I Think Life Loves Us

I think life loves us

I honestly think we have the wrong idea about love and life. I think love is being tender and forgiving, even when we're not to ourselves. and I think love is being firm when needed because our actions have consequences and we need to accept them even when they hurt. Not shielding the people we love from the consequences of their actions is an act of love, it's a chance you have to say "I'm here, I'm with you, I'll stand by you, and I want you to be the best version of yourself you can be so I'm not gonna shield you from life."

And I think that's why life loves us. Because she won't shield us but she'll be with us every step of the way, holding our hands.

YOU WANNA TELL THAT I'M WRONG?!?!

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

And I'll tell thee: Love to understand'em 'Cause only those who loved could hear Could listen and understand stars. — Milky Way, Olavo Bilac

Oliver smiled from his house's window when he saw his father walking through the street, satisfied because Anton had come back home safe and sound. Not that he was afraid of the war, but he was afraid of what people could do to a German immigrant in the middle of it.

Of course, Oliver understood England's fear, but it didn't make him any less worried about his father, not even a little bit. The war had started six days ago and, on that day, especially, their memories of Germany were particularly hard on Anton and himself, but his father couldn't get out of work early to spend time with his son, especially because his dad's boss, the Terrible Mister Kurtz, as Oliver used to call him, didn't allowed it.

In general, the day had been good, something really surprising. Oliver had gone to school and had some fun with the colleagues he had, even if all those memories were there, pinching him every moment of the day and if it was hard to breathe sometimes. That was the reason why the sight of his dad entering through the door was such a relief for Oliver: he didn't know if he could go through the day without Anton's help.

The moment he heard the noise of the key scratching the door, Oliver left his bed and climbed down the stairs to the hall. Anton had just put his keys on the table when the boy hit the first floor and, when his eyes met, they stared at each other, motionless.

His dad looked like he had aged a lot more than the three years that had passed since Liora, Oliver's mom, had been taken from their house by the SS. That day, November 9th, 1936, would be marked in their memories forever. Anton tried to hide since then, but Oliver knew his dad was exhausted to the bone since they fled Germany to England.

The old man's blonde hair was grey and his eyes had dark circles and wrinkles. Anton walked increasingly more shrunken, trying not to drawn attention to himself in the middle of English society, because everyone knew that dark times would come to each one of the beings who lived under European skies.

“Let's go,” said Anton with his strong German accent in English, without a greeting, but stretching his hand to him with a sorry glow in his light-green eyes. “I'm going to make some dinner. Did you excuse Mrs. Mason, didn't you?”

Oliver swallowed hard and nodded, letting his father guide him by his dad's hand on his back, realizing how shaken they were by the touch. Anton didn't speak while making toast with jam for them, because the old man had no idea how to cook. Sometimes, Oliver thought that was the biggest mistake: how could someone leave to other such a basic necessity as food making?

Any other day, he'd have annoyed his dad with that, but not that day. Neither of them knew how to act normal even if they tried, Oliver knew that for sure. They had tried nine months ago on his mom's birthday and four months ago, on Hadrian's birthday.

Because of that, neither of them spoke while eating, facing the plaid white and red tablecloth they used for picnics in the countryside when his dad had to travel for work. Oliver had such sweet memories with his father and was grateful to Anton for all of them. He was a wonderful dad and had always been, Oliver just hadn't been capable of noticing it before they'd lost his mom.

When the boy got up after finishing up, aware that his every move was monitored by his dad, Anton caught his attention with a calm and tired tone of voice. He had been using this voice after the German soldiers had taken Liora, much weaker than his usual baritone voice, the voice his mother used to love echoing through the house in endless songs.

“Oliver,” he said, “sit down again, I want to talk to you about something.”

Slowly, the boy sat again, feeling the muscles on his back stiffening with the tension while Anton ran his hand through his face with a sigh full of exhaustion. That made Oliver’s heart miss a beat, sore for his dad’s pain, and he wanted to get up and hug him more than anything, but something in his father’s expression warned him not to.

