![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Random musings about Harry, Snape and Voldemort
This mini-essay is entirely the fault of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lunafish, who triggered these ramblings by half a sentence at Mugglenet Fanfiction Forums... She touched upon the similarities between Snape and Harry, and I threw Voldemort into the mix.
In HBP, Snape has been carefully set up as a kind of carbon copy of Voldemort. He had a Muggle father and a pure-blood mother, just like Tom Riddle. We have been led to assume that Eileen Prince's marriage was unhappy, like Merope Gaunt's. Snape grew up in straitened circumstances, just like Tom the orphan. From childhood onwards, Snape had an inclination towards Dark Arts as is evident from the fact that he famously knew a lot of curses when he arrived at Hogwarts aged eleven - again a tendency that the future Voldemort also possessed. And then there is their shared love of fake noble titles: Prince and Lord.
In previous books (most notably Chamber of Secrets), Harry has realised how much he has in common with Voldemort. It is not a coincidence that the Sorting Hat would have placed him in Slytherin if he had not objected against the fact. There is Parseltongue, and Harry's inclination to ignore rules and be economical with the truth; but there is also the start of both their stories. Harry and Tom both had unhappy childhoods, orphaned, unwanted and unloved as they were. The revelation that they were wizards came upon them as a surprise, and Hogwarts seemed a sort of paradise - both of them are loath to leave the school for the holidays and return to a 'home' that does not really welcome them. As far as we know, Snape was not an orphan when he arrived at Hogwarts; but it is very likely that the school of wizardry filled him with the same sense of wonder and excitement as it inspired in Harry and Tom. There was certainly very little by way of magic in the mill town where he grew up. Now, being suddenly exposed to this brave new world can easily lead to a young wizard or witch getting a bit carried away, and I daresay that is what happened in the case of Voldemort, and arguably also Snape. But what about Harry, who had the same set-up?
Snape says in Chapter Two of HBP that many Dark wizards were expecting Harry to become the new Dark Lord. Now why didn't he turn out to be just that? Dumbledore supplies the answer: Harry will never turn towards the Dark because of all he has suffered at a Dark wizard's hands. How can he sympathise with a man, a movement, an ideology that is responsible for the death of his parents and thus the cause of all the misery of his early life? Since he was a baby, Harry has lived the harm that Dark magic can do. He is not about to embrace it.
In this, Harry may seem very different from Snape, who is truly passionate about the Dark Arts. And yet: I wonder if he would have felt the same about them if he had been exposed to the kind of things Harry experienced. Snape has never, as far as we know, been a victim of Dark magic; indeed, it is what has empowered and sustained him. And we may very well ask whether Harry would not have enjoyed it just the same if Voldemort hadn't killed his parents.
Look at it this way: Snape and Harry hate each other. When Snape looks at Harry he sees a smaller version of James Potter and relives a schoolboy history of mutual harrassment; as such he never gives Harry a chance. Harry, on the other hand, takes up his father's legacy and refuses to see in Snape anything else than a nasty teacher, a Dark wizard and Death Eater; in his turn, Harry never gives Snape any credit. But look what happens when he stumbles upon Snape's annotated Potions textbook without knowing who the previous owner was: he likes the Half-Blood Prince.
The Half-Blood Prince's book bears all the hallmarks of Snape's personality. There are the meticulous annotations in a cramped handwriting, the sarcastic comments ("Shove a bezoar down their throats"), the cleverness, the ingenuity and usefulness of spells like "Muffliato", the nastiness of "Levicorpus" and the darkness of "Sectumsempra". Harry is charmed by the boy in the book. He recognises mischievousness and a somewhat nasty sense of humour, and he likes it. It is Hermione, not he, who gets upset at the less-than-nice side of the Half-Blood Prince; Harry thinks of him as a trusted friend and keeps defending him even after his discovery of what Sectumsempra actually does. In fact, the reason why the Prince appeals to him is because they share this ambiguity of character. Harry isn't always nice. He can be quite brutal to people who he feels deserve it, and his own sense of humour contains its fair share of sarcasm. And when he is truly angry and hurt, he starts throwing things (remember his destruction of Dumbledore's instruments) and casting really serious curses (Cruciatus at Bellatrix, Cruciatus and Sectumsempra at Snape).
