OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Porphyria wrote:

In the end, of course, the interpretation that appeals to a given person is entirely subjective, and I can only hope that I've sort of answered her original question as to why a given speculation appeals, if not in general, at least to me.

You have—very much so—and thank you for the discussion! I agree with your implication that we seem to have pretty well wrapped up that particular line of exploration. So on to the loose interpretive ends!

See I tend to see intellect as the efflorescence of instinct: simply put, people actually do tend to use their intellect to justify their impulses. And there is some evidence that Snape has protective instincts interspersed with his vicious ones. Not sentimental instincts, but still protective ones.

::nods:: I would agree with that. And so I suppose I should mitigate my earlier description of Snape as a man whose instincts "all lead him in one unerring direction." You're quite right: they don't "all."

On the question of whether or not he's got a taste for physical sadism, though...while I most certainly do read him as having one, and while I am unlikely to change my mind on that without canonical opposition, it isn't really an issue in which I have all that much emotionally invested (unlike, say, my insistence on reading the DEs as "greyer-than-black").

I think that I tend to read him that way in part because he is such a larger-than-life character, and because he exists in a fictive universe that is in many ways far more exaggerated—and far more savage—than our own. It just seems to fit, somehow, to me to read him as somebody who did indeed have a visceral appreciation for that sense of ultimate power over another human being.

The main reason, though, that I think I read him that way is this:

Snape definitely has a taste for psychological torture and he indulges himself in this whenever he has the chance. But I'm not convinced that he doesn't make a qualitative distinction between mental violence and physical violence. He's almost never the latter...

The fact that he does indulge himself in his taste for verbal and psychological cruelty every chance he gets, while never engaging in the slightest bit of unwarranted (or at least, as you point out, uninvited) physical violence, is my main reason, I think, for suspecting that he genuinely does have a taste for the latter.

As I see it, Snape is somebody who works very hard at trying to do the right thing, trying not to descend into whatever it is that he fears that he once was. The fact that he shows not even the slightest sign of trying to restrain himself when it comes to psychological sadism indicates to my mind that he really doesn't think that sort of thing very important. To his mind, it doesn't count. He's allowed to indulge himself in that way, because that's not "real" cruelty, not "real" Darkness.

Which to my mind begs the question of what Snape would consider "real." What are the things that he would on some level like to be doing, or that he once enjoyed, but that he will never again allow himself to do?

In short, I certainly agree with you that Snape makes a qualitative distinction between mental violence and physical violence. I would say that he considers the former acceptable, and the latter unacceptable. But given what we know of his past, and given how readily and unhesitatingly—and even gleefully—he indulges himself in the former, my strong suspicion is that the latter is something that he once did enjoy, and that he fears he might still enjoy, even while believing it to be utterly morally unacceptable.

I can't help but think if JKR had intended the reader to see him as having a propensity for physical violence she would have found a way to depict that by now. . . . but if he does have a taste for it he seems to have sublimated it quite effectively into it's psychological equivalent.

Well, you see, to my mind JKR most certainly has depicted that propensity. She's depicted it all along, through her (quite vivid, IMO) depictions of his sublimation.

But clearly where I automatically read sublimation, others equally instinctively read preference, so perhaps not.

But at any rate, as I said before, it's not really all that important to me whether or not Severus Snape has an unfortunate taste for real live sadism. I remain convinced that he does, but should it turn out that he never really cared for it at all, that would necessitate only a very minor revision of my reading of the character. And honestly, I'm hoping that we never find out one way or the other. I'm not prepared for the series to get quite that dark. I'd really just rather not go there at all, to tell you the truth.

(Is Snape really written as sympathetic?)

I said:

Well, of course he is!

Porphyria said:

See, in your post that I was replying to you stated that JKR "seems, overall, to like the character far less than many of her readers do" and here I feel like you're chiding me for stating the obvious. :-)

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to chide. Sometimes I fall into the error of assuming points of agreement before they've really yet been established as such, and when that happens, then the tone can easily go astray. I didn't mean to sound obnoxious there.

To clarify, what I meant before about JKR liking the character less than many of her readers do was that she strikes me as impressively hard-nosed about him. I do think that she likes him, but she never allows herself to get soft about him, if you know what I mean. She doesn't smooth his edges, and she never allows the authorial voice to waver in its depiction of his less savory characteristics. This is particularly impressive given the books' serialized nature: serials often have a nasty tendency to "soften up" harsh or ambiguous characters, particularly when these characters prove popular with fans. JKR never does that. She lets what's nasty about Snape stay nasty.

I seem to remember that we were talking about Snape's taste in companions back when I made that comment. My point there, if I'm remembering correctly, was that I didn't think that just because JKR likes/understands/sympathizes/identifies with the character, she necessarily falls into the trap of thinking that he would like her, for example, or that he would care for the sorts of people that she cares for as companions, or that his preferences in human companionship would have very much to do at all with her own. Which may seem dead obvious, perhaps, but given that Rowling is effectively a first-time author writing what has proven to be an immensely-popular-beyond-any-possible-expectation series, it isn't necessarily a given. Writers, particularly young writers, get sucked into that trap all the time.