“What about, dad?” he asked with caution, getting more worried when Anton stared at him with a shinier look than before.

“Do you remember me and mister Kurtz work for a Scottish man named Elijah Wood, right?” asked Anton and Oliver just nodded, frowning with the suspicion that he knew what way this was going. Anton had already tried to talk to him about it, but he thought his father had given up after a whole hour of fighting about the matter. “Mister Wood allowed you to stay with them in Scotland during the war.”

For a moment, both of them stared at each other, their eyes identical except for what they showed. Oliver was deeply mad at his dad even considering the thought of him leaving him alone in the middle of a goddamn war when they were the enemy there.

Anton, on the other hand, had decided that his son was going even if he had to force him to enter that train, the strong necessity of keeping Oliver safe was his everyday motivation and he wouldn’t give up on it that easily.

“You can’t be serious,” said Oliver after he processed the information his father had just given him. “I told you I didn’t want to go!”

“It’s not about what you want, it’s about your safety, Oliver,” Anton countered without raising his voice, his tone still calm as a windless night. “We’re talking about a war and London will be one of the most affected by it.”

“I’m not going,” Oliver declared, frowning. “You’ll be here, dad, you’re my only family.”

“And I’m going to be forever,” Anton said with a bit of soothing. “But I need you to be safe, Oliver, you know I need you to be safe.”

“Don’t use mom and Hadrian against me,” the cutting in Oliver’s tone made the older one recoil in his chair, shrinking even more and the boy hated that, he hated his father thought he had to hide from him, because of him. “You know as much as me this family would stay together if it was up to her.”

“And look how things turned out, Oliver!” Anton exclaimed and, even with the desperation in his voice, all the boy could do was resent it, because he was really trying to use his mother to make him change his mind. “You’ll go and I’m not going to discuss it further. I… can’t allow you to stay here.”

“You’d preferred if I had been taken last year,” Oliver said without looking at his dad, it seemed like such a horrible discussion he couldn’t do much to hold his tears. “It’s the reason why you want to send me away, right? Because you don’t wanna remember what you’ve lost.”

“Oliver...” Anton whispered upon hearing him, but his voice failed and he said nothing more, mainly because Oliver got up, dragging the chair on the floor and making the screeching noise echo in the house’s silence, and he left the cramped kitchen, leaving him alone.

The boy didn’t think of anything before climbing the stairs and entering his room, feeling the anger pump blood into his veins and making him hot. He threw himself on the bed, looking up at the painted stars in the white ceiling while they blurred with the unshed tears, and then focused again when they ran through his skin to the roots of his blonde hair.

Those stars reminded him of his mother and, when they’d arrived in England, to see them was like a self-inflicted punishment to compensate for the guilt Oliver carried around in his heart, but now they were just a painful sweet memory.

Liora Krause was the most wonderful person to ever exist, Oliver thought. His mom was the face of Life, always cheerful, always willing to drag the family men to a dance in the middle of the night or throw a party in the tiniest apartment in the world to close friends of their family, always willing to help old ladies cross the street and shelter and give food to shelterless boys even if one of them ended up robbing her every time.

She had a fiery spirit and carried words in her hands like her shield and sword, ready to defend the one she loved and be firm with those who needed firm words. It may have been because of that, and her harsh critique of Hitler and his hateful government, that she was marked as one of the Jewish women to be taken that night. It may have been just random. Oliver didn’t know and probably wouldn’t come a day when he’d find out.

His brother, Hadrian, was just six-year-old when he was killed by nazi soldiers. Oliver had seen it all. He saw it when the soldier pointed the gun at his brother’s head and shot, the blood and remaining brain matter spattering through the small apartment which had been his family’s, on the living room his parents used to dance and sing and play with him and Hadrian. Even after a year, Oliver could still hear in the silence the buzz the gun’s noise had caused in his ears.

Oliver heard when his father’s shuffled steps got closer and stopped by his room’s door. Hesitated. Anton carried on to his own room, closing the door quietly, so quietly Oliver barely heard it.

