I Could Talk About It Anytime

I could talk about it anytime

I wanted to make an analyses about Six of Crows and neoliberalist policies and how it's perfectly portrayed in Ketterdam, anyone interested in reading it?

Gale and Revolutionary Hate

Okay, it's been a while since I last spoke about THG but I'll give it a try because I've been thinking a lot about this matter.

It's been a while since I saw someone on TikTok defending Gale because, if I remember correctly, he was somewhat of a true revolutionary. The person meant that Gale not only believed in the Revolution but also thought violence was justified for it and although I don't disagree with it - I do think violence is justified in the face of oppression - I think this person forgot a crucial part of what is needed in a Revolution: organizing.

When Marx first brought up the idea of hatred as fuel for the Revolution, what he meant wasn't scorching and annihilating the enemies but using the hatred (born out of indignation for our oppression) as motivation to organize. Organization means being able to get together, form a community, and with that be capable of resisting capitalistic oppression.

And that's exactly what is lacking in Gale.

Don't get me wrong, there is a tremendous anti-violence message in Hunger Games - although I attribute it more to the trauma Katniss goes through because of it (which is warranted) than any ideological point Collins could be trying to make. And that message is definitely not one to pass when the motives of the Revolution are fair but anyhow, the point is: message or no message, I still believe Gale isn't a good example of a revolutionary.

That's because Gale, although filled with an appropriate amount of hatred to fuel a Revolution, lacks another essential aspect of a revolutionary, one Che Guevara puts quite well: "The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."

That's because love is the thing that should be at the core of your hatred. Otherwise, we fall into a trap: in our hatred and need to destroy our enemies, we forget why we're fighting in the first place - the people who are oppressed by this enemy.

So the fact that Gale is willing to go so far as to explode the people out of the mountain on District 2, that he'd bomb the Capital with no care for the people who are there on the side of the revolution but unable to get to the other side of the fight, is what makes him a bad revolutionary.

Because his hatred isn't filled with the notion of community, he sees anyone who doesn't rebel loudly and proudly as an enemy, which simply isn't true. Not everyone will help the Revolution by making a fuss, or by fighting, not everyone can do that. Gale's unwillingness to understand so shows that his hatred isn't founded in any idea of community between the oppressed or love for the people he's a part of but actually is founded in personal offense of the Capital against him and the people he cares about.

Although that's a valid sentiment if your motivations are wrong, so will your actions.

And that's why I think Prim (in the films) and Peeta are the closest thing to a good revolutionary we've got there:

Prim understands there's a reason for violence, which she doesn't partake in not because she thinks it is wrong but simply because it's not her. More than that, Prim's capacity to empathize isn't blurred by her need to survive like Katniss's (understandably so, of course) so she is able to see the people who become collateral damage with kindness and openness that lack in Gale, for example.

Peeta is the same: he understands the necessity of violence but he won't partake in it unless it's the only way (which reminds me of Fidel Castro's quote: "Revolutionaries didn't choose armed struggle as the best path, it's the path the oppressors imposed on the people. And so the people only have two choices: to suffer or to fight"). Peeta chooses to be kind but his violence stems from the hatred this very kindness creates.

So no, I don't think Gale is a good revolutionary regardless of how The Hunger Games was written.

I really like how this is structured by the way lol (:

Hello dear friends

My name is Ahmed Khalil from the Gaza Strip. I am a member of a family of eight. Our home was destroyed, and we were forcibly displaced from northern Gaza to the south after orders from Israeli forces.💔🙏

With a heavy heart and a feeling of shame, I am sending you this message from under the bombardment and destruction. The relentless bombing never seems to stop, making Gaza an unsafe place to live.🥺🍉

I ask you to stand by my side and help save me and my family. We urgently need your financial support and help in sharing my posts so that I can secure the basic necessities for my family. Additionally, your donations can help us evacuate to a safe place.🙏🙏🍉

Your small donation and sharing will make a difference and have a significant impact. Please don't hesitate to donate and share.🍉🙏

Thank you for hearing my story.

My campaign is verified by @90_ghsot /@gazavetters

list of vetted fundraisers (#77) so please dont hesitate to donate whatever you can, and please keep sharing.🍉🍉🥹

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ahmed-khalils-family-evacuate-to-safety

Hey, guys! Please help Ahmed and his family leave Gaza Strip!

