Quote from Naaga on April 11, 2023, 1:28 pm

Source: Sirius and Snape Analysis: The Hogwarts Express scene by straysayake

Sirius and Snape Analysis: The Hogwarts Express scene

Character analysis

 

I really, really enjoy Sirius and Snape as characters and their respective narrative functions in story. But what gets me most about them is how much Rowling hints about their backgrounds and so much of it makes sense with regard to who they are as adults. So I am going to be breaking down a very small scene from Prince's Tale and getting into long winded hypothesis about their respective childhoods.

So, let's start with Snape. The scene begins with Snape rushing to find Lily, already in his Hogwarts clothes. Harry notes he must have been eager to get out of his clothes - ones that look like he borrowed from his mother, as Petunia spitefully pointed out. This has always been a very interesting detail to me - first off, it indicates how poor Snape's family is. Second, this indicates his tiny rebellion from his father - he refuses to wear clothes of the abusive man, and prefers his mother's. The only thing he seems to wear of his father's is that overlong coat to hide the smock. I admit, I am partial to the reading that Snape refuses to associate with his father in tiny ways, rather than Tobias refusing to hand his son clothes.

(I have seen readings which say that it is also a sign of neglect - perhaps his parents bought clothes that simply don't fit him, but I am more inclined to think it's a hand me down, simply because Harry identifies so strongly with it. Because Harry knows what it is like to wear a hand me down that don't quite fit, that are too big for you, or the ones that make you look ridiculous.)

Lily and Petunia's relationship is fraught with Petunia's jealousy. And young Lily is upset over it when Snape meets her. "I am not talking to you. Tuney hates me" she tells him. "Because we saw the letter from Dumbledore". Young Lily shows signs of being extremely emotionally reactive and this scene is one of them. It's easier for her to deal with Petunia's rejection of her by telling Snape she doesn't want to talk to him. It's a childish displacement of her hurt over her sister's rejection.

Snape, however, with his bad history with Petunia and his inability/ poor social skills to understand why this matters to her, goes: "So what?"

Lily, who throws him a look of deep dislike, says "So she's my sister". This seed is important because this is what develops into "he doesn't get me" feeling she later displays in her teenage scenes with him. Interestingly, most of Lily's personal relationships have deeply interwined love and dislike - Petunia (whose rejection bothers her but she cheerfully informs Sirius that Harry nearly broke a vase her sister sent - which means there is resentment on her end too), James - who she was attracted to even before 7th year but also disliked at one point, and Snape - again, a contentious friendship filled with love and distrust.

"She's only a -" we dont get to hear what Snape intended to say. And given his own acrimony with Petunia, it could be anything. However, I read it as "She's only a Muggle" because it ties into his feelings about his father. Snape, who is proud of being half a Prince, emphasizing his magical lineage, his refuge in a violent, neglectful home. (Barty Crouch Jr and Snape with their disappointing fathers - I imagine Voldemort is supremely attractive leader to people with broken homes.)

Snape, by all accounts, shows a disorganised attachment style. His caregiver, his mother - and perhaps the only parent he seems to have regard for, is too preoccupied by her own abuse to be there for her son - we see this in glimpses Harry sees in OOTP: " woman cowering" where a man shouts at her, and a young, neglected Snape cries in the corner. Children born in homes like this have trouble regulating their emotions, simultaneously displaying tendencies to aggressively lash out or show disassociative symptoms. Both of which Snape displays. Statistically, this is also seen more in low income households where economic instability and resulting domestic instability creates an unsafe environment for the kids to safely form ideas of their identity, or express emotions in healthy ways, modelling instead out of behaviour seen at home.

Then, Snape reminds her that they are going to Hogwarts. He is already in his Hogwarts clothes - now, Snape gets to be the impressive figure. The one who told her about magic, who theorised about how Muggles get letters from magical people, the one who told her about Dementors and Azkaban. He has already left behind the Spinner's End version of him, he wants to bigger than that, and is keen to be in place of magical learning and to join Slytherin. Essentially, he shows signs of unstable identity, insecurity - all prime for grooming into a cult.

And here comes along James Potter, who looks around at the mention of Slytherin. James's comment uses Snape's line and directs it to Sirius instead and it becomes a conversation between them, as a way to bond more with a fellow "rowdy boy" Sirius. Effectively ignoring the other two.

Sirius as we see here, "does not smile" when James talks about Slytherin. He essentially says something that can be construed as a way to nip that conversation in bud: "My whole family has been in. Slytherin". This suggests to me that there is some loyalty to his family there and his disillusionment with them isn't entirely fixed yet. After all, Sirius's intense loyalty to his friends, more specifically James, did not come out of thin air. It is reasonable to suggest that he felt some loyalty to his family at some point and the intensity with which he regards his friends is a reaction to burned off and being a "displaced person without a family" as Rowling put it.

Interestingly, while his reaction to his mother and Bellatrix are obviously sore spots, his response to Regulus is comparatively quite soft. ("Stupid, idiot" - something he calls James later on in the same book). I imagine Sirius has quite complicated feelings about his brother and he is capable of nuance (when the person isn't Snape): "The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". As someone who is grown up among them, Sirius would understand that.

