Quote from Naaga on March 21, 2023, 3:51 pm

Source: A (New) Defense of Snape by Endworldpeace

A (New) Defense of Snape

I taught middle school for a year and that is what has given me a new perspective on Snape.

 

Edit: I'm putting this edit at the front because the post is so long. I think it's really interesting how polarizing Snape is. I think it's shown in the fact that the post has almost as many downvotes as upvotes. I just want to clarify the fact that I never attempt to call Snape a good person. At best I claim he is an average person. I think the indignant "I would never bully a child" comes from not being able to put oneself in another's shoe. Again, my point is not to justify Snape, but to humanize him.

Snape is so polarizing because he does so many things that are clearly evil. But he also selflessly sacrificed his reputation and possibility of any friendship. He constantly risked his life and did so with very little expectation for reward. I think Snape's actions were, at first, motivated by personal gain, but after Lily's death I think this angle is hard to argue. How many times have we promised to do something in the moment and genuinely meant it... Only to abandon it shortly thereafter. Cough cough new years resolutions*.*

So what are we to make of this? How does an evil person commit acts of great sacrifice and good? Either he is a badly written character filled with wishful thinking from JK Rowling, or his good actions really aren't that good, or his evil actions really aren't that evil. I argue that the last is the case not because the actions aren't evil, but because they are based on a core character flaw that is exacerbated by the position he is in. We all have character flaws, most of us wisely choose to avoid situations where those flaws are apparent. Snape did not have that choice. Imagine if Snape's character was never a teacher. Then he would just be the hard bitten double crossing undercover agent that helped undermined Voldemort. He would have been a rough around the edges rogue. Having the exact same personality, he would just be a lovable scoundrel that you wouldn't want to spend too much time with.

I repeat, I am not justifying his actions, I am contextualizing them as possible to commit by an average man. That way he doesn't necessarily have to be an evil man.

Point 1: Middle School is hard

Middle School is a HARD Age to teach. It is known that Middle School teachers have the highest turnover rate. Even veteran teachers stay away from middle school and prefer to go toward the elementary or high school route. These kids are all good, but they are so RAW. What I mean is they are just old enough to have lost their childhood innocence, but they are not old enough to have learned how to cope with more adult emotions and hormones.

For example, I am sure you know some shy adults. They are shy, but they can function in social settings if necessary, give presentations at work when required, and generally are secure enough in themselves that their shy-ness doesn't bother them as they know that their shyness enables their strengths. I bet you that in middle school, they suffered from crippling shyness. It is only through years of soul searching, self-love, and self-betterment that they are the person that they are today.

Now translate that analogy over to every other personality type. Every middle schooler is just an extreme, raw, version of themselves. The jokesters at work that know how to throw in a well timed zinger to break the tension of a meeting were probably the insufferable class clowns in middle school that never knew when to stop drawing attention to themselves.

Now take that, throw 20 kids together who have no control over their impulses, who have no self-security in their gifts and talents, and who constantly have to compare themselves to others in grades, sports, sociability, and looks. It is no wonder that most people say that middle school was their worst experience.

Point 2: Teaching is hard

Teaching is not something everyone can do. It requires patience, it requires an incredible amount of care, and it requires turning the other cheek. Kids will insult you, parents will blame you for their child's woes from friends to grades, and administration does not trust you.

Moreover, teaching middles school is even more difficult. A teacher HAS to be able to see the good in ALL their students. Trust me, this is hard. You have to love them, not really as they are, but as you know what they can be. You are essentially required to love someone that does not completely exist yet. It is easier to do this when you are a parent and they are yours and you only have to do this for a handful of them, but teachers have to adopt this parent-like mindset for 20-30 kids per class, and like 100 different students each year.

I saw someone try to teach, and they knew the subject matter, and they knew the teaching methods, but they could not see the good in all the kids. That teacher was eaten alive by the middle school kids and parents. It isn't really his/her fault, they were a good person, they just couldn't see the good in the kids and they only focused on how the students acted now. (Which admittedly, was pretty bad). They felt like a bad person for even thinking that the students were evil. That teacher is doing fine now teaching elementary school BTW. I imagine they will never teach middle school again.

Point 3: Snape was not meant to be a teacher

Teaching would not have been Snape's preferred profession in any universe. I think we are hard on him because we expect him to have a baseline level of competence when it comes to teaching (ie: you shouldn't insult someone if you want them to learn). But when I think about it, why would he? Snape was only teaching because he was working/spying for Dumbledore and Dumbledore wanted to keep a close eye on him.

The only thing that made Snape a halfway decent teacher was just because his knowledge base about potions was so high, that it couldn't help but to trickle down to his students.

Snape did not like children. I don't think this is a necessarily evil quality. Many people do not like to deal with children. Especially if patience is not your strong virtue; why would an impatient person subject themselves to the age group that requires the most patience? I think it is clear that Snape is not able to see the good in all of his students. In any other circumstance, he would just avoid children... but he can't.