The things Oliver had said to his dad weren’t even close to the truth, he knew that. And knew he had broken Anton with his false accusation, but he was so mad the word just slipped out of his tongue, without any coherent thought. He knew that wasn’t a good excuse, that when he was angry, the best thing to do was take time, calm down, and think about it when he could, but the thought of leaving his father alone scared him more than anything.

After what happened that night, Oliver’s dad didn’t rest until he got his best friend, who was a soldier, to help them flee to English territory. Once they got to England, Anton was just a shadow of the man he was before, not even close to being the father Oliver remembered or needed.

Those first months were so hard sometimes that he didn’t even want to get up, knowing the day would find countless ways of making him melt down with the memory of his mom. Oliver could hardly breath in those times and now, they were a blur in his mind, so far away the seemed to have happened years ago, but still hurt like hours ago.

Oliver couldn’t sleep.

He couldn’t sleep, not yet, not when he knew he had hurt his dad, not when he knew the nightmares would torment him during sleep, hopeless and terrifying. When the clock struck eleven PM, he rolled over, took the book from his nightstand, and opened it to his most beloved page.

The paper was worn and yellowish, and curved slightly in the corners, but Oliver passed his fingers through the written words below one his mom’s favorite poems in life. Low-toned, he read to silence the buzz in his left ear:

“Well (you say) hear stars! Right Lost thy mind!” And I tell you, however, That, to listen’em, many times I wake up And open my windows, pale and baffled…

And we talk the whole night The Milky Way, as a pale openness, shines. And, coming the sun, wistful and morose, I still search for them in the desert sky.

You say now: “My mad friend! What do you talk about? What sense Can their words have, when with you?”

And I tell thee: “Love to understand’em! ‘Cause only those who love can hear Capable of listening and understanding the stars.

Oliver, then, read what was written below Olavo Bilac's poem with attention and felt his heart clenching as he saw the familiar handwriting:

I hear the stars because I love an easy-laughing boy and the smiling young man with a silver tongue to whom I gave birth and because I love the man who makes all the stars shine in his eyes.

He knew Anton was crying in his room and knew he should go to him and apologize for what he had said, especially after re-reading his mother’s words. He knew he’d been wrong, knew that Liora’s first priority in this situation would be ensuring that her kids and husband were safe. And he knew his dad couldn’t bear to lose him, knew he was the only thread of hope Anton had in his life because he was Oliver’s as well.

Dragging himself out of bed and through the corridor, Oliver didn’t knock before entering, finding his dad crying as he clutched to a portrait of Liora and Hadrian. In the picture, they were on a family trip to the countryside of Germany. It had been in the summer so they didn’t need to worry too much about coats and gloves. They were all smiling, having fun in the grass and, if he closed his eyes, Oliver could still hear the sound of his brother’s laughter and his mother’s arms around him.

At that moment, however, the broken, sad image of his dad crying over it broke his heart and ended up making Oliver realize the severity of his words and the effect they had had on Anton, as well as the fact he’d have to deal with it.

Oliver quickly closed the space between him and Anton, gently taking the portrait off his hands and sitting beside his dad on the bed before he could say anything. Anton didn’t look at him as he said, his voice hoarse from the crying:

“I’ve never, not in a single moment, wished you to have the same fate as your mom and brother, Oliver.”

“I know,” said the boy with a painful lump in his throat, stopping him from speaking anything he needed to. “I know you didn’t. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I said that. I’m... sorry.”

“I just want you to be safe,” murmured his father and Oliver couldn’t hold the tears back any longer.

He also started crying and hugged his dad with all his strength, as if he was never letting him go. Oliver was so completely terrified he wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with his dad just so that Anton could tuck him in like he did when Oliver was a kid — even if it wasn’t the same because of his age.

“I’m afraid, Dad,” said Oliver in a desperate whisper, “I don’t… I don’t believe anything I said to you in the kitchen, I’m just terrified of losing you too.”

