Question about Severus's real, true character

[lavivi]

Severus Snape has been one of fandom's biggest victims.  The only bigger victim, in my opinion, is Draco Malfoy.  I mean that we have seized a character - Draco and Severus - snatched at their potential, and turned them into something entirely different from what we are presented in canon.

I'm writing an odd sort of story that has to do with a child of Severus's, and I found that I am having trouble because, well, it's hard to distinguish what's beneath all those years of being a spy, and a Death Eater, and a bully victim, and the victim of a bad family.

I've heard that a child is born with some 30% of the personality they'll have for the rest of their life, and the rest is developed by the time they're six.

So I ask you...what do you think Severus's character and personality would have been, had he grown up in a more normal manner? 

Comments

[ook.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I don't see Draco as a victim in the least. He's from a wealthy, influential family who will buy/give him anything he wants. He's surrounded by goons and friends. He may possibly be one of the most popular (for a Slytherin) and powerful (as in influence) kids at Hogwarts. Draco has not been "snatched from his potential" in the least (except that his family has tied itself in with Voldemort and we know that's a losing battle in the Potter books). IMO, Draco is the polar OPPOSITE of Severus Snape.

[pervert-bitch.livejournal.com]

She does not mean a victim like that, she means it as in we have seized him snatched at hispotential, and turned him into something entirely different from what we are presented in canon.
Which just means Draco is a victim OF us not a victim FOR us.

[ook.livejournal.com]

Draco is a spoiled bully. What's so complicated about that? I think that people are reading a LOT into Draco that's simply not there. Perhaps in the next book, we'll get a little more backstory on Draco but I seriously doubt it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

I entirely agree with you. Except that, being a fan of Cassie Claire, I think fanon!Draco is fun to play with. But yes, he is definitely not canon.

[pervert-bitch.livejournal.com]

Oh, he is a spoiled bully... it's just that Fandom has created a different Draco, so his character has been victimized... as in he has been transformed into something that JK probably didn't intend to.
And I think that's the fault a bit of movie!Draco and even movie!Lucius... But meh, it's not as if Draco is THAT bad... surely the kid has attitude, nothing that a well placed punch cannot fix, IMNSHO... But really, he's hardly harmful, all his bullying attitude are too childish in my opinion. He COULD turn into something dangerous, but now he is just an insecure annoying little prat.

[ook.livejournal.com]

I think that the Tom Felton factor is the ONLY reason that Draco is popular. Then again, Blaise Zabini is merely a NAME in the books (not even a gender) and look at all the stories written about Blaise. ;)

[pervert-bitch.livejournal.com]

Actually, I liked Draco before I met Felton in a sadistic way...
When I first read about him, my mind went on "HUNTING" mood...
Actually, for me, Draco has PREY written on his pale forehead...
Without Crabbe and Goyle... he's all bark and no bite... I would love to take him down a notch or too... But I would also like to help him in cases like Moody turning him into a ferret...

Talking about Blaise, I never understood the appeal but I always knew he was a guy. :P

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

No, my recollection is that Draco was teh popular before the movies.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

Thank you. That's exactly what I meant.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

I agree with you Ook, and I suspect that Lavinia does as well: at least that's how I interpret "we have seized a character - Draco and Severus - snatched at their potential, and turned them into something entirely different from what we are presented in canon". Yes, Draco has often been turned into something entirely different from what we have been presented with in canon - a nice-looking, easy-going, witty young man - as opposed to the pointy-faced, scowling, uptight, nasty little bigot we see in the actual books. What Lavinia is saying is that Draco had the potential to be more than he is in the books. Ditto Snape.

FWIW, I believe that Snape would have retained his intelligence and his tendency to look down on others (an undesirable concomitant of intelligence, but there you go). What may have shaped his personality, however, is the reaction of others to his looks. A big nose, sallow skin and greasy hair is not going to make you the most popular kid in the crowd, so, unless he found a similarly intelligent kid to hang around with, I doubt his infancy would have been a happy one.

