Severus Snape, Potions Master. Hot or not?

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

No.
Look, Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side.

No.

Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side pretending to be on Voldemort's side.

There is an absolutely enormous difference.

And that still doesn't have any affect on the main argument.
Snape being mean to those kids doesn't help that cover story.

Yes, it does.

If Voldemort thinks that Dumbledore thinks that Snape is on his side, trying to stay trusted by Voldemort [which is how it was], going against character to act like a decent human being is by far one of the most stupidly suspicious things Snape could have done.  

[[Ren The Ryoko]]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

No.
Look, Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side.

No.

Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side pretending to be on Voldemort's side.

There is an absolutely enormous difference.

And that still doesn't have any affect on the main argument.
Snape being mean to those kids doesn't help that cover story.

Yes, it does.

If Voldemort thinks that Dumbledore thinks that Snape is on his side, trying to stay trusted by Voldemort [which is how it was], going against character to act like a decent human being is by far one of the most stupidly suspicious things Snape could have done.

But Voldemort KNOWS that Snape is trying to keep in good with Dumbledore. Acting like a halfway decent human being would have HELPED his cover story of trying to get on Dumbledore's good side.

 

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

No.
Look, Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side.

No.

Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side pretending to be on Voldemort's side.

There is an absolutely enormous difference.

And that still doesn't have any affect on the main argument.
Snape being mean to those kids doesn't help that cover story.

Yes, it does.

If Voldemort thinks that Dumbledore thinks that Snape is on his side, trying to stay trusted by Voldemort [which is how it was], going against character to act like a decent human being is by far one of the most stupidly suspicious things Snape could have done.

But Voldemort KNOWS that Snape is trying to keep in good with Dumbledore. Acting like a halfway decent human being would have HELPED his cover story of trying to get on Dumbledore's good side.

Yes. Yes, he knows that Snape needs to be on Dumbledore's good side.

But he thinks that Snape is already in good with Dumbledore, and is trying to stay that way by making it appear he's trying to get into the good graces of Voldemort.  

[[Ren The Ryoko]]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

No.
Look, Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side.

No.

Voldemort thinks that Snape is pretending to be on Dumbledore's side pretending to be on Voldemort's side.

There is an absolutely enormous difference.

And that still doesn't have any affect on the main argument.
Snape being mean to those kids doesn't help that cover story.

Yes, it does.

If Voldemort thinks that Dumbledore thinks that Snape is on his side, trying to stay trusted by Voldemort [which is how it was], going against character to act like a decent human being is by far one of the most stupidly suspicious things Snape could have done.

But Voldemort KNOWS that Snape is trying to keep in good with Dumbledore. Acting like a halfway decent human being would have HELPED his cover story of trying to get on Dumbledore's good side.

Yes. Yes, he knows that Snape needs to be on Dumbledore's good side.

But he thinks that Snape is already in good with Dumbledore, and is trying to stay that way by making it appear he's trying to get into the good graces of Voldemort.

And what does that have to do, at all, with bullying Neville and Hermione? Or any of his students?
He could be callously indifferent without being an active bully.

 

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

And that still doesn't have any affect on the main argument.
Snape being mean to those kids doesn't help that cover story.

Yes, it does.

If Voldemort thinks that Dumbledore thinks that Snape is on his side, trying to stay trusted by Voldemort [which is how it was], going against character to act like a decent human being is by far one of the most stupidly suspicious things Snape could have done.

But Voldemort KNOWS that Snape is trying to keep in good with Dumbledore. Acting like a halfway decent human being would have HELPED his cover story of trying to get on Dumbledore's good side.

Yes. Yes, he knows that Snape needs to be on Dumbledore's good side.

But he thinks that Snape is already in good with Dumbledore, and is trying to stay that way by making it appear he's trying to get into the good graces of Voldemort.

And what does that have to do, at all, with bullying Neville and Hermione? Or any of his students?
He could be callously indifferent without being an active bully.

He was callously indifferent. It was only when they repeatedly ignored his instructions and/or threatened to destroy his classroom [if unintentionally, poor Neville], that he did anything. And what he did was snap at them. He never actually harmed either.

