[ 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

[(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)]

Like. I'm going to be blunt. You clearly were never bullied, at least more than a little teasing. When you're isolated, it can get really tempting to chase acceptance anywhere you can get it. Because otherwise it's crushing just existing. You fall into bad crowds because at first, they don't start with the bad act. It's a gradual thing that builds up, because again, these groups are predatory. So they start off nice and simple, don't show their bad streaks, butter you up, lure you in... And slowly turn your way of thinking around by threatening to withdraw that acceptance that you've finally found. Like, shit, he was a kid.

[(Anonymous)]

"don't show their bad streaks"

According to the Pensieve memory, Lily and presumably a good chunk of the school knew EXACTLY what kinds of people Snape's new pals were, mainly because they didn't hide their anti-muggleborn attitudes at all.

(also as someone who was bullied and fell in with a bad crowd: you figure out what they're like pretty damn quick, actually)

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I acknowledge all of those things, and yes, in some ways it's a tragic circumstance that Snape was placed in. But he still did make his choice, despite the fact that the allegiances of his new friends were pretty clear, and he maintained that choice for several years, past being a kid, until it threatened Lily. I don't know what you want me to say here. The fact he was bullied doesn't change those things.

And for the record, you don't actually know me.

[philstar22]

All of this. I was bullied severely. I still have PTSD from it. Snape still chose to use a slur. Whether or not Snape had those views before coming to Hogwarts, he did at the time he used that word to refer to Lily. And he never really is shown changing his view points other than him still caring about Lily enough that his friends threatening her made him mad about that. Even his help of Dumbledore was all about Lily. People talk about there being no evidence of James changing, but in fact in my opinion it is Snape we have no evidence actually changed perspectives.

And, also, Snape was a freaking bully himself. I was bullied as much by teachers as by peers. You want to know which was scarier and which was more traumatizing for me?

Snape is a nuanced character, don't get me wrong. he wasn't out and out evil. But he was a terrible person who made some terrible choices, and I get really tired of people excusing everything he does.

[(Anonymous)]

Snape being a bully to his students is something I just cannot rationalize or defend. I can understand liking Snape and thinking he's a great character but making fun of a 15 year old girl's looks right to her face and trying to kill one of his student's pets is simply inexcusable.

I don't know what kind of person you need to be think that's any where near the realm of understandable behavior.

[(Anonymous)]

None of this is excusing what he did. I'm tired of the line being trotted the fuck out whenever someone points out anything like this.

I do think James changed. I just don't think it fully took effect until after school and it still burns my biscuits we never once hear of him apologizing to Snape when one of James' own friends could have gotten Snape fucking killed in their childhood (see: the fucking Whomping Willow incident, which was Snape wanting some retribution for his own bullying going unanswered because the Marauders were the darlings of the student body and he wanted them to lose some of that gleam they had--that untouchableness). James saved him then, and that was probably the beginning of the turning point for him (tho timeline wise the underwear incident is AFTER that), because murder is different from bullying and the fact that Remus could even get into the tunnel at all that night says someone had to let him loose to do so since I recall Remus being otherwise chained the fuck down. But he still didn't once look at Snape and go, "Listen, I was a real bag of dicks to you, and I understand you hate me. I'm still sorry I was awful to you. No one deserves what we put you through." That is my beef with James tbh.

(Tho this begins another rant about how people put Sirius Black on a pedestal when he always, ALWAYS had the most skewed moral compass in the world. HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A BETTER PARENT FOR HARRY, HE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN THE KID FUCKING KILLED.)

Snape did terrible fucking things. Nothing excuses that! I'm still tired of all the "he was clearly the worst always and forever despite one of the Marauders outright trying to fucking kill him via his supposed friend who wouldn't be in his right mind."