Strangely enough, although Harry did recognise the parallels between himself and Voldemort, he has never acknowledged those between himself and Snape. Indeed, as soon as he understands that the Half-Blood Prince is really Snape, he is embarrassed and angry at having been charmed by him. And it is doubtful that he would have followed the book's instructions, even, if he had known the identity of the previous owner. Personally I would be very interested to know what Snape would have thought if he knew to what extent Harry cherished his book and the boy who wrote it...
To my mind, there is really a greater similarity between Harry and Snape than between Harry and Tom Riddle, or even Snape and Voldemort. Voldemort is a psychopath; Snape isn't. Voldemort has no sense of humour, and he believes his own lies. He has never shown the least bit of compassion for anyone or respected anyone except himself. He has tried, and pretty much succeeded, to escape his humanity. I realise there can be quite a lot of discussion about Snape when it comes to compassion and respect, and HBP has certainly caused a lot of confusion; but one thing we can say with certainty: Snape has never gone as far in the Dark Arts as Voldemort has. He is still human and appears to have no desire to dehumanise himself. If you ask me, he is very much what Harry would have become had he been sorted into Slytherin.
lunafish, who triggered these ramblings by half a sentence at Mugglenet Fanfiction Forums... She touched upon the similarities between Snape and Harry, and I threw Voldemort into the mix. In HBP, Snape has been carefully set up as a kind of carbon copy of Voldemort. He had a Muggle father and a pure-blood mother, just like Tom Riddle. We have been led to assume that Eileen Prince's marriage was unhappy, like Merope Gaunt's. Snape grew up in straitened circumstances, just like Tom the orphan. From childhood onwards, Snape had an inclination towards Dark Arts as is evident from the fact that he famously knew a lot of curses when he arrived at Hogwarts aged eleven - again a tendency that the future Voldemort also possessed. And then there is their shared love of fake noble titles: Prince and Lord.
In previous books (most notably Chamber of Secrets), Harry has realised how much he has in common with Voldemort. It is not a coincidence that the Sorting Hat would have placed him in Slytherin if he had not objected against the fact. There is Parseltongue, and Harry's inclination to ignore rules and be economical with the truth; but there is also the start of both their stories. Harry and Tom both had unhappy childhoods, orphaned, unwanted and unloved as they were. The revelation that they were wizards came upon them as a surprise, and Hogwarts seemed a sort of paradise - both of them are loath to leave the school for the holidays and return to a 'home' that does not really welcome them. As far as we know, Snape was not an orphan when he arrived at Hogwarts; but it is very likely that the school of wizardry filled him with the same sense of wonder and excitement as it inspired in Harry and Tom. There was certainly very little by way of magic in the mill town where he grew up. Now, being suddenly exposed to this brave new world can easily lead to a young wizard or witch getting a bit carried away, and I daresay that is what happened in the case of Voldemort, and arguably also Snape. But what about Harry, who had the same set-up?
Snape says in Chapter Two of HBP that many Dark wizards were expecting Harry to become the new Dark Lord. Now why didn't he turn out to be just that? Dumbledore supplies the answer: Harry will never turn towards the Dark because of all he has suffered at a Dark wizard's hands. How can he sympathise with a man, a movement, an ideology that is responsible for the death of his parents and thus the cause of all the misery of his early life? Since he was a baby, Harry has lived the harm that Dark magic can do. He is not about to embrace it.
In this, Harry may seem very different from Snape, who is truly passionate about the Dark Arts. And yet: I wonder if he would have felt the same about them if he had been exposed to the kind of things Harry experienced. Snape has never, as far as we know, been a victim of Dark magic; indeed, it is what has empowered and sustained him. And we may very well ask whether Harry would not have enjoyed it just the same if Voldemort hadn't killed his parents.