I had a temporary lab partner once who kept lighting our current experiment on fire [and by this I mean the wrong part of the experiment, we had to redo the stupid thing three times] by sheer accident and lack of paying attention, and let me tell you, at some point the ability to keep your mouth shut is almost nonexistent.

Neville, I imagine, was about ten thousand times worse than this girl. Not to mention a permanent fixture of the classroom.  

[[Ren The Ryoko]]

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And that still doesn't have any affect on the main argument.
Snape being mean to those kids doesn't help that cover story.

Yes, it does.

If Voldemort thinks that Dumbledore thinks that Snape is on his side, trying to stay trusted by Voldemort [which is how it was], going against character to act like a decent human being is by far one of the most stupidly suspicious things Snape could have done.

But Voldemort KNOWS that Snape is trying to keep in good with Dumbledore. Acting like a halfway decent human being would have HELPED his cover story of trying to get on Dumbledore's good side.

Yes. Yes, he knows that Snape needs to be on Dumbledore's good side.

But he thinks that Snape is already in good with Dumbledore, and is trying to stay that way by making it appear he's trying to get into the good graces of Voldemort.

And what does that have to do, at all, with bullying Neville and Hermione? Or any of his students?
He could be callously indifferent without being an active bully.

He was callously indifferent. It was only when they repeatedly ignored his instructions and/or threatened to destroy his classroom [if unintentionally, poor Neville], that he did anything. And what he did was snap at them. He never actually harmed either.

I had a temporary lab partner once who kept lighting our current experiment on fire [and by this I mean the wrong part of the experiment, we had to redo the stupid thing three times] by sheer accident and lack of paying attention, and let me tell you, at some point the ability to keep your mouth shut is almost nonexistent.

Neville, I imagine, was about ten thousand times worse than this girl. Not to mention a permanent fixture of the classroom.

Do you remember when he threatened to poison Neville's toad?
When Hermione accidentally grew out her teeth and he made her stand in front of the class and then told her he "didn't see a difference?"
When he destroyed Harrys potion seconds before he made them turn it in for a grade so Harry would have to take a zero even though several Slytherin's had done worse than him?
Do you remember when he took points away and called Hermione an "insufferable know-it-all" just for trying to answer questions?
How about the time he refereed a Quidditch match in book 1 and fouled Gryffindor unfairly the entire match?
What about physically HITTING Ron and Harry upside the head for whispering in study hall?

 

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

But Voldemort KNOWS that Snape is trying to keep in good with Dumbledore. Acting like a halfway decent human being would have HELPED his cover story of trying to get on Dumbledore's good side.

Yes. Yes, he knows that Snape needs to be on Dumbledore's good side.

But he thinks that Snape is already in good with Dumbledore, and is trying to stay that way by making it appear he's trying to get into the good graces of Voldemort.

And what does that have to do, at all, with bullying Neville and Hermione? Or any of his students?
He could be callously indifferent without being an active bully.

He was callously indifferent. It was only when they repeatedly ignored his instructions and/or threatened to destroy his classroom [if unintentionally, poor Neville], that he did anything. And what he did was snap at them. He never actually harmed either.

I had a temporary lab partner once who kept lighting our current experiment on fire [and by this I mean the wrong part of the experiment, we had to redo the stupid thing three times] by sheer accident and lack of paying attention, and let me tell you, at some point the ability to keep your mouth shut is almost nonexistent.

Neville, I imagine, was about ten thousand times worse than this girl. Not to mention a permanent fixture of the classroom.

Do you remember when he threatened to poison Neville's toad?
When Hermione accidentally grew out her teeth and he made her stand in front of the class and then told her he "didn't see a difference?"
When he destroyed Harrys potion seconds before he made them turn it in for a grade so Harry would have to take a zero even though several Slytherin's had done worse than him?
Do you remember when he took points away and called Hermione an "insufferable know-it-all" just for trying to answer questions?
How about the time he refereed a Quidditch match in book 1 and fouled Gryffindor unfairly the entire match?
What about physically HITTING Ron and Harry upside the head for whispering in study hall?

Read back through your examples carefully, and refer me to the ones that involve actual harm being done.