We're pre-supposing a lot, aren't we? We're pre-supposing that

1) Snape's parents didn't make the home absolute hell for the kid
2) that nobody taught him all that Dark Magic at an early age, or left the books lying around whereby he could pick it up for himself
3) that he could have found a kindred spirit of equal intelligence to hang around with

With his looks Snape could never have been truly "popular", but he could have been far more easygoing (and less vindictive) had he not been forced into being a loner.

Mind you, he could have turned out far worse had he been popular. Plenty of intelligent minds have turned to nastiness out of sheer boredom and the knowledge that they could get away with it; had Snape been the leader of his own little "gang", who's to say that he wouldn't have tortured other little kids just because the possibility was there? We always assume that the 30% of one's inborn personality is inherently "good", but perhaps the imperiousness and belittling attitude was ingrained in Snape from the word go...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

Yes, you nearly got what I meant. Apparently I wasn't very clear...

What Lavinia is saying is that Draco had the potential to be more than he is in the books. Ditto Snape.

Draco, and Severus to a lesser degree, are rather 2-D characters in canon, as we see them through Harry's eyes. Fandom has taken this and made up a third dimension, often in a way that isn't very realistic and isn't what Ms. Rowling intended.

Anyway, thank you for the thoughts on Severus. I'll definitely consider all of that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

Nonono, you miss my meaning. I'm not saying we should sympathize with the character of Draco Malfoy; I'm saying we've dramatically changed his character from what it is in canon. We've made him into someone else entirely. Sorry for not being clear.

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

I see happy!child!Severus as being inquisitive, intelligent, precocious, and alternately shy and bossy by turns. He'd probably be just as fastidious (except in terms of hygiene, as even a loved six-year-old doesn't like to bathe) and particular in his tastes as he is in canon/fanon. That's my knee-jerk reaction to your question, at any rate.

I'd love to know who the mother of your Snape's child is because that would help figure out what any child of his would be like, but I suppose I'll have to wait for the story---which I volunteer to beta read, btw, should you require it. I've been working on a similar idea for awhile, and I'm curious about yours. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

Thanks for the thoughts. Heheh, I'm a little reluctant to share the story...it's something I've been working on for the past three years (this month is its anniversary again), since I was thirteen. Needless to say, it's not very good. But I recently compared the size of the Word file to the Word file of my copy of the Harry Potter books, and at present it's apparently somewhere between the length of the fourth book and the fifth book. Head, meet desk.

I have a beta, and a good one at that: junediamanti. She Brit-picks and catches the grammar and punctuation things that I miss. I appreciate her dearly, but thanks for the offer.

The mother of the child is Lily Evans. (Yes, yes, Lily/Severus is my OTP (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/Lavinia2/avatars/severuss3.jpg), moving on.) It's a girl, absolutely not Harry Potter or anyone else we know in canon. It's...very complicated, and also meets the description of a soap opera. Regardless, I'm working very hard at it, and have a funny relationship: I hate what I've already written, but look forward to the parts coming up.

What made me ask this question is a sort of extra-epilogue...a one-shot. I don't know if you follow Cassie Claire at all, or have seen her

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Thanks for the thoughts. Heheh, I'm a little reluctant to share the story...it's something I've been working on for the past three years (this month is its anniversary again), since I was thirteen. Needless to say, it's not very good. But I recently compared the size of the Word file to the Word file of my copy of the Harry Potter books, and at present it's apparently somewhere between the length of the fourth book and the fifth book. Head, meet desk.

I have a beta, and a good one at that: <lj site="livejournal.com" user="junediamanti">. She Brit-picks and catches the grammar and punctuation things that I miss. I appreciate her dearly, but thanks for the offer.

The mother of the child is Lily Evans. (Yes, yes, <a href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/Lavinia2/avatars/severuss3.jpg">Lily/Severus is my OTP</a>, moving on.) It's a girl, absolutely not Harry Potter or anyone else we know in canon. It's...very complicated, and also meets the description of a soap opera. Regardless, I'm working very hard at it, and have a funny relationship: I hate what I've already written, but look forward to the parts coming up.

