I never meant to imply that the word "entitled" sums up all there needs to be said about Snape's character. I was merely pointing at the single aspect that contributes the most to why it is so difficult for me to like him.
I don't disagree with your point that all Wizards feel entitled towards Muggles. That's very obvious. This seems to be a political more than a personal issue, though. Not that this makes it in any way defensible, only something to be addressed on a different level.
By the way, Harry himself seems about to develop some ideas of entitlement, too, by the end of DH. The crucio and lack of remorse? The expectation that his slave should leave the victory feast to fix him a sandwich? Don't get me started...
I'm not sure what you mean with 'simpler and more comprehensible.' To my mind, there is nothing difficult or incomprehensible with the idea of entitlement. Also, I appreciate and am interested in - really! - your take on Snape, but I cannot accept your way of explaining his behaviour as "what's really going on." What we are dealing with here is interpretation of canon facts, not canon facts themselves. Ultimately, I think we are dealing with how the text comes across to us when we read it, and since each of us come to the text with our own individual backgrounds, experiences, preferences, references, personality traits etc. etc. etc., we will read the text differently. And as a rule, I think one's personal reading of a text is something that will not change very easily. A few times, someone has pointed out to me patterns in the text that I wasn't aware of before, in a way that made me entirely change my initial interpretation of something. But that hasn't happened very often, and never with any of the characters that are important to me. I suppose this is the same with you?
I think one main reason why Snape's snides, sarcasms and insults come across as entitlement to me, is because he is so selective in who he targets. It is never Dumbledore, never his fellow professors, never the Slytherin students. To me, this does not signal someone with no real knowledge of how to relate to people other than through snipes and sarcasms. We see in the scene with the distressed Narcissa that he does know how to relate to people in respectful and compassionate ways, even in a very heavily charged, emotional situation. But he chooses not to use this skill towards selected students in his care, the Gryffindors in particular. And he doesn't always come across as angry or emotionally upset when this happens, on the contrary, in the majority of cases he seems perfectly snug and pleased with himself.
To me, this makes Snape come across as someone who acts as if he was still back in his school days, where it was Slytherin vs. Gryffindor and the Slyths felt every right to do all they could to put down the Gryffs (and the Gryffs of course had it the other way around!) Not as the teacher with equal responsibility for all his students.
There are ways to explain why he ended up like this, certainly: his dysfunctional family background, his unhappy school days, his DE friends, his own DE years... I know that, even though I do believe in accountability. And as I said, I don't hate him. But I still can't bring myself to like him.
Finally, about depression: If you are talking about Snape as a schoolboy I would be more willing to see it as likely, given his unhappy situation. Although I still feel that the few pensieve situations we have is too meager to go on. In adult Snape as written, I can't see it. And I say this as an experienced clinical psychologist, who diagnoses depression in adults on a regular basis. To name a few reasons: I would never label anyone as an insomniac based on the few occasions where Harry meets him in the corridors at night, for instance. More important: a clinically depressed person could never have successfully functioned for years as a spy among the DEs. Sirius in OotP shows many signs of a clinical depression, the fall in adaptive behaviours included. If I had read the description of him in that book as a case presentation, I would have put depression and PTSD as a tentative diagnosis. But I don't see it in adult Snape.
Re: Entitled?!
I never meant to imply that the word "entitled" sums up all there needs to be said about Snape's character. I was merely pointing at the single aspect that contributes the most to why it is so difficult for me to like him.
I don't disagree with your point that all Wizards feel entitled towards Muggles. That's very obvious. This seems to be a political more than a personal issue, though. Not that this makes it in any way defensible, only something to be addressed on a different level.
By the way, Harry himself seems about to develop some ideas of entitlement, too, by the end of DH. The crucio and lack of remorse? The expectation that his slave should leave the victory feast to fix him a sandwich? Don't get me started...
I'm not sure what you mean with 'simpler and more comprehensible.' To my mind, there is nothing difficult or incomprehensible with the idea of entitlement. Also, I appreciate and am interested in - really! - your take on Snape, but I cannot accept your way of explaining his behaviour as "what's really going on." What we are dealing with here is interpretation of canon facts, not canon facts themselves. Ultimately, I think we are dealing with how the text comes across to us when we read it, and since each of us come to the text with our own individual backgrounds, experiences, preferences, references, personality traits etc. etc. etc., we will read the text differently. And as a rule, I think one's personal reading of a text is something that will not change very easily. A few times, someone has pointed out to me patterns in the text that I wasn't aware of before, in a way that made me entirely change my initial interpretation of something. But that hasn't happened very often, and never with any of the characters that are important to me. I suppose this is the same with you?
I think one main reason why Snape's snides, sarcasms and insults come across as entitlement to me, is because he is so selective in who he targets. It is never Dumbledore, never his fellow professors, never the Slytherin students. To me, this does not signal someone with no real knowledge of how to relate to people other than through snipes and sarcasms. We see in the scene with the distressed Narcissa that he does know how to relate to people in respectful and compassionate ways, even in a very heavily charged, emotional situation. But he chooses not to use this skill towards selected students in his care, the Gryffindors in particular. And he doesn't always come across as angry or emotionally upset when this happens, on the contrary, in the majority of cases he seems perfectly snug and pleased with himself.
To me, this makes Snape come across as someone who acts as if he was still back in his school days, where it was Slytherin vs. Gryffindor and the Slyths felt every right to do all they could to put down the Gryffs (and the Gryffs of course had it the other way around!) Not as the teacher with equal responsibility for all his students.
There are ways to explain why he ended up like this, certainly: his dysfunctional family background, his unhappy school days, his DE friends, his own DE years... I know that, even though I do believe in accountability. And as I said, I don't hate him. But I still can't bring myself to like him.
Finally, about depression: If you are talking about Snape as a schoolboy I would be more willing to see it as likely, given his unhappy situation. Although I still feel that the few pensieve situations we have is too meager to go on. In adult Snape as written, I can't see it. And I say this as an experienced clinical psychologist, who diagnoses depression in adults on a regular basis. To name a few reasons: I would never label anyone as an insomniac based on the few occasions where Harry meets him in the corridors at night, for instance. More important: a clinically depressed person could never have successfully functioned for years as a spy among the DEs. Sirius in OotP shows many signs of a clinical depression, the fall in adaptive behaviours included. If I had read the description of him in that book as a case presentation, I would have put depression and PTSD as a tentative diagnosis. But I don't see it in adult Snape.