Look at it this way: Snape and Harry hate each other. When Snape looks at Harry he sees a smaller version of James Potter and relives a schoolboy history of mutual harrassment; as such he never gives Harry a chance. Harry, on the other hand, takes up his father's legacy and refuses to see in Snape anything else than a nasty teacher, a Dark wizard and Death Eater; in his turn, Harry never gives Snape any credit. But look what happens when he stumbles upon Snape's annotated Potions textbook without knowing who the previous owner was: he likes the Half-Blood Prince.
The Half-Blood Prince's book bears all the hallmarks of Snape's personality. There are the meticulous annotations in a cramped handwriting, the sarcastic comments ("Shove a bezoar down their throats"), the cleverness, the ingenuity and usefulness of spells like "Muffliato", the nastiness of "Levicorpus" and the darkness of "Sectumsempra". Harry is charmed by the boy in the book. He recognises mischievousness and a somewhat nasty sense of humour, and he likes it. It is Hermione, not he, who gets upset at the less-than-nice side of the Half-Blood Prince; Harry thinks of him as a trusted friend and keeps defending him even after his discovery of what Sectumsempra actually does. In fact, the reason why the Prince appeals to him is because they share this ambiguity of character. Harry isn't always nice. He can be quite brutal to people who he feels deserve it, and his own sense of humour contains its fair share of sarcasm. And when he is truly angry and hurt, he starts throwing things (remember his destruction of Dumbledore's instruments) and casting really serious curses (Cruciatus at Bellatrix, Cruciatus and Sectumsempra at Snape).
Strangely enough, although Harry did recognise the parallels between himself and Voldemort, he has never acknowledged those between himself and Snape. Indeed, as soon as he understands that the Half-Blood Prince is really Snape, he is embarrassed and angry at having been charmed by him. And it is doubtful that he would have followed the book's instructions, even, if he had known the identity of the previous owner. Personally I would be very interested to know what Snape would have thought if he knew to what extent Harry cherished his book and the boy who wrote it...
To my mind, there is really a greater similarity between Harry and Snape than between Harry and Tom Riddle, or even Snape and Voldemort. Voldemort is a psychopath; Snape isn't. Voldemort has no sense of humour, and he believes his own lies. He has never shown the least bit of compassion for anyone or respected anyone except himself. He has tried, and pretty much succeeded, to escape his humanity. I realise there can be quite a lot of discussion about Snape when it comes to compassion and respect, and HBP has certainly caused a lot of confusion; but one thing we can say with certainty: Snape has never gone as far in the Dark Arts as Voldemort has. He is still human and appears to have no desire to dehumanise himself. If you ask me, he is very much what Harry would have become had he been sorted into Slytherin.
no subject
I have to ask if Snape made a conscious decision to be friend Lucius Malfoy (who, at five years older, seems to hold the power in that dynamics)? After all, by the way Sirius Black speaks, Snape was an outcast long before the Hogwarts Express rolled into the Hogsmeade station. Or was a friendship with Lucius Malfoy more of aligning himself with someone who had power who could protect him? In which case, the James Potter and Sirius Black have some role to play in that decision?
Harry, on the other hand, aligned himself with a poor loner. And they in turn spoke badly of Hermione until Halloween, when she lied to protect them.
There were choices made, but everyone's choice affected somebody else's. If a fifth-year student had taken Hermione under their wing, which she has forgiven Harry and Ron for the way they deliberately added to her misery? After all, they were only reacting to her poor social skills -- bossy, know-it-all and, even worse for her, being right about it.
But to take this conjecture further, what would happen if Harry were trapped at Hogwarts, miserably, for whatever reason, and Draco Malfoy's son appeared as a student? He looks like Draco, he sounds like Draco and he acts like Draco, except perhaps he has Ginny's eyes, his mother's eyes