Donate what you can or please repost this so it reaches the most people it can.

Thank you <3

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Ahmed Khalil's family evacuate to safety, organized by Mohammed Khalil

Hello, among the hundreds of tragic stories, I am sharing my painful sto… Mohammed Khalil needs your support for Help Ahmed Khalil's family

Snape's Full Character Analysis

Okay, so I’ve already made this kind of post in my previous account (licorice-lips) but since it got deleted, here I go again because I think the world should hear more about this.

I do hate Severus Snape — and I have little to no patience for those who do and try to justify his actions with whatever. But unlike many people, my dislike for Snape doesn’t stem from “oh, he’s a child abuser” or “oh, he didn’t love Lily” but from a mix of many factors involving among other things, the way R*wling portrays supremacist ideology and its followers, the way the fandom often downplays supremacist ideology and its followers, and Snape as a character himself.

Now, I’m going to extend this essay into a full character analysis instead of just commenting on how Snape’s redemption arc sucks like I did previously because I’m feeling like it. To begin, I need you to understand how… biased R*wling’s portray of supremacist ideology really is:

J.K. Rowling is European and English (duh), which means she descends from a people who benefited (a lot and still do) from colonialism and imperialism, and both things are the basis for modern day fascism. As an author myself, it’s painfully clear to me how intrinsically close my characters and works are from myself and my own personal values. As such, it’s not such a hardship — especially if we remember how the elves and goblins are portrayed in HP — to understand how Rowling views political issues such as colonialism, imperialism and fascism.

She may not realize it but the way she does talk about the matter is such a right-wing way of tolerance to fascist thinking: as it’s very clear in Harry Potter just because of the story, the problem for the author isn’t a system of prejudice and bigotry, it’s those very few people who have become corrupted. Rowling does not identify the problem as the tree being bad when most apples — save one of two — have turn out bad. And that’s the core problem of so many things in Harry Potter but it also shows in the core problem I have with Snape’s portrayal: the way she absolutely downplays the fact that the man was a death eater for years of his life by pure and absolute conviction.

As someone who lived through a fascistic government, I’ll say it with all certainty: even the slightest support to fascistic views will propel further an agenda that will end up killing innocent people by the dozens. The truth is, even with all the undeniable good Snape did as he worked as a spy, he was a Death Eater for his conviction and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter why he chose to become one.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that he was neglected and abused by his parents, or that he was bullied in school, or that his crush didn’t reciprocated his feelings: he still became a Death Eater, he chose to become one. And that is unforgivable. It unforgivable because it means he supported and actively worked for a system of thinking that ridiculed, persecuted, tortured and murdered hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people. He advocated for a political view that has no regard for human life, that perpetuates the abuse he suffered firsthand — just in a slightly different direction. He didn’t just not break his cycle of abuse, he actively perpetuated it. Advocated for it.

And don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying here that the abuse Snape went through isn’t important at all: there is definitely something to be said about the preying of supremacist groups for young isolated men who feel left out and emasculated. But that doesn’t mean Snape gets to be absolved for his own choices because that’s what they were: his choices. He chose to become a Death Eater, he chose to uphold the cycles of abuse he had been a victim to not long before, he chose to protect it even in the face of people — good people — telling him that it wasn’t a good thing.

That’s my point, actually: Snape may have been preyed upon by the blood supremacy ideology as a teen but at some point, he chose to be influenced by it more than by millions of other influences around him. He wasn’t completely isolated or ignorant of the world to the point that the only influence he could possibly choose was the blood supremacy one, no: he had people telling him the contrary and still chose to follow blood supremacy. So, no, it’s not forgivable that he chose to become a Death Eater because he did know better than that, his very friendship with Lily proved it.

But because Rowling sees the system — a system whose very roots are prejudice and bigotry — as not actually the problem, we see these problems sliding down the hill of “oh, he was just a misguided boy” even if that’s not what she herself says: it’s what her work says.

The truth is, as much as some supremacist’s core reason for their beliefs are a deep feeling of inadequacy, that’s not enough simply because they’ll cause as much damage with their actions than any other supremacist that’ll become a supremacist for the hatred alone. Snape, who (for some) was propelled into supremacy for his isolation in his teenage years, persecuted and tortured and killed as many people as Lucius or Bellatrix did, the result is the same. And at the end of the day, the reason why you did something doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you did do something.

