[ SECRET POST #4337 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4337 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 45 secrets from Secret Submission Post #621.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/7F0lHlg.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. It never occurred to me that he was anything but prejudiced against muggle borns and that she was the exception rather than the rule.

I'm having one of those moments where I feel like I dodged a bullet by avoiding this fandom.

[sabotabby]

+1

[morieris]

You did.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm having one of those moments where I feel like I dodged a bullet by avoiding this fandom.

That makes me sad, because there were awesome parts of it. There really were. You just had to find it.

[nightscale]

Same here.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[silverr]

Same.

[ayebydan]

yesyesyesyesyes

[(Anonymous)]

I think because it's a made up slur, some people forget to think about it - canonically - in the same terms they think about real slurs. Because for us it doesn't have that weight, even though it would for the characters.

So, like, I can't even imagine calling someone a racial slur, or a homophobic slur or anything like that. Because I have been socialized to know that it's a horrible, hateful thing that you Just Don't Do, no matter what. Whereas it's not impossible to imagine lashing out and calling someone...idk, like, a loser, I guess. Or a pathetic asshole. Words that would be designed to hurt, but that aren't actually slurs. And I think a lot of the time when people say Snape was just lashing out when he called Lily a mudblood, they're thinking about the term mudblood more like we think of words like pathetic, loser, weirdo. I mean, they know it's a slur, but they're not thinking of it with the societal and sociological weight of a true slur.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're 100% right. Although I would even say they see it as a stronger, yet still less offensive slur. Because that's what it is to us, since we know it's fiction - it doesn't actually hold any weight beyond it not being something you should say, the same way yo really shouldn't tell your friend "no one asked you, asshole." Or "bitch." Hell, I even remember when HP fans used to have "Keep Out Mudblood" keychains. (Which was weirdly contradictory to me.)

Huh.

[(Anonymous)]

It is a slur and yeah, he probably was prejudiced before. But now I'm wondering about the time because slurs were thrown around a lot more often in the 70s versus the 90s and whether that was some part of Rowling's thinking. But I'm honestly not sure if it's supposed to be on par with the n-word or if it was supposed to be closer to something like half-breed. I know it is absolutely meant to be offensive, but I can't quite gauge how offensive.

Re: Huh.

[(Anonymous)]

Well Lily stops being friends with him after he calls her that, which I think tells us a lot about the canon offensiveness. The main character who slings it around is Draco, but Draco is from a family of high ranking Death Eaters

Re: Huh.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually that was just Lily's breaking point. She already started drifting when he was hanging out with the "racist" crowd and him calling her that was the confirmation she needed.

[(Anonymous)]

So. I have a little brother. One of his friends used to throw slurs like "f*g" around often.

He later realized he was taught these things by the environment and he was bisexual and now he doesn't use that slur.

Guess what? The opposite is true, too! You can be pretty unprejudiced before you go to school, and then leave home and encounter views and be caught up in things that prey on vulnerable people, too. Like how Snape himself wasn't even Good Enough for the purebloods, but they saw someone to take advantage of.

(Hi I'm tired of having this argument because if he was prejudiced before he met her, it sure as fuck didn't show in any of his actions or anything when it 100% would have.)

[(Anonymous)]

First, it's not like Snape was using the slur in general conversation. He reached for the slur in a moment of stress specifically to hurt someone to whom the slur would apply.

Second, I don't think that the argument is about when, exactly, Snape becmae a racist - whether it was at school or before school. The point is that Snape was a Magical Racist, and that's part of the reason that he chose to use that slur against Lily, as opposed to the idea that Snape wasn't magically racist and just randomly accidentally happened to blurt out a slur.

Third, even if you're bullied, that's not a justification for being a Magical Racist and joining a Magical Racist gang, which is also pretty strong evidence of being a Magical Racist.

[(Anonymous)]

Or, like what happens in real fucking life, the Magical Racist Gang preyed on a vulnerable young person who craved acceptance and safety, which they offered because it bolstered their numbers! You know, like real life gangs fucking do. Unless you think every single gang member was born predisposed to it.

[(Anonymous)]

I never said that anyone was predisposed to anything. Of course I agree with you that Snape made a choice.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay but does it matter if it was from before he met her or some time while he knew her? Either way he developed those prejudices, and by the time he said that to her he still had them. It might actually be worse to me if he started thinking of her that way after they became friends :/

[(Anonymous)]

It matters in the sense that when you know where it stems from, you can cut it off in other people.

I don't find it worse, considering all that had happened between them at that point. They'd begun drifting, she dated a guy who relentlessly bullied him (which yeah, can feel like a massive betrayal when said bully "got better" but never once fucking apologized to you, because then you wonder if they really even feel sorry or changed at all or are just putting up a front because they want in your friend's pants), all the while the only people offering him any kind of acceptance being a bad crowd. Which, I will reiterate what I said to the anon above: that's what real world gangs do. They're predatory. They prey on vulnerable youth. Like people who are bullied. People who have shit home lives. ETC.

It sucks he became such an awful person. It doesn't change that he does, but fandom has a distinct tendency to decide that if you do bad things you were always bad and evil and that you couldn't have possibly been a victim of circumstances that led you down a really bad road (which deserves a little sympathy but not anything that excuses the actions, because they could have been better).

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly thought that either this fandom was too past it to have Snape apologists or the existence of said apologists were greatly exaggerated. I feel like I've spotted a rare species in the wild. So thanks for that, I guess?

[ninety6tears]

I mean, yeah? He knew it was wrong, but he wasn't strong enough to look beyond simplistic ways of framing things when experiencing emotional pain, and muggle prejudice was the "them against me" that would only intensify once Lily wasn't around.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought that much was obvious considering he kept talking down about Petunia when Lily was upset about her. Like... he was just saying Lily was better because she was magical which already showed his prejudice.

[(Anonymous)]

...I mean, Petunia was also a little shit to Lily over said magic? That's pretty important to remember?

[(Anonymous)]

"Someone else was a shit so it's okay that Snape was a shit."