What made me ask this question is a sort of extra-epilogue...a one-shot. I don't know if you follow Cassie Claire at all, or have seen her <a href="http://www.heidi8.com/dvxmas/index.html"</a>Draco Veritas Christmas</a> site, but the story called <i>disobedience</i> on it is - for one, very good, and two, the format I'm following for my extra-epilogue. I'm planning to call mine <i>heritage</i>, and probably just the first eleven years of her life. Of course, before I even think about putting it up anywhere I'll ask Cassie's permission.

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

Wow. Three years is a long time to nurse a baby! ;) Good luck with it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

Heheh, I fixed my post below, but I guess I won't delete the messed up one since you already replied to it...thanks!

P.S. _lavinia_ and lavinialavender are the same person, being me, in case you were wondering.

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the thoughts. Heheh, I'm a little reluctant to share the story...it's something I've been working on for the past three years (this month is its anniversary again), since I was thirteen. Needless to say, it's not very good. But I recently compared the size of the Word file to the Word file of my copy of the Harry Potter books, and at present it's apparently somewhere between the length of the fourth book and the fifth book. Head, meet desk.

I have a beta, and a good one at that: junediamanti. She Brit-picks and catches the grammar and punctuation things that I miss. I appreciate her dearly, but thanks for the offer.

The mother of the child is Lily Evans. (Yes, yes, Lily/Severus is my OTP (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/Lavinia2/avatars/severuss3.jpg), moving on.) It's a girl, absolutely not Harry Potter or anyone else we know in canon. It's...very complicated, and also meets the description of a soap opera. Regardless, I'm working very hard at it, and have a funny relationship: I hate what I've already written, but look forward to the parts coming up.

What made me ask this question is a sort of extra-epilogue...a one-shot. I don't know if you follow Cassie Claire at all, or have seen her Draco Veritas Christmas (http://www.heidi8.com/dvxmas/index.html) site, but the story called disobedience on it is - for one, very good, and two, the format I'm following for my extra-epilogue. I'm planning to call mine heritage, and probably just the first eleven years of her life. Of course, before I even think about putting it up anywhere I'll ask Cassie's permission.

[grammar-glamour.livejournal.com]

Well, if most of a child's personality is developed by age six, being a Death Eater, a spy, and getting bullied is pretty well beyond that. All of that wouldn't account for him being such a jerk to Harry. As for his childhood, I can't think of any canon evidence that says it was out-and-out bad.

The reason people don't generally like Snape and Malfoy is because we aren't really meant to. JKR writes them as The Bad Guys. And, at the heart of it, HP is still a children's series. It's not meant to have semi-villainous characters that elicit our empathy, like Spike on Buffy or Sawyer on Lost. Snape and Malfoy are, essentially, Harry's foils. We're not talking the Macbeth family here. We're not supposed to sympathize with these characters. That doesn't mean we don't. That's the beauty of fanfiction. You can explore anything you want, as long as you take care to explain it properly.

Asking "What would Snape be like if . . .?" is kind of a moot point. JKR doesn't tell us. It isn't the Severus Snape series. For good or ill, Harry is the main character and he's the one stuck hearing about. In fic, we can go wherever we want, but the fact still remains that all we know of Snape-- really, truly-- is that he was a spy, a "reformed" Death Eater, and has harbored a grudge since he was in school. A grudge, it should be noted, that he has carried on to the perpetrator's progeny. I'm not an expert or anything, but something tells me that is neither healthy nor mature.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lavinia_/]

I agree with you, and I understand how you mean it's moot, but I was still asking for opinions since I'm writing a fanfic that involves his basic personality.

Bad family

[stinksap.livejournal.com]

Be careful- we actually know very little about Snapes background- the 'bad family' assumption is largely fanon and extrapolation based on his pensieved memories. It is a pretty sound theory, but theory nonetheless.

Very little is actually known- you should review exactly what is known from canon before jumping to conclusions. You will have a stronger fic if you come to your own conclusions rather than just regurgitating what other peoplehave already extrapolated.

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/snape.html is a good starting place.