We can cry a river about how our intentions were good but that doesn’t mean that what we did was. Between our intentions and our actions, there’s an abyss, and it’s not until we crossed it that we can see whether or not they are alike. In Snape’s case, considering he genuinely believed the supremacist ideology he upheld would turn the wizarding world better, it doesn’t really matter: he still caused damage.

And he has never been redeemed because for a redemption arc to work properly, you need to

Acknowledge what happened — there’s not much Snape is liable to deny it happened because, of course, he’s always caught on the scenes we are privy to.

Take accountability for what you’ve done — which Snape doesn’t do, as it’s exemplified perfectly many times throughout The Prince’s Tale in Deathly Hollows. He deflects, he lies, he declares he had no intentions of doing what he did, but he never, not once, takes accountability for what he has done and what ended up hurting other people:

“There was a crack. A branch over Petunia’s head had fallen. Lily screamed. The branch caught Petunia on the shoulder, and she staggered backward and burst into tears.

“Tuney!” But Petunia was running away. Lily rounded on Snape. “Did you make that happen?” “No.” He looked both defiant and scared. “You did!” She was backing away from him. “You did! You hurt her!” “No – no, I didn’t!” But the lie did not convince Lily.”

““…thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying, “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all –” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny –” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape.”

“It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just –” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice.”

To make amends for what you did — I’m not even going to deepen my argument on this one, it’s clear he didn’t. Not when he hurt Petunia, not when he hurt Lily, not when he hurt anyone really, the only exception being him protection Harry after telling Voldemort about the prophecy, but that’s not overcoming any patterns here, which brings me to my next point:

To accept the boundaries that you put in place as they’re on the path to earn forgiveness — which Snape also doesn’t, as exemplified in this excerpt of The Prince’s Tale:

The scene changed… “I’m sorry.” “I’m not interested.” “I’m sorry!” “Save your breath” It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just –”

It’s very important to understand here that Snape doesn’t respect Lily’s boundaries of not wanting to talk to him after he called her a slur, which is also a sign of not being in a path to earn forgiveness. And forgiveness must be earned: no amount of trauma explaining our actions actually counts as an excuse for our behavior. It can explain it and thus, making forgiveness easier to achieve, but trauma doesn’t change the fact that we are responsible for our own choices and acts throughout our lives, and if we hurt someone, we have a responsibility to be accountable and make amends.

So okay, we’ve stablished that Snape has some heavy trauma to work through but that doesn’t mean he’s not liable for his own actions. Now, what we need to understand is his relationship with the Marauders. That’s a much more complicated theme, which will bring me back to Rowling and her point of view of things and how they impact her narrative and the way things are portrayed in the books.

The first thing we need to notice is that Rowling doesn’t seem much preoccupied with portraying bullying in a responsible way throughout the series. It’s clear that many of the comedic reliefs we have — especially in the form of Fred and George — are bullies in the modern, more “strict” way of seeing children’s behavior: their acts not only can be considered humiliating for some (such as Neville and other side characters in the books) but also downright cruel or dangerous. So it’s clear by her account on other similar relationships portrayed in the books that Rowling didn’t consider what Snape and the Marauders had as a bully/victim relationship.

That can be because of her age, or because of the character’s age even (they were in the 90s after all), or even a mix of both reasons, but the fact remains that she didn’t view it as bullying, so anything she writes about it will be a gross exaggeration of what she considers child rivalry. It’s one of the reasons I have the icks when anyone starts asking her for a book on the Marauders because I just know she’d butcher her way into their stories, to be completely honest.

Unfortunately, this also means it’s how Snape views it all — as something that happens between children (not saying that it didn’t cause trauma, just that he doesn’t see it as a trauma) which makes him even back up the people who do the same when he becomes a teacher, such as Malfoy and his friends. My point is that, in the building of Snape’s character, his problem with what the Marauders used to do to him wasn’t what they did but rather that they did it with him, someone Snape viewed as undeserving of it, as opposed to when someone who did deserve — such as muggleborns — were the target of said treatment:

“We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all –” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny –”

So the problem in the end wasn’t the Marauder’s behavior but their target — which, of course, was him.

