The man who didn't come to dinner

[sistermagpie]

I had a stray thought today while reading the various theories of Sirius being poisoned, mostly about why I like

Personally, in case anyone's interested, I don't think Sirius was poisoned, nor do I think he was acting reckless when he died. I tend to think that line about the potion is there so that *Harry* can start suspecting Snape of doing some reckless poisoning later, if it's there for any reason at all. Or perhaps the potion will come up later. Heh. It's like fanfic. Everybody knows when Snape introduces a potion in class *somebody* will be accidentally ingesting it by the end of the fic, and it will probably lead to sex somehow.

Anyway, one thing that's been brought up with regards to Snape poisoning someone is his not eating any food at Grimmauld Place--something one might avoid if one knew the food was poisoned. I think again, that would be a little too obvious, like in We Have Always Lived In The Castle when a character is widely considered a murderer because her family was poisoned through the sugar bowl and everyone knows Constance never takes sugar. Regardless, what's interesting is how the topic of Snape's not eating has become an issue.

Technically, I don't think we know he doesn't eat anything at Grimmauld Place, though I suspect he doesn't. I think we're just told he "never stays for dinner." People have said, reasonably, that he doesn't stay for dinner because he doesn't want to socialize with these people any more than he has to. For all we know he's also got a truckload of other responsibilities somewhere. Maybe he's moonlighting at a fast food place in Hogsmeade. We don't know.

But I realized another reason I like the idea of Snape not eating at the place. I'm pretty sure there's a passage in The Count of Monte Cristo, that deals with the hero not eating. Now, I read CoMC (hmm. same initials as Care of Magical Creatures...) in French so for all I know I made up the entire scene through my bad translation and Edmund really refused to remove his galoshes indoors, but I seem to remember that what happened was the Count went to a party at the home of his former fiancé and her husband, one of the conspirators who got him sent to prison for 19 years. Mercedes, his former love, recognizes him as Edmund. She keeps the secret but gets very upset when he refuses an hors d'oeuvre. I mean, seriously upset. She's just frantic that he try her canapé--wtf?

Later it's revealed this is because refusing to eat is a point of honor--you do not accept food in your enemy's house. It appears to be something one could start a duel with if one wanted. Now, it's kind of funny to draw a parallel between Snape and Edmund, since in this story the character most like Edmund would be the guy who spent 13 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit and then broke out. Snape isn't responsible for putting Sirius in prison, though, and Sirius doesn't seem much for archaic traditions. Snape, otoh, I can definitely see holding a Monte Cristo-type grudge and privately vowing never to eat food served in the house of his enemy. Not that anyone would notice--well, other Slytherins might, but they’re not going to be invited to dinner by Molly either.

Snape is, after all, the character in canon who feels bound by a life debt because James Potter was moved to stop a prank by his best friend that never should have happened to begin with--I suspect if there were a fair court of law about such things Snape would be cleared of any life debtedness. Harry, by contrast, appears to feel under no such obligation to Snape for his protection. So if somebody were going to do something like this it would be Snape, imo. I doubt this was the author's intention, but it just seems very Snape to me.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Of course he did follow the instructions he did hear, because he was scared of the animal just like anyone else. I'm sure he'd have preferred not to have anything to do with it at all. One of the funniest things about PoA the movie is the way Hagrid himself seems to have been given Draco's action there, yet there it's taken for just what it is--a completely inocuous thing animal lovers do all the time. Actually, if that kind of thing was so stupid shouldn't Hagrid have been killed many times over? He's the one constantly playing with dangerous animals.

There's a big difference between a classroom situation like this one, particularly involving a young person, and an adult aggressively deciding to do something stupid. Though frankly, even when an adult does it sometimes it's okay to have sympathy. I recently read a story about this guy who made one stupid mistake after another in going out kayacking. He almost drown. He was far stupider than Draco and had far less excuse for being so, yet why feel satisfaction if he had actually drowned? I can understand feeling that way *affectionately* or because you are upset that he put himself in that kind of danger, but not coldly. Draco's real crime in PoA is exposing Hagrid's major flaws as a teacher and for that there is no forgiveness. Saving Buckbeak appears to be the same as validating that Hagrid did a great job, which would never fly in the real world.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

An interesting article that seems relevant, about sweet pets who turn violent and the owners who insist it isn't the animal's fault.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do see a connection between the sort of vanity-based ethics involved in believing it's immoral to destroy a dangerous animal and highly moral to introduce it to children and this incident. Sadly, the women with the pit bull in the article looks like a sworn defender of children next to Hagrid. While she, too, was dealing with a situation that was always a potential danger when she brought a pit bull into that neighborhood, she didn't orchestrate the situation half as carefully as Hagrid did!
And at least she possibly had to face the truth that her desire to keep a pet she considered herself the savior of did not trump the safety of the most irresponsible child in her neighborhood--and nobody blamed the victims.