His framing of Regulus's need to please his parents also further highlights what exactly is the source of disillusionment. He calls Regulus "soft enough to believe them" - which means he is crediting his own intelligence to see through his parents bigoted world view. And bigotry is not something that can be explained rationally or at least the Blacks didn't explain it in a way that Sirius, eldest of their male line and their heir, bought it. It also probably didn't help the Blacks case that Grimmauld Place is in a Muggle neighborhood and that their eldest son is a bit of a wild boy with interest in pushing boundaries. His intellectual disconnect leads to the righteous rage he later feels but it began there. (Boy, it must suck to discover that everything you have been taught to value in the world and in yourself as the heir is essentially rubbish). Since his differences with his family began with seeds of intellectual disconnect rather than on intense empathy with downtrodden, it makes him, as a pureblooded privileged boy, unable to truly understand Lupin's fears regarding his lycanthropy. Hence, the Werewolf prank (I am not getting to the Snape bit, just the Lupin bit). To James' credit, he does understand what that means for Lupin and saves all three of them from different set of consequences.

Anyway, back to the scene. James, who has made an ass of himself in front of his new friend, who he was getting along with fine until now, then goes "Blimey, I thought you seemed alright". (Btw, I find James wildly large ego kind of hilarious here, especially in light of Snape's comment about him to Sirius in OOTP: "You will know he is so arrogant that criticism simply bounces off him". Sirius essentially told him that his whole family was part of the house that James would rather leave than be part of and James' reaction to that is this. Lol.). Sirius, however, has good enough social skills, using his charm to defuse a situation. He grins and says: "Maybe I will break the tradition".

This line is an indication of Sirius's desire for independence, an identity seperate from his family. The use of the word "tradition" is interesting. It sounds like Sirius is expected to behave in a certain way, the heir of Black family whose parents thought being a Black "made you practically royal". Adult Sirius is contemptuous of this and their "valuable contribution to Ministry" which means they just gave gold - it tells me that any and all conditions put on him by his family were to fulfill tradition that is either worthless or holds no meaning in his eyes.

The root of the emotional abuse Sirius suffers from his family is this - realising his parents love for him is conditional on him being a certain way. (In fact, you can read Regulus desire to emphasise his connection to the family as a reaction to what he sees with Sirius - Sirius does not behave, Mum and Dad don't love him). As a child with unconscious knowledge of lack of love, Sirius then acts out, they react, rinse and repeat "until he has had enough". Sirius chafes against boundaries well into adulthood and doesn't react well to people enforcing it on him, even if it is out of love for him (i.e Harry telling him not to come to Hogsmeade). Boundaries put out of love for him is a concept he has difficulty in understanding. Specifically, in case of Hogsmeade scene, he reacts as if Harry is rejecting him instead of protecting him.

Sirius asks James about where he wants to go, and Snape, who is incensed that not only was James insulting about a House he put stock in, which he made part of new identity (so that he is no longer that Snape boy from Spinner's End), he also dismissed him in the same conversation. All this while Snape was trying to be impressive in front of Lily. So he "makes a disparaging noise" once James talks of Gryffindor. Snape's response to James' : "Got a problem with that?" is interesting. He says: "If you'd rather be brawny, rather than brainy-"

This is an important value for Snape. He knows he is clever and values it. He spends his spare time inventing hexes, making great shortcuts to Potions. He has genuine thirst for learning and he hones it. In SWM, we see that he has written far more longer answers than anyone else, he is poring over his paper after exams. He even mocks Hermione's lack of inventive answers: "Answer copied word to word from the textbook, but correct in essentials". He values originality. It may be me stretching this, but I am partial to the reading: this is his way of rejecting his father once again, who is implied to be a violent man. (in other words, someone who is hypermasculine - "brawny").

"Where are you hoping to go, seeing as you are neither?" - Sirius is quick with emotionally cutting insults. Snape hasn't even finished his sentence, but Sirius is already on his case. Which suggests growing up in a household with sharp tongues. It's a fair assumption, given Mrs Black's half mad portrait. It also tallies with Sirius's talking about his mother: "My mother didn't have a heart Kreacher, she kept herself alive out of pure spite" . The wounds are fresh enough on this. However, you know who else is spiteful? Sirius.

While James is the physical bully (the tripping Snape, doing most of the bullying in SWM), Sirius attacks emotionally. ( "I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment, there will be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word" or even the carelessly vicious- "Put that away, before Wormtail wets himself in excitement"). Curiously, with all that talk of how his mother being spiteful, it's her room he spends time in when he is depressed. We could argue it's also because Buckbeak is there, and perhaps it's the largest room in the house, but it's very telling that's where Sirius spends time when he is "in a fit of sullens". Sirius's sense of abandonment from his family, makes him look for family connections with friends - a trait he shares with Harry. Interestingly, the first time he glimpses Harry in Privet Drive, Harry is also running away from home - just like he did.

Anyway, I could go on. I love dissecting each of their dialogues for bits in their childhood. Do put down your thoughts.