Anton stayed quiet and didn’t promise anything. They knew some promises were Worth nothing in the face of war, knew Anton didn’t have a say whether he died or not in it. Instead, his dad said: “You’re a Krause, you’re Liora’s son. You carry part of her fire inside of you, Oliver, I could see that every day of my life. You’ll do it because if anyone could, it was your mom. And you are just like her”. Those words ensnared Oliver’s heart and consoled him enough that the perspective of going to the property of his dad’s boss didn’t seem so unbearable. When he nodded, consenting to the trip, Anton just said: “Let’s go down to the kitchen, I’ll make you come hot cocoa.”

Go to Chapter 3

TBH we all kinda collectively think Latino soap operas are the only ones serving the authentic Latino drama but let's be honest here

What the fuck hotd even is if not the family fighting over their late granpa's house?

The thing about Armand to me is that he strips us of any preconceived or prejudiced notion of what it means to be a manipulator or a narcissist. Most people who'll emotionally abuse you in your life won't be this evil character who is out to get you, they'll be people who actually feel and experience the emotions and feelings they manipulate you with.

To them, the reality of those feelings is there, raw and feeling like an exposed wire. That's why it's so hard to get out of toxic and/or abusive relationships — because you learn the way your abuser see and experience the world and it makes sense to you, even if it doesn't on a rational level. You get it. You empathize with it. And it becomes so much harder to leave.

So yes, Armand is this abused, traumatized man who regrets things and is so desperate to be loved he'll do anything to have it. But he also will do anything to have it.

It's why forgiveness is earned, not deserved. If forgiveness was about deserving, the whole world would be made of saints.

Being an adult while watching iwtv means that you really can't pick a character to hate on because of nuance - and they're all equally horrible lovable hateable complex beings, can't even be mad at armand because he's not some evil mastermind manipulator, while at the same time he is, but he has the cadence of doing all of that while being a shivering, quivering scared chihuahua and that's what makes it worse because 'evil' is not some big tough infallible guy. It's a 17 year old guy with glowing orange eyes with enough anxieties in him to melt a planet and he's always plotting in such a loser yet scaryy way. You get me ?

Your analysis focuses entirely on Snape being irredeemable because he never takes responsibility for the harm he does. Almost all of your quotes in evidence are from his childhood and teenage years, in which he is indeed blind to his own malevolence.

Except this is the whole point of his story of atonement. He was radicalised into walking down a very bad road, and then tried to claw his way out of it. He does eventually take responsibility - as an adult. He commits himself to a dangerous path of spying to defeat Voldemort. He can’t bring Lily back, he can’t undo his mistakes, but he can understand that he was wrong to join the Death Eaters and dedicate himself to a different cause. If he didn’t take responsibility for his choices, he would’ve spent his days mourning Lily on a beach in the Bahamas instead of willingly signing his own death warrant by joining Dumbledore to protect Harry.

Nobody - and I really do mean this - is beyond salvation. Nobody, even those who have sinned gravely, is beyond waking up one morning and choosing to be a tiny bit better than they were the day before, even if they remain imperfect. Its a fundamental part of humanity. It’s a very dangerous road for go down when you dehumanise young people who make terrible choices, write them off as fundamentally evil, and deny them the opportunity to take a different road. Snape remained bitter and cruel and perpetuated the cycle of abuse, but he did in one very vital respect choose a different road.

https://youtu.be/SSH5EY-W5oM?si=XBskWqOT2X0tl0Am

Okay, that's a valid point to be made, I did focus mainly on teenager Snape but only because I thought adult Snape would be obviously interpreted from that point on. The fact is adult Snape doesn't exactly atone for what he did and what he chose to become as much as it looks like he did, simply because his harmful ways didn't affect only Lily, to begin with.

Look, you're starting from a point where Snape's most serious mistake was to turn on Lily and forgetting what I said earlier on in the analysis: Snape's biggest fault wasn't his personal/individual issues, it was his political agenda and beliefs, and what he did in the name of that.