But the origin of the Marauder’s dislike for Snape at that point ran deep and very intricately: there was a lot of reason why we could attribute to their hatred for each other, such as house rivalry, Snape’s fixation on Remus’ secret, James’ jealousy for Lily and Snape’s friendship, Snape’s inclination for dark magic and supremacist views, Sirius overcompensation for being raised in such a prejudiced environment and as such becoming a little too aggressive about it, and many other reasons. The point is, there was a meddle of everything by the time we reach SWM.

So their relationship is just as intricate and difficult to entangle. I’m not saying here that any of my analysis exempts the Marauders from what they did — it was serious and bad and something that shouldn’t have happened at all regardless of how I feel about Snape. But as I try to analyze Snape’s character in the books, I need to be very careful on how to approach this: my morals and interpretations of what happened shouldn’t come first to what Snape’s viewed at the moment and what he took from this. So at last, what I’m saying is: as much as I know that was some hard bullying going on there, Snape didn’t see it that way, either because Rowling herself couldn’t see it that way and because the time and the time’s belief’s system wouldn’t allow him to.

Anyway, if we take any only the facts, we have — James attacked Snape sometime after Snape tried to catch Remus in the Shrieking Shack, Snape also instigated fights with James, Snape and his friends also bullied muggleborns and blood traitor — it becomes very clear that we need to balance power relations very carefully here:

On the very top, we have supremacist purebloods, which are the most privileged social group at the time, which would include people like Lucius, Bellatrix, the Lestrange brothers, most of the Blacks, and others. Then, right below, we’d have purebloods who didn’t believe in blood purity, such as Sirius, the Potters (James specially), the Weasleys, the Prewetts, the Longbottoms and others. Plus, the more I consider the wizarding world of that time, the more I realize how close halfbloods who adhered to the purist cause had a place in society that rivaled the same importance with purebloods who were considered blood traitors, sometimes ranking even higher depending on the environment or situation.

Just to be entirely clear: when I say halfbloods, I’m not only talking about those whose heritage are certain (children of muggleborns or muggles with purebloods) but also to those whose heritage couldn’t be drawn back. For example, the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the account of all pureblooded families in Great Britain, is admittedly an incomplete and slightly biased and unreliable source. They didn’t list the Potters as purebloods, for example, solely on the account of, whilst the family didn’t have any muggle relatives, there were enough muggles with the last name Potter that they weren’t sure about the family’s heritage. So it’s fair to assume a lot of people we’d been presented to as halfbloods could be pureblood familys whose heritage was slightly questioned. So yes, I’d put halfbloods who stood with blood supremacy as just as privileged as a pureblood who sided against it because of all this background. Then, we have halfbloods who didn’t approve of pureblood supremacy, muggleborns, then muggles.

It’s quite understandable by the books that, while in SWM, Snape was in a clear place of power imbalance in relation to the Marauders, the truth wasn’t always this. Mulciber and Avery are quoted as the closest to Snape (and we know very well what they’ve become after school), and although I found nothing in regards to the Mulciber family, the Averys were purebloods, so I have to place Snape as being just as privileged as the Marauders within normal (normal, not exceptional) school social dynamics in relation to blood. Of course that wasn’t truth to every power dynamic presented within the Harry Potter world, such as the Slytherin conundrum for example.

Okay, I’ll be honest with you guys here: I feel like the imbalance people accuse the adults of Harry Potter of having is grossly exaggerated sometimes. Yes, Slytherin was in disadvantage in relation to other houses, and it was looked upon by them, but the point is: ancient pureblooded families, especially the ones who were knee deep in supremacist ideology, often favored Slytherin, that is a fact.

Regardless of it been productive or not, the most blood supremacists within the house, the more we’d get comments and actions against muggleborns within school grounds that would inevitably be punished by the taking of points (and by the way, Snape was not helping congratulating Draco for his own bigotry instead of rewarding Slytherins who were actually interested in studying and working hard on their grades).

Plus, Gryffindor is the house of the protagonist — of course it’ll gain some privileges for that. If it was Ravenclawn, we’d be discussing this issue with Slytherin versus Ravenclawn points. It makes no sense accusing other of having biases like that because it’s obvious we’d have this kind of biases exactly for the plain reason it’s the protagonist’s house.

Anyway, I digress: because of the points I just made about it, the Slytherin versus Gryffindor rivalry is not enough to grant James and the others such a significative upper hand on their privilege in relation to Snape, although I would argue that Snape’s pre-existing bigotry did him no favors in the adults’ eyes on that matter, so it may have.