[(Anonymous)]

If it makes you feel better, everyone agrees that Severus was much, much better at murdering innocent people than Sirius was. Sirius turned out to be pants at actually slaughtering the innocent, despite having the type of abusive childhood that gives you a free murder pass if you’re Snape. Sev, on the other hand, was an absolute champ at it.

[(Anonymous)]

How many people did Severus personally kill? Because he didn't even want to kill Dumbledore despite being asked to by the man.

[(Anonymous)]

Can you like, calm down.

[philstar22]

Okay. Most of this is right. But that was not what this discussion was about. The secret was about Snape having prejudices before. THe discussion was about Snape having done terrible things that can't be justified. To bring up James and the bullying was off topic and added nothing to the conversation. Yes, James and co were terrible. They were bullies. That doesn't change the converation any and doesn't excuse anything Snape did.

[(Anonymous)]

And this is why I hate Snape fans. We get it, you were bullied and clearly no one understands your /pain~~/ the way Snape does, therefore he's a poor sad woobie and not, y'know, a racist who called the one girl trying to defend him from his bullies a racial slur. Plenty of kids get bullied at school and somehow manage not to call their friends racial slurs.

[philstar22]

Yup. Also, plenty of people are bullied and don't repeat the patterns as adults. Snape was bullied, yes, but he was also a bully. And adult bully of kids, which is a whole lot worse.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm going to be blunt back. Snape was already racist when he got to Hogwarts. It shows up in his own memories and was most likely what drew the attention of the junior skinhead gang he took up with in the first place, since, as long as we're being blunt, lots of kids have shitty homelives and get bullied at school, but you're doing 99% of those kids a serious disservice when you claim that having that background gives you a good excuse to be a skinhead.

You need to stop making excuses for violent assholes before you get someone, possibly yourself, hurt. Snape was isolated because he was an unlikable little bigot with a mean streak who eventually turned that mean streak on the one person who ever tried to find the "heart of gold" under that pile of shit. And when she realized that under the shit was even more shit and decided to remove herself from that toxic situation, instead of learning anything from it Snape threw himself even more into his junior Hitler act. Multiple people were tortured and/or murdered directly because of Snape. Lily was one of them.

Everyone was a kid once, nonny. Lots of us were bullied. Most of us don't use either of those things to justify joining up with Team Ethnic Cleansing.

[(Anonymous)]

Dude, Snape didn't join some rough and tumble street gang... He joined the magical equivalent to the KKK. It wasn't an accident, and there is no defending that.
The 'bullied' excuse only goes so far- and if you want to say it warped his psyche to the point where he joined a group like /that/, (which is bullshit because he knew exactly who they were and allied himself with them from the beginning), then why does he bully his students to the point past abuse? It doesn't make sense.

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh. I like some things about Snape and will stan for him on occasion, but I’m not gonna justify his behavior with “bullied kids will do anything to be accepted and if you don’t agree you clearly weren’t bullied hard enough.”

Up through middle school most of my bullies were POC—I’m white. I got my lunch stolen, my books stolen—and ended up on the ground being kicked by a circle of kids when I tried to get the books back—got called all kinds of nasty stuff, tripped, slapped, followed home by groups of kids chanting taunts, cornered in bathrooms, had food and garbage thrown at me, kids pay each other to run up and kiss me (the other option was to kiss a toilet seat). High school was more of the same but with rich mostly white people.

You wanna know how many racial slurs I used in retaliation? Zero. You wanna know how many of their kids I’ve treated like shit since? Every week some of my work hours are in my old neighborhood, and I run into the children of my bullies fairly often—but it’s also zero, because I’m not an asshole. You wanna know how many white supremacist groups I joined? Zilch, because I’m not a monster.

Also, Snape was a kid. He grew into an adult who bullied children in his care. Even if he finally realized that belonging to a terrorist group was wrong, he still never stopped hurting people for shit they had no control over. He acted like Harry and his friends existed solely to piss him off when they were just kids. That’s not okay. Joining Hitler Youth Magic Edition wasn’t okay either.