Thank You For A Wonderful Meta. And The Link. I Think You Come Of As Being Dismissive Of Both Racism

Thank you for a wonderful meta. And the link. I think you come of as being dismissive of both racism and the intersection between racism and pure classism. Or I'm British and I don't agree with that. But I am grateful for the discussion and answer.

I apologise if you feel that I was dismissive of racism.  Having gone back and read your ask again, I hold my hands up - you stated that Snape has privilege based upon his ethnicity and sex, and not (as I read) that he was privileged because of this.  The difference is subtle, but it’s there - and I apologise because your point is fair.

To clarify, I did not intend to suggest that race is not at all relevant, nor was I suggesting that class is the only attribute that people use to discriminate.  I wholeheartedly agree that white people are inadvertently complicit in systemic prejudice without consciously recognising it - but I also feel that people do not give class (particularly when discussing UK society) the critique and analysis it deserves, and I was too quick to grumble.

If your still doing snape asks

50 35 41 40 🕺

thank you for the ask, anon!

35. do you have a snape brotp?

snape and lucius malfoy.

i don’t subscribe to all the fanon which surrounds these two (i don’t - for example - accept the headcanon that snape is draco’s godfather) but i see no reason why we should doubt that narcissa’s description of snape as ‘lucius’ old friend’ is sincere.

something i see a lot - especially from writers whose interest is in the characters aligned with the order - is the idea that the death eaters are all out for themselves and (outside of some fanatical outliers, such as bellatrix) that they have no genuine loyalty either to voldemort or to each other.

not so, i fear. i really dislike the idea that the death eaters all turn on each other after voldemort’s death (i prefer to think that they frustrate the shacklebolt government profoundly by refusing to talk) and i really dislike the idea that they didn’t have profound, real friendships among themselves.

it’s obvious in canon that becoming a death eater offered snape a community he truly felt welcomed by for the first time (and i think it speaks highly of him that he was nonetheless prepared to lose that when he turned against voldemort) and, part of that, is that i think it’s important to believe that his friendship with lucius was real.

after all, he’s upset when harry names him as having been present at voldemort’s resurrection in goblet of fire…

40. other than lily, who do you think impacted snape's life the most?

lord voldemort.

i don’t just mean in that voldemort’s decision to go after lily is the trigger for snape upending his entire life, but also that voldemort is evidently the first person snape ever meets who takes him seriously. it’s clear from canon that voldemort is the only person the teenage snape knows who takes and active interest in improving his life - snape must become a death eater because voldemort offers him a chance to transcend the restrictive class structure which rips opportunities away from poor half-bloods unless they have a slughorn-esque patron, and also because voldemort understands and validates snape’s attitude towards and interest in magic and experimentation [and, indeed, that he shares this].

voldemort is obviously fond of snape (he must recognise so much of himself in him -feral working-class children with muggle names and disappointing dads need to stick together, after all) and he appears to have offered him intensive training - in the dark arts, obviously, but given that voldemort describes himself in goblet of fire as someone who dabbles with inventing potions, why not that discipline too - which the adult snape makes use of throughout his teaching career.

plus - the adult snape clearly models how he speaks and comports himself (so, all the things about his demeanour which we most enjoy) on voldemort.

[seriously, they have near-identical speech patterns, they get a lot of the same movement and dialogue descriptors, which is cute.]

41. do you think that there is a side to snape that he doesn't let anyone see? what do you headcanon this "secret personality" to be like?

my hottest take?

what you see with snape is - generally - what you get.

i really dislike the preternaturally emotionally repressed snape of fanon (and of the films - as i’ve written elsewhere, i think alan rickman played the character terribly…). the canonical snape is emotionally expressive, disinclined to pretend he likes or agrees with things he doesn’t, and someone whose feelings can often be read on his face. he keeps some things bottled up - of course - but i don’t think that, for example, his romantic partner is going to discover that he has a secret soft side (or, indeed, a secret capacity to be utterly horrible) which would sound completely, incomprehensibly out of character to anyone else they mentioned it to.

50. had snape lived, would he continue teaching at hogwarts?

ok so my other hot take… yes.

the standard wisdom in the fandom seems to be that snape loathes teaching, that he only stays in the job because he is compelled to by dumbledore as part of his spy duties, and that he feels imprisoned by hogwarts. and, obviously, the fact that he’s someone whose adult life is so relentlessly miserable in all other aspects supports the idea that he’d be miserable because of his professional circumstances too.

but…

the idea that snape hates teaching seems, to me, to stem from a misunderstanding about the narrative purpose he serves as a teacher in the series. because, while he’s certainly a cruel teacher - in keeping with his children’s literature archetype, the mean schoolmaster that the child reader can delight in seeing undermined - he’s also a good and committed one. his classes achieve extremely high results (he is able to insist on a pass rate from every pupil; he can fill his newt classes to capacity without having to lower his grade requirements), he is interested in improving the standard curriculum by modifying the potions he teachers, he clearly does take care to lead his classes through the theory of the subject (harry and ron just don’t listen to him), and he seems to take pride in his job (he’s pissed off when lockhart tries to muscle in on his turf, he delights in lording his professional expertise over umbridge).

all of which is to say… he’s back to sweeping around that dungeon the second the venom’s out of his bloodstream. slughorn’s delighted - he can retire for a second time and try and get a pineapple endorsement deal on the strength of having fought in the battle of hogwarts.

Image: The Drake meme with the “no” text saying “Snape is a tragic hero,” and the “yes” text saying, “Snape is basically an incel.”

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I don’t want to start political disputes, but I can see Snape voting for Thatcher. The Iron Lady was badass af

i really don't know how to respond to this

There’s something I don’t understand in the HP books and more particularly, how we are supposed to judge Snape as a teacher.

Beyond all the hate-then-defense arguments—and believe me I’m the first one to defend him—the problem is that if Snape’s teaching was so bad, then how is it:

1 - every (or almost every) student succeeds their OWLs

2 - his lessons are "fairly advanced"

3 - there are relatively few students who fail in his class (2 or 3), and one of them succeeds his OWLs with an E and previously had bad marks only because he wouldn’t concentrate, while the others are ok in the end?

Asking this because right now, I AM having a bad teacher who puts pressure on me and more or less insults me. The result is that I am afraid (for my life) everytime I start learning how to drive (almost shaking in my seat) and last time I cried in the car. Feeling like I had quite the Neville Syndrome.

But the problem is: with a bad teacher, your class is NOT "fairly advanced" because students learn badly and thus more slowly; you do NOT succeed in your exams, only with lower probabilities; and if this bad teacher’s behavior is for everyone, then LOTS more people would fail.

So theoretically, Snape’s classes, if he were such a bad teacher (and some of his behavior is indeed callous), would be a ruin.

And this is so weird, because the books are supposed to present us a Professor Snape who’s such a meanie and a bad teacher—the author herself dislikes him and wanted to write him as a bad teacher—and yet it almost seems like the books and the author are showing that in the end, Snape’s ("mean") teaching style is actually a good thing, because it brings (arguably) good results.

Even when it comes to students who do not pay attention to his classes and don’t study a lot.

I’m sure this wasn’t the author’s intention, but then you wonder if... she would actually approve of this character’s pedagogic methods if only it weren’t Snape. Because in the end, she shows that his "callous, mean" teaching methods bring good results. Had she truly acknowledged them bad, then I think she wouldn’t have shown those positive consequences (since there wouldn’t be any).

Looking at other, "nicer" teachers’ horrible behaviours, it indeed looks like neither the author, nor Harry/the books, nor even the Wizarding World’s logic, has understood that this is a problem.