- Snape never poisoned Neville's toad.
- Snape never touched Hermione's teeth.
- We have only Harry's opinion Snape deliberately smashed that potion. For all we know, he could have held it out to thin air and dropped it before the guy could get his fingers around the bottle. Admittedly, if he did, it was quite rude. But hey, I never argued Snape wasn't rude.
- Yes, he took points away from Hermione for repeatedly speaking out of turn and answering questions she wasn't asked - better than that, answering questions she was specifically discouraged from asking. It's disruptive to the class, and prevents other people from learning. Completely justified.
- Yet another case where we have to take Harry's word for it that he was being unfair. It's rather notable that none of the other authority figures interfered.
- McGonagall would have done a lot more than smack those two upside the head.  

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

But Voldemort KNOWS that Snape is trying to keep in good with Dumbledore. Acting like a halfway decent human being would have HELPED his cover story of trying to get on Dumbledore's good side.

Yes. Yes, he knows that Snape needs to be on Dumbledore's good side.

But he thinks that Snape is already in good with Dumbledore, and is trying to stay that way by making it appear he's trying to get into the good graces of Voldemort.

And what does that have to do, at all, with bullying Neville and Hermione? Or any of his students?
He could be callously indifferent without being an active bully.

He was callously indifferent. It was only when they repeatedly ignored his instructions and/or threatened to destroy his classroom [if unintentionally, poor Neville], that he did anything. And what he did was snap at them. He never actually harmed either.

I had a temporary lab partner once who kept lighting our current experiment on fire [and by this I mean the wrong part of the experiment, we had to redo the stupid thing three times] by sheer accident and lack of paying attention, and let me tell you, at some point the ability to keep your mouth shut is almost nonexistent.

Neville, I imagine, was about ten thousand times worse than this girl. Not to mention a permanent fixture of the classroom.

Do you remember when he threatened to poison Neville's toad?
When Hermione accidentally grew out her teeth and he made her stand in front of the class and then told her he "didn't see a difference?"
When he destroyed Harrys potion seconds before he made them turn it in for a grade so Harry would have to take a zero even though several Slytherin's had done worse than him?
Do you remember when he took points away and called Hermione an "insufferable know-it-all" just for trying to answer questions?
How about the time he refereed a Quidditch match in book 1 and fouled Gryffindor unfairly the entire match?
What about physically HITTING Ron and Harry upside the head for whispering in study hall?

Read back through your examples carefully, and refer me to the ones that involve actual harm being done.

- Snape never poisoned Neville's toad.
- Snape never touched Hermione's teeth.
- We have only Harry's opinion Snape deliberately smashed that potion. For all we know, he could have held it out to thin air and dropped it before the guy could get his fingers around the bottle. Admittedly, if he did, it was quite rude. But hey, I never argued Snape wasn't rude.
- Yes, he took points away from Hermione for repeatedly speaking out of turn and answering questions she wasn't asked - better than that, answering questions she was specifically discouraged from asking. It's disruptive to the class, and prevents other people from learning. Completely justified.
- Yet another case where we have to take Harry's word for it that he was being unfair. It's rather notable that none of the other authority figures interfered.
- McGonagall would have done a lot more than smack those two upside the head.

First of all, you realize not all bullying has t be physical, right? In fact in many ways, emotional and verbal bullying is more damaging to a student in the long term.
So yes, threatening to murder Neville's pet and publicly humiliating and insulting Hermione by calling her ugly ARE harmful.

Snape is Neville's BOGART for goodness sake. That's some really intense fear.

No. Snape made the potion disappear. He actually purposely destroyed it.

There's a difference in simply punishing a student, and insulting her. The one thing Hermione takes pride in is her intelligence, and he insulted her, in class, for it.

Authority figures? He was the ref. Have you never been to a game with an unfair ref?

McGonagal wouldn't have HIT them. Teachers get FIRED, get SUED for hitting students. You do not hit students.

Maybe it's just because I'm getting certified to be a teacher, and I've taken a lot of Adolescent Psych classes as a result, but the malicious and bullying way he treats those students is unforgivable to me.

 

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[Ren The Ryoko]

First of all, you realize not all bullying has t be physical, right? In fact in many ways, emotional and verbal bullying is more damaging to a student in the long term.
So yes, threatening to murder Neville's pet and publicly humiliating and insulting Hermione by calling her ugly ARE harmful.