I agree with you that Snape is written to be sympathetic, both on the dead simple "gets the best lines" level and on the more sophisticated human level. I brought up the first there primarily because I had been assuming (incorrectly, it would seem) that we were in fundamental agreement on the second point already, and so wanted to take the opportunity to touch upon ways in which I felt that Rowling laid the groundwork for reader sympathy for Snape. I do think that she uses the "Villain With Style" phenomenon quite consciously and deliberately in PS/SS to prime the reader's sympathy from very early on in the game, and I think it rather clever, the way that she does that.

I mean real sympathy, the sympathy you'd feel for a guy who tries in his own weird way to do the right thing and nearly always winds up being construed as the bad guy on account of it. The particular scene that I find wrenching is the staircase encounter in GoF where, as we come to find, Snape is being quite viciously tormented by someone who really is a bad guy who is plunging for the one raw nerve he knows Snape has.

I find that scene wrenching as well. There the poor man is, he's in a very vulnerable situation—while we haven't hit Pensieve yet, or even Padfoot, there have been more than enough hints already dropped into the text at that point for the attentive reader to have quite a few ideas about what sorts of things might be troubling Severus Snape—he's in his nightshirt, for God's sake—he doesn't even have the psychological protection of being fully-dressed—and Crouch is standing there nailing him on every sore spot he can find. It's terrible (and it only gets worse on re-reading), and I think that Snape's quite clearly written there to gain our sympatheties.

But for me, the end of PoA is infinitely worse.

Snape's breakdown at the end of PoA is quite similar in that he thought he was bringing a psycho-killer to justice, and somehow that whole situation just didn't work out for him. You mention this scene yourself...

"I mean, really. What sort of heartless monster wouldn't sympathize with Snape at the end of PoA, when he disintegrates utterly into his raving "Curses, Foiled Again, and Damn You, You Meddling Kids" hysteria? You'd just have to be made of stone, wouldn't you?"

...but I'm afraid I'm not quite sure if you're being facetious here or not. :-) I'm arguing that one actually can read this scene with a sympathetic eye to Snape without construing it as an iteration of a Scooby Doo episode. Well, maybe it's just me.

Again, sorry about the facetious tone. It clearly masked my intent there, rather than enhancing it as it was meant to do; and again, I apologize if I came across as sounding intolerably snarky.

You see, what makes the end of PoA so much more sympathy-inducing, to my way of thinking, then even Egg and the Eye is its very cartoonishness. It's the fact that Snape, whose interpretation of events is perfectly reasonable under the circumstances, and who has behaved with extraordinary courage and commitment and even honor in trying to save Harry from murderous Black and his werewolf co-conspirator Lupin, and who has found the children he was trying to protect to be not only unappreciative but even downright hostile—they actually attack him—and who seems to be finally about to get some recognition for a change, should then have to degenerate into a form of hysteria that seems to conform so neatly to the very image that has led him to be so mistrusted and disliked and underappreciated in the first place.

Snape's temper tantrum at the end of PoA is more than a little reminiscent of Snidely Whiplash snarling "Curses, Foiled Again!" and it has more than a touch of the "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!" speech of every Scooby-Doo villain ever poorly-animated for the small screen as well. And to my mind, that's far more painful than anything in Egg and the Eye, because for Snape, that's a really profound failure.

Snape doesn't fail in Egg and the Eye at all, really. He's taking it on the chin, and he's flinching a bit, but while he may feel disappointed with himself for his reaction, he in no way humiliates himself. He doesn't break, and he doesn't make himself appear ludicrous. And perhaps even more to the point, his reactions are very...well, human. Normal. He's a person in pain, and he's acting like a person in pain.

By the end of PoA, we've been given more than enough information to understand that Snape really is a person in pain. But his hysteria doesn't come across as "Normal" or "Human" in the least. To Fudge, it comes across as "Madman." To us (and, I think, to the kids), it comes across very much as "Cartoon Villain Destined Always To Be Thwarted."

And I think that this is deliberately intended to be sympathetic. It's a complicated dynamic, because it encourages sympathy for him on the level of his ostensible literary function (constantly-thwarted villainous type) and on the level of his human status (poor Severus just can't catch a break, can he?) and then on the third level of his role as a person struggling to overcome his association with a certain literary type (as you said, he's always trying to do the right thing and being construed as a villain in spite of it; here he fails dramatically in his efforts to be perceived as something other than a villainous stereotype).

And no, I wasn't being facetious at all when I wrote that you'd have to have a heart of stone not to sympathize with him there. I find that scene agonizing. It's just heart-breaking, far more painful, IMO, than anything he's forced to undergo in GoF.

As to Snape's loyalty to House Slytherin, I think that we may be running into very much the same difficulties here as I've had earlier in discussions about Snape's relationship to his old DE colleagues. There sometimes seems to be very little middle ground in people's perceptions when it comes to issues of affection, loyalty or regard, and I often find myself reacting to this in some rather extreme ways.

For example, in regard to Snape's feelings towards the Slyth kids:

Does this make sense? I'm saying that under normal circumstances Snape's loyalty would not be an issue at all, but these are far from normal circumstances and he'll have to make some kind of ethical decision somewhere on down the line regarding his students. And I don't think his choice will work to their advantage.

