In turn, btw, Sirius is not at all challenged in the similar way. He is perfectly capable of empathy, that is - to the members of his pack, of course. It is thanks to him Remus was capable to socialize despite his disability, and his emotional support for Harry in GoF and OotP is impossible to overestimate, the fact that his actual advices were at times downright stupid notwithstanding. Returning to Severus, it seems to me that he is probably reading too much into life-and-death issues. I mean, Dumbledore has taught us that there are things more important then death, and he seems to confirm his sayings with his actions. Severus, judging by his "I treat you like sh%t, but I save your life" behavior is quite far from understanding Albus's point. And attitude towards death being the central theme of the series, we should bear this notion in mind. And, since we are talking about Severus here, there is another question which disturbs me. Look, we know that he is extremely brave, likes to risk his life and to play hero. We know that he highly rates this ability of his ("don't ever call me coward!") and probably carefully developed it in himself. Moreover, he is a loner who does what he things right without any concern about what the society thinks of him. And here comes a $64000 question: if the first of these characteristics (bravery) is supposed to be a defining quality of Gryffindor, and the second (loneliness and "rightness") - of Ravenclaw, why on Earth is Severus Snape a Slytherin? What does he have in common with classical (and not necessarily evil) Slytherins like Slughorn or Malfoy? He - you have noted that elsewhere, and lots of other people, too - is much more similar to classically Gryffindorish (at least as we are used to think) features of Harry. And he is not even a pure-blood, for Heaven's sake!
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Date: 2007-06-19 01:11 am (UTC)In turn, btw, Sirius is not at all challenged in the similar way. He is perfectly capable of empathy, that is - to the members of his pack, of course. It is thanks to him Remus was capable to socialize despite his disability, and his emotional support for Harry in GoF and OotP is impossible to overestimate, the fact that his actual advices were at times downright stupid notwithstanding.
Returning to Severus, it seems to me that he is probably reading too much into life-and-death issues. I mean, Dumbledore has taught us that there are things more important then death, and he seems to confirm his sayings with his actions. Severus, judging by his "I treat you like sh%t, but I save your life" behavior is quite far from understanding Albus's point. And attitude towards death being the central theme of the series, we should bear this notion in mind.
And, since we are talking about Severus here, there is another question which disturbs me. Look, we know that he is extremely brave, likes to risk his life and to play hero. We know that he highly rates this ability of his ("don't ever call me coward!") and probably carefully developed it in himself. Moreover, he is a loner who does what he things right without any concern about what the society thinks of him. And here comes a $64000 question: if the first of these characteristics (bravery) is supposed to be a defining quality of Gryffindor, and the second (loneliness and "rightness") - of Ravenclaw, why on Earth is Severus Snape a Slytherin? What does he have in common with classical (and not necessarily evil) Slytherins like Slughorn or Malfoy? He - you have noted that elsewhere, and lots of other people, too - is much more similar to classically Gryffindorish (at least as we are used to think) features of Harry. And he is not even a pure-blood, for Heaven's sake!