I have seen people who WANT to be a teacher and think it is their passion go up against middle school teaching and realize that teaching might not be for them. I have seen veteran teachers who are GOOD at teaching burn out well before retirement age. What chance does someone who knows they don't want to teach have? Furthermore, I think there is good evidence that Snape is an introvert (from his HBP potions book and from his worst memory being lost in a book alone)

Imagine if you took a mechanical engineer and told them they had to teach fractions every year to a new group of students. He is not a teacher, so he just goes up their and explains fractions once. When half the students get it, but the other half don't... what does he do? A patient, real teacher would have groups activities planned, would be able to teach it differently like using a diagram for visual learners or pulling out blocks for hands on learners. But a mechanical engineer with no teaching training, what will he do, he will just repeat the teaching in the same way as the first. The the student still doesn't get it, all that the M.E can do is be frustrated and just write the kids that don't understand as stupid. This scenario plays out several times. Harry isn't exactly the best student. Now picture how the kid responds when he doesn't understand the fractions. They either crumble and think themselves stupid like Neville, or they rebel and blame the teacher for being bad like Harry, or just not care like Ron. (I'll get to the Neville toad situation later). Now imagine this happens every year. It sounds like torture to both the teacher AND the students.

It is so frustrating to see a kid struggle with something that you find easy. It is similar to how a person reacts to a bad driver, like a "how can you be this dumb buddy?". It is further frustration when it is your job to make the kid understand but you don't know how. You can either feel like a failure or try to not care.

At the end of the day, Snape was no more a teacher than Sandra Bullock was a beauty pageant contestant in Miss Congeniality. That was his undercover role that he played to the best of his ability. His real job was spy, not teacher.

Point 4: We can't always trust Harry's narration

The misunderstanding about Snape in the 1st book because serves more as a plot point, but that book does set the precedent that we can't always trust the narrator. For me, the most interesting moment in which I doubted Harry's narration is during the Occlumency lesson where he finally used a Shield Charm to rebound the intrusion. Harry said that he dreaded what was coming next. "He knew he would pay" for what he had seen. I think Harry is projecting onto Snape here. Here is my reason:

At first I completely looked over this fact, but Snape begins every Occlumency lesson by siphoning memories from his head into the Pensive. We learn later that this is because it is Snape's worst memory and he didn't want Harry to see it. But this implies that Snape knows that Harry might rebound the spell and see into Snape's mind. This means that Snape has come to terms with the fact that Harry will eventually be able to rebound the spell and see into his mind. He accepted this fact for every memory except the one he put in the Pensive. I can deduce that Harry's fears for being punished for succeeding are overblown. All it does is serve to further turn the reader against Snape.

I am admittedly frustrated with Harry in OOTP. We know that he theoretically should be able to succeed at Occlumency because he can fight off the Imperius Curse which we are told is a similar skill. We know that Harry can master his emotions to an extent because he does it to produce a Patronus amidst 100+ dementors and that he threw off the Imperius Curse done by Voldemort while fearing for his life and right after seeing his first person killed. The only reason Harry fails at Occlumency is because he can't overcome his hatred for Snape. Snape goads Harry a little sure, but not enough to render Harry completely inept. Yes, Harry needed therapy in OOTP, but it is frustrating nonetheless. Especially since the consequences to his failure are so great.

I think the greatest narration deception is in Umbridge's office while they are trying to reach Sirius. Harry completely gives up when Snape gives his snide response. I have seen some threads criticizing the fact that it was "obvious" that Snape could not respond affirmatively in that situation and some even go as far as to criticize Hermione for not realizing it. But even though it was so 'obvious', Harry's immediate narration of hatred for Snape easily blinds the reader to this obvious understanding.

Point 5: Harry is not a model student:

This point kind of continues from the above point. Harry does break a lot of rules. Some of them are for "noble" reasons, but Snape is not always privy to Harry's intentions. Then there are the plenty of times that Harry does just flat out break the rules.

On a re-read, McGonagall's reaction to the midnight wandering of Neville, Hermione, Ron, and Harry seems off. "'I'm disgusted,' said Professor McGonagall. 'Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before!... I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students'"

Her reaction seems off to us because we are so desensitized to midnight wanderings that Harry does because he does them so often. But even though the midnight wanderings are so regular for us as readers, McGonagall's statement shows that students rarely wander out of bed. Furthermore, the fact they they each got detention and lost 200 points for Gryffindor collectively demonstrates that wandering the castle is not just a slap on the wrist offence either. What I mean to say is that Snape does have a point when he says that Harry thinks that he is above the rules or that Harry is arrogant and struts about the castle. It is a little arrogant to think that the reasons you have for wandering the castle are more important than the rules.

Then you also have incidents like Sectumsempra, stealing Polyjuice Potion ingredients by throwing a firework into an unfinished potion, the sneaking off into Hogsmeade incidents, flying car, and going into the Forbidden Forest. All of these incidents in themselves could potentially get a student expelled, or at least put on probation. Yet, Harry does them all. Add on top of those all the small rules Harry regularly breaks and the big rule of sneaking around at night to see Hagrid or the Mirror of Erised.