And this certainly makes sense to me. I agree: it will not work to their advantage, and in very much the same way that his decisions in regard to his old DE colleagues did not work to their advantage.

This fact does, however, often seem to get translated into a perception of hatred or loathing or contempt, and that's what I find difficult to understand, as I just don't see that in the text at all. It gets back to that old issue of the possibility of liking or of having respect for or of feeling a loyalty to someone, while simultaneously working in opposition to them, a concept which seems perfectly natural and reasonable to me, but which others seem to find intrinsically nonsensical. Perhaps I am merely treacherous and untrustworthy by nature? ;-)

Of course when the chips are down and it becomes a matter of battle lines being drawn, I think that Snape's primary loyalty is to the same cause that he risked his life for fifteen years ago. But that does not, to my mind, have strong bearing on the question of, say, whether or not he shows favoritism to the Slyth kids when it does not particularly matter, or on whether or not he identifies with them, or on whether or not he acts on behalf of their welfare when it does not conflict with his primary loyalty, or on whether or not he feels any regard for them.

Snape's motivations in regard to the Slyth kids often seem to me to be dual. His sycophantic smirk when Draco tells him that he should replace Dumbledore as Headmaster, for example, is obviously duplicitous—Snape has no interest in seeing Dumbledore removed from his position—but I don't read it as completely insincere either: he is genuinely pleased, I think, to hear Draco say so.

Similarly, his favoritism of his own House strikes me as far more extreme than it needs to be simply to stay in the good graces of all the Slyth kids' Daddies. It is duplicitous in that the secondary motive is present, but it is also genuine in that I think that he likes showing favor to his own House, that he would be doing so even if the extenuating circumstances were not present, and that he does so even when it is not strictly necessary to maintain his image or his position.

The original question here, though, I seem to remember was one of primary motive—"why does Snape favor the Slytherins?"—and really, that's an impossible question to answer. I think that he does so for multiple reasons, and that the question of which is the "primary" and which the "secondary" motive is probably not only completely context-dependent, but also ultimately unanswerable. I doubt that Snape himself knows how he prioritizes such considerations.

I asked:

Has he cracked down on Draco's bullying within House Slytherin (assuming, that is, that Draco does bully the younger Slyth kids, which I'm sure that he does, if he's allowed to get away with it)?

Porphyria wrote:

Hey, I thought you were the one arguing that there was a lot of in-group loyalty among the Slytherin? ;-)

Hee! Clever Porphryia! Ah, but the thing that nobody noticed (or at least, that nobody called me on at the time, although I was terribly afraid that somebody would) about all of my proofs defending that thesis was that nowhere could I find a single instance of Draco himself actually going out of his way for another one of the Slyth kids. All of the examples that involved Draco at all were examples of the other Slyth kids defending him.

I think that Draco's a lousy Slyth, myself. Old Salazar would smack him upside the head, if he were still around.

Seriously, though, I do think that there's strong suggestion that the House places a high value on in-group loyalty—I stand by that notion—but I also think that Draco himself is a terribly selfish boy who would be most unlikely to uphold that principle in practice. It would be nice if we'd seen any evidence at all to the contrary, but we haven't. Should he ever take a bullet for Crabbe or Goyle, I'll happily eat my words...but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

...I think whatever affection he genuinely feels is eclipsed by the complex set of loyalties and deceptions he's caught up in. It's at best a complicated and at worst a deceitful sort of liking going on here.

No disagreements here. But I tend to view that dynamic as less an "eclipse" than a...a waltz, perhaps? An interweaving? A tangled convoluted mess?

Like I said, it's much as I perceive his entire emotional relationship to his old DE colleagues, really: as far far more complicated than either "he hates them but just pretends to like them 'cause that's his job" or "he adores them without reservation or any need for duplicity" can possibly allow for.

Both Serpensortia and the Dark Arts I've pulled out to address elsewhere, largely because they seemed likely to be of somewhat more general interest than our general Snapish ramblings. ;-)

But as for assorted weird speculative theories...

And please sign me up for the Fourth Man Theory, I'll take the smorgasbord of options: Imperius, SHIP and remorse, with the full complement of perverse possibilities.

Yay! Now, verily, there is a drove. Four people surely a drove doth...

::startled look::

Hey, Porphyria! Do you realize that this makes you our Fourth Man?

I'm partial to the Number Three Combination Special—Imperius, SHIP, and Remorse, with assorted perversions on the side—myself. But then, I've a nasty little mind.

I'd also like to apply for membership to Cupid's Snitch—that's the most forehead-smackingly convincing theory I've heard in nearly two years of speculation. I second all the gushy posts you're getting.

LOL! Thank you. How would you like to defend it for me? Because the sad fact of the matter is that I can't force myself to believe in Cupid's Snitch for even a second, which makes the prospect of now being called upon to defend the damned thing a little bit...well, dismaying, really.

I do like the idea of Mr. Lestrange calling his wife "Flo," though. It's just so terribly incongruous.

—Elkins, obviously hopelessly out of touch with the zeitgeist.