Now, why am I focusing on that? Because it’s clear to me that, while James and the others had a clear upper hand on their treatment of Snape in Snape’s Worst Memory, it’s not so clear as people seem to believe what the picture looked like the rest of the time. And of course, I do understand that it seems very much cemented on everyone’s minds that the configuration of the Marauders and Snape relationship was always the one we see in Snape’s Worst Memory, but that’s not completely truth and there are hints of it since the fifth book:

When Sirius said James wasn’t the only one to initiate fights, when he said Snape was always trying to sneak up on James, when we learn of the spells Snape had invented as a teenager (we can half-confidently say they were for the Marauders considering Snape’s trying to use Sectumsempra on James, but not limited to them, of course), when we get to know that Snape was “always trying” to prove that Remus was a werewolf to get him expelled, among other moments.  The truth is, as much as I would like to point out the Marauders were not so bad, I can’t say this with certainty, but Snape apologists can’t say for certain they know fully the dynamics of their relationship either because even when the Marauders weren’t good people, they can’t say Snape was only a victim as well.

Or at least, they can’t say that he was the kind of victim who didn’t victimized people just like he was victimized too. And that’s probably even more reason why I dislike him, but I’ll get there. What I do know is that Snape, for his supremacist views alone, was doing a lot worse than what the Marauders were doing as teens. I’m sorry, it’s true: as much as I despise bullying, I can’t get over the fact that Snape was the equivalent of a Hitler youth child soldier in the wizarding world when he was a teenager. I’d punch him myself if I was his classmate, to be honest. Hatred aside, however, I do understand that what the Marauders did had little to nothing to do with supremacist views and all to do with being idiots, so yeah, fuck them. I’m not here to defend the Marauders anyway, just to condemn Snape (which, surprise, surprise, it’s actually possible).

Now, I dread having to go there, to be honest, but I want to talk to you guys about Snapes’ feelings for Lily. I’ve read the most grotesque and misogynistic things I’ve ever read in my life scrolling through Snape stans posts and let’s be honest here: Lily and Snape’s relationship was so toxic I would come back healthier if I went to Chernobyl than going anywhere near them together — because of Severus — and it’s actually appalling that some people doesn’t seem to think so. I’m sorry, but all the signs of classical emotional abuse signs are right there, just in the Prince’s Tale:

Belittling and constant criticism — I’m sorry, but his behavior alone says everything: you can’t treat muggleborns like they’re trash and then try to convince your muggleborn best-friend they she’s not. The belittling is in his actions. And then there’s the fact that Snape brings up accusations of Lily liking James more than once as a form of criticism as well (because neither have a good opinion of James, which is fair, but it’s still veiled criticism of Lily). Plus, his belittling of Lily’s feeling over Petunia’s hatred of her is obvious:

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said in a constricted voice. “Why not?” “Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore.” “So what?” She threw him a look of deep dislike. “So she’s my sister!” “She’s only a – ” He caught himself quickly; Lily, too busy trying to wipe her eyes without being noticed, did not hear him.”

Gaslighting and controlling tendencies — when he tries to convince Lily he didn’t use magic to hurt Petunia with the tree branch, or when he questions their friendship because she’s trying to make a constructive critic of his life choices (“I thought we’re supposed to be friends?... Best friends?”), or when he tries to dictate who she’ll be friends with (when they’re discussing his own friends by the way). Even if Lily doesn’t let him, doesn’t mean it’s not abusive.

Isolation of loved ones — Constantly belittling Petunia, setting Lily and himself as above her because of their magic, convincing Lily to invade Petunia’s privacy thus isolating her further, causing rifts between Lily’s friends in Gryffindor and her because of his supremacist tendencies…

Jealousy and Possessiveness — I do think this one is self-explanatory.

Humiliation and Shaming — I also believe this one is also self-explanatory.