Fascism isn't only a political aspect, because to be a fascist, there's a series of prior beliefs one has to have to be okay with what fascist governments and political groups will do to stay in power. To be a fascist, to openly advocate for what Voldemort and his followers advocated for instead of just going with the flow (which was not what Snape did at all), you just don't "become radicalized" like there's no one to blame here but some notion of propaganda. To radicalize to fascism, you must seek out information about it, advocate for it, and have prior beliefs of superiority that allow you to relate to it in a deep, core level - all of which we already attributed to young Snape in my analysis.

Let's put it this way: fascism is capitalism's emergency button. It'll only arise when capitalism is in crisis, which we don't see in the HP books because it's neither relevant to the story nor it seems that Rowling has the political knowledge to do so. But more than that, fascism is based on colonialist views of the superiority of one versus the other.

Think about what you know about Iluminism: the first thing I learned about it in school is that it was a dichotomous stream of thought - we have a lot of duality in it. In Art, we have the chiaroscuro technique; in metaphysics, we have the discussion about man versus God; and in politics, we have the "illuminated" man (white, heteronormative, cisnormative, high-class, educated men) versus barbarians or savages (non-white men or women).

The colonialist way of thinking stems from this very deep-rooted belief that some people are more rational, and more advanced - superior - than other peoples, and so it'd be their God-given task to "illuminate" those "savages" through colonialism. Fascism is the elevation of those beliefs to a place of persecution and political revisionism in the newer stages of capitalism. So quite literally, to be a fascist, one has to first have this deep-rooted belief that there are people who are inherently superior to others. A belief system that Snape demonstrates early on in his life that he does have.

And that's exactly what I criticize about JK Rowling's writing and what further supports my point of Snape failing to atone for his beliefs: what she says in her books, basically, is that it's okay to think some people are superior to others as long as you don't do anything against those inferior ones like it's very much exemplified by what happens to the Malfoys after the war. It's where her individual background shows itself in the worst ways - because she was raised in a society that benefited from colonialism, their way of looking and thinking still carries a lot of reminiscent of colonialist thinking. Ask a person from the Global South about Europeans and you'll see what I mean - even when they don't realize, there is clearly a rooted racism in the ways they're raised because of that.

So it's obvious to me that Snape's development couldn't ever surpass the point where his core belief of superiority lies because Rowling doesn't see this as a problem. Maybe as an annoyance but certainly not as a problem when it is, 100%, the problem. Especially if we're talking about a redemption arc because then it means that Snape could never actually make proper amends or be actually accountable for what he has done as a Death Eater.

To break free from this way of thinking we need what Fanon calls cognitive dissonance: an extreme discomfort that is the only thing able to shatter a core belief like that of superiority. Now, we can argue that for Snape a cognitive dissonant experience would be Lily's death, or Voldemort's persecution of he,r because this did show Snape that his beliefs of Lily's exception to the rule were misplaced. However, there are various indications that that doesn't really happen for Snape, especially when we talk about his adult version's behavior and that might be explained by a series of earlier motives.

I'll focus first on the behavior pattern that I identify as cues on the fact that Snape didn't exactly atone for his mistakes in his adult life and then I'll come back to talk about why I don't think Lily's persecution or death was a cognitive dissonant experience for Snape, as traumatic as it may have been.

So I said earlier in the analysis that it doesn't matter why we do something, it only matters that we did do something because our actions are what will have a reflection in real life, not our intentions. And while I stand by that, I cannot in a sane mind say that our intentions do not play a role in our actions - that's simply not true. But our intentions have a different role to which importance should be attributed, and that is in the way we make things. Our intentions have as the main core, our beliefs, and our beliefs will therefore guide our actions.

Now, to simplify, if I believe every human being has the same value and should be treated as such, I'll act with the intention of demonstrating such belief. So I vote for candidates who preach equality, and I advocate for equality in the environments I'm inserted in (even if it's only me doing it subtly, it's still there). I cannot dissociate myself from it, it's a part of who I am and therefore it leaks into all aspects of my life. The same happens with the contrary: if I believe that some people are inherently superior to others because of their birth, then my core actions will reflect what I believe.