Yet I know any dog can be unpredictable. Should mine ever harm another person or dog, I would consider myself responsible, except in the rarest of circumstances (if someone attacked me, for example).

This seems like such common sense to me, and it's why PoA bothers me so much. I have so little patience for the ethical contortions people have to get into to absolve the friggin' teacher and owner of the animal for any blame whatsover. Sometimes the scene's just re-written. Malfoy "abused" the animal! He got attacked on purpose!

The guy brings a herd of dangerous animals and orders a herd of 13-year-olds interact closely with them, unsupervised. They all get the basics about making them bow. After making a big show of how sweet the animal is, he tosses off a throwaway, vague threat of, "Just don' insult them or it might be the last thing you'll do," which is missed by at least three kids but probably more, since at any given time some kid is zoning out, which is why any responsible teacher with animals repeats instructions like that repeatedly, makes sure kids understand exactly what he means and then supervises each individual encounter. If you went through the books and found every time Harry or Ron wasn't paying attention in class and assumed they deserved something equally violent as payback, neither of them would have any limbs left. Voldemort wouldn't need to kill Harry. He would have died horribly after he threw a firecracker into Goyle's cauldron in potion or something.

In Hagrid's class, Neville's running back and forth nervously, obviously in need of help but not getting any from his teacher. That kind of skittishness might have guaranteed he was the one attacked if these were real animals. Instead it's the kid who, while petting the thing as instructed, says something "insulting," quite possibly unaware that a) insults cause it to attack you or b) that calling it a "big ugly brute" while petting it would be considered an insult.

Well, the kid is definitely the one that the animal was reacting to, just as the peke was the dog that did the running up to the pit bull in the article and the grandmother and little boy were the ones who ran up and tried to stop it (in fact, they were far more provoking). But acting like it's just the kid's fault and the teacher has no responsibility? What planet does that make sense on? As if anybody would feel that way if it were them or their child who just got mauled: "Well, I told you not to insult him!" "I didn't think it was an insult." "Well, it was. He doesn't like that." "I didn't hear you say it was an insult." "Then it's your own fault for not listening to me." "Oh, gee. Sorry ever so. Maybe you should have the dog's teeth checked to make sure he didn't chip anything on my bone when he ripped my flesh off. Send me the bill."

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Looking back, it rather surprises me that I didn't react this way when I first read the book, given that I was in a vaguely similar situation when I was ten. I got a vague warning from a dog owner, acknowledged it but didn't think it sounded serious, and got a fairly nasty (though not maiming, thank God) bite on my leg. The dog's owner promptly came over and made some comment that reeked of "I told you so" while I was on the ground bleeding.

We've got no idea what tone Draco was using with Buckbeak, but most dog owners do just what you said. "You're a stupid puppy, yes you are! Yeah, you're a stupid puppy! Aww, good dog." I could see Draco doing the equivalent of this.

At the very, very least, Hagrid needed to have the kids going up one at a time so he could supervise each individual student.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's partly why I find it so funny that apparently in the movie it's Hagrid who's given that line to Buckbeak and it's obviously affectionate! In Draco's case I assume he was scared of the thing. He's trying to show off but I doubt he'd knowingly provoke it. It reads to me like he's trying to sound braver than he is by making a light joke and is completely shocked when it attacks him. I would be!

The thing is I wasn't furious when it happened. The only reason I feel so strongly about the scene is the way it plays out, the way moments after Draco's taken away the Gryffindors are being so callous about it out of a stupid defense of Hagrid and then the whole book backs them up by turning on how awful Malfoy is for causing Buckbeak's trouble and taunting Hagrid about it. It's one of those times where I feel like the book gives us a real quagmire of real feelings, and a situation that really makes it unrealistic to imagine Malfoy wouldn't act the way he does. Meaning not only that Malfoy is canonically nasty towards Hagrid and the Gryffindors but that it's made so clear that popular opinion thinks it's good that he was hurt that being big about the whole thing would be total humiliation. Perhaps JKR didn't mean it this way, but his cruelty over the incident just strikes me as a handy defiance in the face of dehumanization. In my mind, I just can't not link this incident with Snape's Prank.

I have sympathy for Hagrid in the situation--his mistakes with the hippogryffs were far greater and far more numerous than Malfoys, but he didn't want anyone to get hurt. I just don't think that sympathy makes up for total indifference to what happened to the other kid just because we don't like him and he's going to be difficult about it. (Though if Malfoy had merely sulked about it with no repercussions to Hagrid I don't think that would gain him any more sympathy.)