Unpredictable or Inconsistent Behavior — This is perfectly exemplified by their conversation when Lily is pointing out about his friends’ bad influence on him. We can see perfectly how inconsistent Snape’s behavior is, jumping from deflecting his accountability, downplaying his own bad deeds, to possessiveness and jealousy over absolutely nothing Lily has ever referenced to (try not to read what they’re saying but instead just concentrate at how abruptly Snape goes from one to the other):

“…thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying, “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, ’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all – ” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny – ” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His color rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment. “What’s Potter got to do with anything?” said Lily. “They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?” “He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill – ” “Every month at the full moon?” said Snape. “I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold. “Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?” “I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.” The intensity of his gaze made her blush. “They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” She dropped her voice. “And you’re being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there – ” Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends’ too! You’re not going to – I won’t let you – ” “Let me? Let me?” Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. “I didn’t m ean – I just don’t want to see you made a fool of – He fancies you, James Potter fancies you!” The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. “And he’s not…everyone thinks…big Quidditch hero – ” Snape’s bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Lily’s eyebrows were traveling farther and farther up her forehead. “I know James Potter’s an arrogant toerag,” she said, cutting across Snape. “I don’t need you to tell me that. But Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them.” Harry doubted that Snape had even heard her strictures on Mulciber and Avery. The moment she had insulted James Potter, his whole body had relaxed, and as they walked away there was a new spring in Snape’s step…

There’s also the fact that their friendship began in a relation of power that met its inevitable demise once those specific conditions tumbled down: when Snape met Lily, he was all the source she had about the wizarding world, he was her only link to that part of herself she felt was so different from anyone else. Once Lily arrived at Hogwarts, this dependance quickly came to an end with Lily spreading her wings, which probably also took a heavy tool on their relationship because its foundation was already fragile to begin with.

However, I’m not saying here that Snape was this evil mastermind at nine years old he managed to consciously ensnare Lily into this emotionally abusive relationship all by his astute manipulation. Snape was a child of abuse and neglect and, as such, he never learned how to properly bond and stablish healthy relationships. Much like the child starved by love he was, Snape probably saw every and any other relationship Lily had as a threat to their own relationship, because he doesn’t know love is not finite — he doesn’t know love stretches to accommodate other people with the time. It’s not unreasonable for me to read their relationship as such, although I’m sure that wasn’t JK Rowling’s intentions when she wrote HP, in fact it’s more than possible to admit their friendship sucked even when Snape remembered it so fondly.

As a person who actually went through an emotionally abusive relationship, I can tell how exhausting it is to carry this person along and make up excuses for everyone around you who can clearly see that this friendship sucks but doesn’t want to tell you because it might make things worse. Specially if I’m talking about someone who believes the way you were born makes you inferior in some way, that shit really hurts even when they say you’re different because deep down, you know you’re not. Deep down, you know that you’re the exception over some crooked perception you somehow beat the odds of an inferior condition and that’s what makes you “special”. And it’s gross just to think about it.

Okay, so now I think I analyzed everything about Snape I’ve wanted to analyze, so I’ll end here my enormous rant about him and if there’s anything else I want to talk about when this starts to get hate, I’ll probably post a part two.

Bye, guys!

Help me decide or I'll go mad

My current dilemma as a writer is whether I write...

A. A gay romance between Romeo and Mercutio with Juliet as Romeo's beard and best friend, the fight of both houses their most terrible enemy and a lot of angst because of compulsory heterosexuality

OR

B. A poly romance between Romeo, Mercutio, and Juliet with enemies to lovers Romeo and Juliet, a very-tired-of-the-fight-let's-make-them-kiss Mercutio, secret relationships, a side romance between Rosalina and Paris, and a mystery in fair Verona that Mercutio is obsessing over.

SOC and Neoliberlism

So, as promised, here it is my analysis of Six of Crows and how neoliberalism is amazingly portrayed in Ketterdam, and how the city is an example of what happens in a community that is not provided for.

Before we begin, I wanted to say that English is not my first language, and, considering I read SOC in Brazilian Portuguese, I might translate some names literally or differently from the English version but I think it's manageable to read and understand my point. If not, I'll edit the text.

The first thing we have to understand is how neoliberalism works and the theory behind it, and then we'll talk about how it's portrayed in Ketterdam.

So neoliberalism is a theory born more or less at the end of the 20th century (70s-80s), and it finds its roots in laissez-faire capitalism, meaning that it's a political current that tries to suppress and/or eliminate the State's influence from the market. The neoliberalist view understands that the market can supply by itself the population's needs without help or limitations imposed by the State.

The thing here is that most people listen to this and think neoliberalism is about electronics, cars, and other stuff. The truth is, that neoliberalism aims to suppress the presence of State-run facilities in ALL corners of society, such as health care, housing, water access, electricity, etcetera.