More harmful than leading them into Devil's Snare because of a Messiah complex? Being snarky to someone is nowhere near as damaging as, you know, taking them into deadly situations. If someone is going to be irreparably traumatized by people actually pointing out when they've fricked up, then that person is already ruined for life in the real world anyway. If it doesn't do irreparable damage, it may well serve as a useful introduction to the fact that not everything you do is sunshine and buttercups, kid.

I would also like to point out that telling someone you see no difference in them after an unfortunate change in appearance is normally considered a good thing. Implies you care about character more than looks.

[Ren The Ryoko]

Snape is Neville's BOGART for goodness sake. That's some really intense fear.

Neville was twelve. He had nothing else in the world to be afraid of. I'm fairly certain my youngest brother's boggart would be a butterfly. This says nothing about character.

[Ren The Ryoko]

No. Snape made the potion disappear. He actually purposely destroyed it.

He dropped it, actually. Or Harry dropped it. Since the perspective is biased, it's hard to say. Also, there may or may not have been a desk involved. Harry's kind of vague on what he actually did himself.

[Ren The Ryoko]

There's a difference in simply punishing a student, and insulting her. The one thing Hermione takes pride in is her intelligence, and he insulted her, in class, for it.

He never insulted her intelligence. He insulted her tendency to show it off all the time to the detriment of everything else.

[Ren The Ryoko]

Authority figures?

Yes, you know, like the rest of the people who normally yelled about unfairness during games despite not actually refereeing.

[Ren The Ryoko]

Have you never been to a game with an unfair ref?

Irrelevant.

[Ren The Ryoko]

McGonagal wouldn't have HIT them. Teachers get FIRED, get SUED for hitting students. You do not hit students.

This is a world where teachers have turned students into ferrets without repercussion. This is not public school in the US.

And it would probably be a good thing if more students did get smacked upside the head. Maybe then there would be fewer female teachers being sexually harassed by idiot teenage boys.

[Ren The Ryoko]

Maybe it's just because I'm getting certified to be a teacher, and I've taken a lot of Adolescent Psych classes as a result, but the malicious and bullying way he treats those students is unforgivable to me.

Well, it isn't to me. He actually had a reason for being a jackass, he never physically harmed any student, he almost always had a reason when he snapped at someone [Harry being the only exception], and he put his own life in danger to protect many of them.

Compared to most of the characters in HP, this is positively angelic.  

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I'm really not sure what's worse: You completely disregarding the irresponsibility or immaturity of an adult in a position of power bullying young children, or the fact that you think it's ok, or in fact, desirable for teachers to physically assault students.

So I will leave it at this: I, personally, am NOT ok with the way Snape treated those children. It's the one thing about his character that I truly can not forgive. I think it's horrible, sick, and speaks to a deep bitterness and lack of maturity in his character. And I do not find it attractive. In fact, I find it repulsive.

I respect his suffering, I honor his dedication, and I pity his pain. But that doesn't mean I want him in my briches.

 

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I'm really not sure what's worse: You completely disregarding the irresponsibility or immaturity of an adult in a position of power bullying young children, or the fact that you think it's ok, or in fact, desirable for teachers to physically assault students.

I don't know what's worse, the fact that when I stated Snape had legitimate reasons for his behavior, you felt the need to set up a straw man argument about morality rather than demonstrating that he could have effectively behaved differently with the same results, or the fact that you think a tap upside the head to generate attention counts as assault.

...Or that you think calling someone a know-it-all after they constantly scream out answers to questions directed at other people counts as bullying.

Pfft, I don't think he's hot either.  

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I'm really not sure what's worse: You completely disregarding the irresponsibility or immaturity of an adult in a position of power bullying young children, or the fact that you think it's ok, or in fact, desirable for teachers to physically assault students.

I don't know what's worse, the fact that when I stated Snape had legitimate reasons for his behavior, you felt the need to set up a straw man argument about morality rather than demonstrating that he could have effectively behaved differently with the same results, or the fact that you think a tap upside the head to generate attention counts as assault.

...Or that you think calling someone a know-it-all after they constantly scream out answers to questions directed at other people counts as bullying.