My point is that some of Harry's indignation against Snape is unjustified. I just mean the "I am a nice good boy and he is a mean teacher that is out to get me" act that some people imply is a little overblown.

Middle school and high school students have this tendency when they do something wrong, and when they are being accused, 1 minor detail is slightly off and they jump on that detail as evidence that the whole thing is a set up to get them in trouble.

My favorite scene of Snape is in CoS when he suggests that "maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time". But then he goes to question them about where they were and where they were going, and it is obvious that they are lying and his smile just widens as they say they are not hungry after the Deathday party. In reality Harry is lying because he doesn't want to admit that he is hearing voices. Funnily enough, I think the even of CoS could have been stopped earlier if Harry just admitted to Dumbledore early on that he was hearing voices. That combined with the Dueling club incident. I think Dumbledore would have put 2 and 2 together and solved it before Harry or Ginny's life were in danger. He still would have needed Harry for the Parseltoungue though. My point is, that Snape seems to have a more accurate read of Harry than some of the Professors. Of course, his read still is biased.

Point 6: People expecting Snape to be the bigger man would probably not do so themselves.

Snape is not in the right just because he was bullied. I am the last person to argue that. Snape is not exactly a paragon of virtue himself. My argument is that he is just an average, flawed human being. In the same way the Harry and Dumbledore are portrayed as flawed human beings, despite being slightly above average. I love how she portrays the "best" in the HP universe as still flawed. What I mean is, if we are ready to forgive how Ron acted to Harry in DH, we should be ready to forgive Snape.

Snape was prejudiced against Harry, yes. Harry looked, and sometimes acted, like James. I would say that Harry would act more like James in front of Snape than anyone else. It was kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. "That's my nickname" "Roonil Wazlib".

I actually was in the same grade as the child of someone who bullied my father. Incidentally, the child bullied me as well. My father is a peace loving man... but I can tell you that he definitely delighted when I would beat his bullies' son in school or in sports. I think Snape lived a little vicariously through Malfoy, not being a parent himself.

It is impossible for even the best person to completely shut out any emotions for James' son after how he was treated. Combine that with his lack of knack for teaching and I think we get the perfect storm that is Snape

Point 7: Snape's Baseline personality is one of mockery

So, we get a few glimpses of Snape outside of school. How he treats Bellatrix and Narcissa. How he treats Wormtail, how he treats Tonks. How he treats Petunia. His personality is exactly the same. One of snide mockery. I think the most telling is of how he treats Bellatrix, she is his equal for the most part, but he still mocks and ridicules her beliefs. And then you have his superiors. We have him with Dumbledore and with Umbridge. To put it flatly, Snape either only adores, or mocks contemptuously. I think this most definitely stems from his parents sad marriage, and he can't seem to reign it in even when it would be to his benefit (with Petunia and Lily).

I use the phrase "mocks contemptuously" because that is what the book uses, but I don't know how much contempt there is behind Snape's antics. I think he does it so much, it can just be a default where he mocks without contempt. It is also definitely a coping mechanism. It is so interesting that he mocks Tonks for her changed Patronus because he has the same situation. His mockery of her is a coping mechanism where he can safely mock himself.

I know some people like this, and they can be fun additions to a friend group. I like to say "X is an asshole, but he is our asshole". Sometimes it is nice to have someone around that can just brutally mock the things you don't like. I think Ron sometimes has Snape-ish qualities with his hilarious but aggressive statements about Harry's enemies or his unmitigated irrational bias against all of Ginny's boyfriends.

His personality translates to his job. Mocking is his coping mechanism for when he fails as a teacher. Again, he never was meant to be a teacher. I think Neville was uniquely vulnerable to Snape. As for the toad incident, I believe is a beyond competent potions master, a one in a million genius actually. He could have easily identified what Neville did wrong just by looking at the potion (there is evidence of this several times in the books) and therefore could have easily given Trevor an antidote.

As far as the fear tactic. Of course I don't condone it, but I would be lying if I told you that as a teacher I wasn't sometimes tempted to just let a kid fail spectacularly after they did not listen to directions. It is so tempting to just let life smack them in the face when they don't listen. But alas, teachers are meant to be the bigger people and love each kid like their parents do.

TLDR: I think my point is this. Any person would struggle being a teacher if that was not their calling and had no training. The result would be students who suffer and a teacher who suffers. Any person would harbor negative feelings towards their bully's progeny. Combine the two situations and we have the unique phenomena of Snape and Harry. Add on top of it that Harry's hatred continues past middle school and becomes irrational in his later years which colors his narration.

P.S. For people that bring up Snape's antics at the end of PoA, I think that is ridiculous. For one, he was right. It did have something to do with Potter. And Secondly, Snape had no idea that Sirius was innocent so his desire for his imprisonment/life sentence is justified. Harry himself wanted nothing more than to murder Sirius in cold blood like 4 chapters prior. As far as giving Sirius a chance to explain himself: 1. imagine that was your (2nd) worst childhood enemy 2. Imagine that enemy was also a convicted murderer 3. Imagine there were 3 children that needed to get to safety. How much time would you give to that person?