So, we can use the American and Brazillian health systems to understand it better, for example:

In the US, the ones providing health care for the population are great corporations - they decide the price of care, they work together with pharmaceutical companies to define medicine prices, and the laws that bind them are pretty much only offer and demand. There is almost none State intervention to provide the population with accessible health care.

However, this brings problems, of course: not everyone (actually, most people) has real access to health care simply because they can't afford it, or they can't afford it without taking a big financial hit, which threatens their other basic needs, such as food, housing, water, electricity, etcetera. Not everyone can provide for their medical needs, such as diabetic and disabled people.

That leads to:

(a) an increase in poverty;

(b) a decrease in educational levels - if you don't have the means to pay for higher educational levels because of health care debt, or if you're sick and need to go to class and tough through it but you're not really learning anything, and so on, which leads to a major workforce in base level production and a minor class who has access to this education;

(c) an increase in overworking people - meaning that we have a lot of people taking on several jobs to be able to pay for things like health care, which increases the competitiveness between people, making individualism levels go up and breaking up human beings' natural sense of community.

I could also talk here about how this breeds isolation and increases the potential for mental health problems but I think you got what I was saying.

On the other hand, we have the Brazilian health care system (SUS), which is a universal gratuitous medical care service through the whole country. Its purpose is not profit, it's providing health care for the community, so therefore, any SUS unit is bound by State law and run by the State. By law, every SUS unit must provide for anyone who enters its premises in need of medical care. Everyone, Brazillian and foreigners, poor or rich, must be treated if they need to. It's the law.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's all rainbows and flowers, there are definitely many problems in SUS. However, what I'm trying to showcase here is that, when the needs of a population are met, the population itself is more resilient, their life quality goes up and so does their participation in their community.

On the other hand, in neoliberalism, when the State is absent from these areas of community service, the market is, in theory, the one providing for the community. In practice, however, what we observe from neoliberal policies in cities with a great poor population in Latam for example, is that when the State doesn't provide for the community, the market is unable to step up for them because of their obscene prices.

The poor population that doesn't have their needs met by the State or the market sees a great boom in criminal activities within their spaces. That's mainly why criminal organizations are so present in slums and favelas throughout Latin America: criminal organizations are a way for the community to provide for themselves and, as a means to become more powerful, they provide for the community in exchange for their services (not to say they do that for the good of their hearts, of course not).

It's why it's so common, for example, that criminal organizations such as PCC in Brazil pay for kids from favelas to undergo Law school, for example.

And that's is where I wanted to go to start the conversation in SOC: one of the main traits of Ketterdam is the Barrel and, in the Barrel, we have the presence of many criminal organizations, such as the Dregs, the Dime Lions, the Menagerie staff (not the girls, ofc), etcetera.

This, as observed by Kaz himself, is one of the only ways to survive on the Barrel - you filiate yourself to a gang because you need to be able to provide for yourself and, more times than others, for your family as well.

Kaz's story is actually a perfect example of how Ketterdam is the representation of America in the early 20th century in full policies of laissez-faire (neoliberalism): as we can see in Titanic and many other historical fictions, the said American Dream had people believing the US to be this economical paradise where they could all enter the market and become millionaires.

The result of it is the Great Depression, of course, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When Kaz and Jodi leave Lij for Ketterdam, Jodi believes he'll become a merchant - which is a pretty common belief of those who arrive at Ketterdam, as Pekka Rollins and Kaz himself state in Crooked Kingdom.

The reality of it, though, is much harsher, because the truth is that when you have a market that controls everything, as we see in Ketterdam with the Merchant's Guild (I think that's how it's translated?) and the Stadwatch as a police force, you see perfectly how neoliberal policies really work in real life:

You have a higher class who controls the market and the riches (question: who do you think got the money Shu Han sent to Ketterdam at the beginning of the first book: the people of the city/country or the merchants in the "government"?), and a lower class that, without support from the State or the market to have their needs met will turn to their own means to do so.

So you have the trafficking that brought Inej to the island, the unlimited gambling that Jesper was trapped in, the cons Jodi and Kaz fell for - it's all product of liberal policies.

And so, you have Ketterdam and its neoliberal policies (:

(I really love to make this kind of analysis, please, if you have something you want me to talk about, don't hesitate to ask)