Pfft, I don't think he's hot either.

As a teacher, it's your job t treat your students with respect.
So, you have a young girl in your class with few friends, who you see getting bullied by other students all the time, and when she tries to answer questions in your class, you dock points from her and insult her?
That's ******** up.
But maybe that's just me as a future educator talking.

And for the record: Yes. Striking a child, no matter how "lightly" you do it can get you into SERIOUS trouble as an educator. Like, seriously. You can get terminated from your job for doing something as "light" as Snape did. You get get sued for doing what Snape did. People HAVE been sued for doing what Snape did.

All I'm saying is that the way he treated those children is disgusting in my opinion, and it's the main reason why I can't feel attracted to him.

 

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[Ren The Ryoko]

I would like to point out that you're thinking educators in a very limited range of countries. There are plenty of modern places around the world where smacking a student upside the head wouldn't be given a second glance.

The magical community is one of them.

Meh, I wouldn't want to hang out with him either though.

On a completely unrelated note, I hope when you start teaching you get saddled with a genius student who won't shut up. Just because it should be amazingly interesting to see how you deal with not being able to get anyone else in the class involved.  

[[Ren The Ryoko]]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

I would like to point out that you're thinking educators in a very limited range of countries. There are plenty of modern places around the world where smacking a student upside the head wouldn't be given a second glance.

The magical community is one of them.

Meh, I wouldn't want to hang out with him either though.

On a completely unrelated note, I hope when you start teaching you get saddled with a genius student who won't shut up. Just because it should be amazingly interesting to see how you deal with not being able to get anyone else in the class involved.

I was that kid. Especially when I was younger.
So I know how it feels to not have a lot of friends, to feel really unsure of yourself in social situations, to feel like your on a tight rope at lunch and on the play ground. The only time I ever felt sure of myself, the only time I ever really felt good about myself at school, was in class when I knew that answers. That gave me a sense of self worth.

I'm student teaching now, and I have a kid like that in my class. He's an ESL kid. He's really unsure of himself around his peers.
But boy, ask a question and he wants to answer. He wants to prove he can do it.

I would NEVER call him an "insufferable know it all", because if a teacher had called ME that when I was that age, it would have crushed me. It would have been such a blow, to have a teacher, a person I'm supposed to trust and look up to, back hand me that way on the one thing I was proud of.

And it's not HARD to deal with those kids, amazingly. They just want to feel like they've been heard. They want you to know that they know what's going on.
So you just tell them "Thank you. I know you know. Let's see if someone else can answer", and that usually works. (It did for my student, and it always worked for me)
Or you have a system to go around the room in order, so everyone gets called on.
Or you have ALL the kids answer by using white boards or writing their answers down first.
Or you can have each kid in the class choose the NEXT kid to answer the question.

I mean really, you think that they don't train teachers basic classroom management?

It's not even like Hermione was shouting out answers. She was raising her hand, while Snape honed in on and bullied Harry. She only spoke out after SEVERAL questions being directed solely at Harry while he obviously didn't know the answers (Which is a HORRIBLE thing to do as a teacher in the first place)

Even if I had a student who WAS shouting out answers, I would never blatantly insult them.
What the ******** kind of teacher flat out insults their students?

 

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[Ren The Ryoko]

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[Ren The Ryoko]

I would like to point out that you're thinking educators in a very limited range of countries. There are plenty of modern places around the world where smacking a student upside the head wouldn't be given a second glance.

The magical community is one of them.

Meh, I wouldn't want to hang out with him either though.

On a completely unrelated note, I hope when you start teaching you get saddled with a genius student who won't shut up. Just because it should be amazingly interesting to see how you deal with not being able to get anyone else in the class involved.

Or you have a system to go around the room in order, so everyone gets called on.
Or you have ALL the kids answer by using white boards or writing their answers down first.
Or you can have each kid in the class choose the NEXT kid to answer the question.

Except...

Snape tries to direct questions at other people.

And Hermione answers them anyway.

Snape tries to get students to correct their own mistakes in the hope that they might possibly learn from them.

And Hermione fixes Neville's potions anyway.

This is what I want to see you deal with, not just some person who's delighted they know things, which pretty much describes me as well.