On Snape's father, and other things...

[conuly]

This is a reply to what readerravenclaw recently wrote.

The entirety of the internet seems convinced that Snape grew up in an abusive household. Why? Because Snape had one bad memory about a woman (probably his mother) fighting with a man (almost certainly his father). The woman (probably his mother) is described as cowering.

There are two ways of looking at this. There's the "what did JKR mean to show" way, and the "what did she succeed in showing". She succeeded in showing us that, as a child, he witnessed a fight between a man and a woman. Even if we assume that these are his parents (a fair assessment, but not guaranteed), that doesn't mean 1. that his father was abusive (it could've been a very, very, very rare thing. I remember my father throwing a several pound marble ashtray in my mother's direction, so it shattered, but that's the last time I saw him do anything remotely like that, and I wouldn't call him abusive because he simply wasn't) or 2. that he grew up in an abusive household (it could be that his parents split up right around them, while he was still "a small boy".

Looking at the evidence, we can't conclude that he actually grew up in an abusive household, just that one of his bad memories was of seeing this fight. For all we know, the woman that his father (or at least, the person who looks like snape) was yelling at was the babysitter, and she'd left him alone at home for several hours while she gallivanted around with a boyfriend.

Does this mean the "abusive childhood" view is completely messed up? Well, no. When we watch a movie, and a parent takes out a belt and spanks the kid, we're not supposed to start a debate on whether or not spanking is child abuse. We're supposed to just infer from this that the parent is abusive. When Snape's worst memory is of two people fighting, we're not supposed to wonder who those people are, or why they were fighting, we're supposed to just assume that they're his parents, and they fought all the time.

I just don't like it. Hmph.

Oh, and for those other things, it just hit me: Sex-change via polyjuice is now canon. God help us all.

Comments

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

My objection is to the idea that a home in which the parents fight is necessarily abusive. Frankly I inferred from the memory that Snape's childhood was unhappy; I assumed the woman was his mother, though not necessarily that the man was his father. But the fact that parents fight (even to the point of spouse/partner abuse) does not, in and of itself, constitute child abuse. (Thank God, my state's courts have finally recognized this—it used to be legal to take a child from his/her mother just because she was a victim of domestic violence and allowed her child to witness it.) In any case, I inferred that he had witnessed spouse/partner abuse, and inferred from that that he was probably lacking a good male role model; obviously that isn't healthy or good for a child, but I take issue with people assuming that he himself was abused.