See where I'm going to?

Adult Snape perpetuates the cycle of abuse he grew up with, not only in his house but also in his political beliefs and later on as a professor. Yes, it was the abuse he suffered early on in his life that made a core belief of his that there are people who are superior because of their strength (and then it evolved to believe that this strength came from magic and purity) but as an adult who believes in this, it's painfully obvious how he perpetuates it: he defends bullies and is a bully himself.

He uses his place of power to punish and abuse this power simply because he can, he looks down on those he considers weak and acts against them in a show of his own superiority. And that isn't exclusively shown only to his students but also to people who are "below" him in the social hierarchy of the wizarding world, such as Remus.

And yes, I do realize there is more to their relationship as colleagues than just a non-werewolf "picking" on a werewolf out of prejudice but I have to note that if you really broke through your initial core belief of superiority, the very least you have to know is that there are some boundaries you can't break even out of well-placed resentment. And one of these boundaries is using your place in the hierarchy to oppress people who are below you, which Snape does when he reveals Remus' condition to the wizarding world.

Plus, I do want to challenge your statement of nobody being beyond salvation as I do see it as a very naive way of thinking, although that's not my exact point about it.

First of all, salvation and forgiveness are two different things. You can do unforgivable things and still become a better person than you were when you did those things, I do not deny that. But the damage you did is still there, and no victim of this damage is required to forgive you because you became a better person - sometimes our actions are irreversible, sometimes the damage we cause (especially when it comes to fascist beliefs) is too great, sometimes we can't possibly do enough to amend the things we've done. That counts with abuse, with fascism, with r*p*... there are many things to consider before we say so freely that no one is above salvation. It's naive to believe that everyone deserves forgiveness because there are things that cause too much harm to ever be amended again.

And as I said before, salvation and forgiveness are two different things. I do believe people can do better even after doing unforgivable things. I won't say it's exactly fair to the victims but there are abusive people who have become better after a especially bad relationship, there are parents who have become better parents to their youngest children than they were to their oldest, there were supremacists who became much better people with life, I do not deny that. I have no desire to deny that actually.

What I am advocating for, however, is that we hold these people, and characters, responsible for their own actions and uphold the very pillars that will give us the basis from which we should judge the changes in their behavior. And what I am saying about Snape is that he did not fulfill any of these milestones for redemption, it only appears so because he turns against Voldemort but that alone isn't indicative of change because the evidence shows that his core beliefs are still the same and as such, his actions on a personal and general level will reflect that even without Voldemort.

The point I'm making is that our core beliefs are the ones that guide our actions, and therefore, Snape's actions cannot be deemed as completely redeeming because they don't reflect an actual change of behavior more than they reflect a change of perceptions of the people he sided with in the beginning. Snape's actions don't reflect a cognitive dissonant change but on a shallower level, a change in perception: he doesn't turn on Voldemort because he realizes that his supremacist beliefs are frayed but because he takes Voldemort's persecution of Lily with hatred.

I explain: we only hate in three instances, one of them being when the object of our hate directly or indirectly threatens the things we love. As much as I deem Snape and Lily's friendship toxic, I cannot deny the existence of love, so when Lily is threatened by Voldemort, Snape hates him because he is a threat to her. Which is fair, but it's not a cognitive dissonant event for him because of all the points I make above. His change is superficial, his loyalties change out of emotions and not out of convictions, and as much as this doesn't matter when it comes to the actions he has taken - Snape did have a fundamental role in defeating Voldemort and (questionably) defeating the corruption within the system Rowling so much adores - it matters because it'll indirectly impact the actions he'll make around it, hence his role as professor, for example.

As much as I do respect what it has cost him to endure as a spy for Dumbledore, I cannot say that his actions towards Voldemort are enough for a redemption arc because there's no actual change in Snape. He is the same he always was, he just had a change of loyalties out of love, which is noble but at the same time, it still causes damage to the people around him exactly because he didn't change.