thing sufficiently explains his constantly singling Neville out. Again, my theory is essentially that Snape had figured out that the Chosen One would be either Harry or Neville, and spent the rest of his life wishing that Riddle had gone after the Longbottoms instead. And he took it out on Neville like he took out his issues with James on Harry. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| WORD CUBED.
He was going to poison a kid's pet in front of the entire class. If a teacher pulled that crap at any of the schools I've been in, that would have been more than enough to get his ass hauled in front of the school board, reprimanded, then fired with a permanent black mark on his reputation.
And then he PUNISHES HERMIONE FOR SAVING THE TOAD'S LIFE.
That scene was Snape at his most sadistic--right up there with his clearly looking forward to poisoning Harry just so he can watch him writhe around on the floor a bit before saving him... and giving him a zero on the assignment. Snape may have done the right thing in the end, but he was a seriously messed-up individual.
I can't help wondering if the fandom would take that scene so much in stride if Trevor had been a puppy. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif) lakme | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-05-02 04:54 pm (UTC) |
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| | If Trevor had been a puppy, definitely, but I also think that Snapefen tend to be something of intellectual snobs. They think of James as the dumb jock and Snape as the brilliant, misunderstood nerd. Neville is shown as not very smart until the later books when we learn he was just scared of Snape, unless you figured it out yourself. So I think a lot of Snapefen are like, well, it's his own fault his potion sucked; Snape was just being a good teacher. Twisted logic, of course. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| A good teacher would have pointed out what Neville did wrong and/or showed him how to fix it. It's not like he can't spare five or ten minutes--he doesn't seem to do more than either sit at his desk and glower or breathe down the necks of students he doesn't like.
Say whatever you want about Slughorn, but at least he taught the damn class. He didn't just toss you into the deep end and mock you if you weren't swimming right away, like Snape does. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
lakme | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-05-02 05:05 pm (UTC) |
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| Yeah, I agree. The fact that Harry and Neville did well when not around Snape says it all. I like Slughorn, actually--he shows me what Slytherin is more meant to be as opposed to the Voldemort Jugend.
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| One of the other things that annoys me is that Snapefen haul out that bit about Umbridge noting the potions classes tend to be ahead of the curve cirriculum-wise and they go into raptures of joy about how OMG HE'S SUCH A GRATE TEACHER HE'S SO TOUGH AND WISE, not bothering to notice that the standard for NEWT potions is an O on the OWL.
Their hero, the Red Hen, even admits that Snape probably purposely set the standard that way to sabotage future Potions masters from being likely to edge him out of his position. The man's not stupid. He has to know that indulging his petty exercises of power will end up hurting him one day, because someone someday will become Minister for Magic and ram through an educational decree booting him out of his job, Dumbledore or no Dumbledore.
So he's staving off that day as long as possible, even at the expense of British wizarding society.
Nice guy. *snerk* | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| I'd had thoughts about Snape trying to sabotage future generations, but I always figured it was my own feelings about bullying teachers coming to the fore, so I never pursued it any further. I kicked around the idea that Snape might be trying to sabotage the Auror roll, though.
But I decided against it in the end.
Here's the thing: Snape acts like someone who is TRYING to get fired. This guy is supposed to be a spy, someone who's good at playing his cards close to the chest. Unless he's a really lousy spy and Voldemort is just a moron, I can't help wondering if Snape is LETTING his hatred of James (in Harry's case) and other factors control his actions. Because he definitely seems to want out of the job.
But Dumbledore has this almost pathological need to see the best in people, so he brushes off what must be a laundry list of complaints against Snape. Maybe he even knows about the curse on the Defense position--surely Dumbledore told him after he kept applying for it.
I'll admit this is mostly conjecture, but Snape is clearly not cut out for teaching, and if anything, he seems to want to get away from it. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| I sporfled a little because the "trying to get fired" thing suddenly makes quite a lot of comically good sense (considering JKR seems to write for purposeful exaggerated effect at times, such as the whole mountain-of-letters-to-Harry and the retreat-to-an-abandoned-island scenes, it's got a kind of plausibility about it).
I mean, the poisoning-Neville's-toad thing? That totally should have gotten him fired, and I bet once Augusta Longbottom heard about it, she blasted Dumbledore a good one at the next Board of Governors meeting and probably threatened to bring her contacts at the Ministry to bear. :P
I bet Snape was surprised as anyone when Dumbledore met with him privatelt later and just vaguely waved away the entire incident, then offered a sherbet lemon. :P
(Deleted/reposted to fix the last para) | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| I'm not trying to excuse Snape's bastardry--far from it--but seriously, if this guy is supposed to be a spy, supposed to be so good at Occlumency (I laughed when he called Harry "overly emotional" like he had room to talk), you'd think he'd be a bit less blatant with the favoritism and bullying.
And it would not surprise me if Dumbledore did indeed brush all of the complaints under the rug. At any given time there are probably enough letters coming in about Snape to line every owl cage at Hogwarts. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| It would be the interesting fanfic that explores Snape's mingled fascination/disbelief/wonderment at Dumbledore's lack of interest in firing him.
That being said I don't like lurid descriptions of limitless sadism such as is written in the "Year of Darkness" fic. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
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The HMS STFU - Meta Part 2: Ron, Hermione, Jealousy, and Bad Cliches (Part 2)
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