Posts tagged as:

Bullying

Hog’s Head PubCast #46: Othering

by Travis Prinzi on March 7, 2008

hogshead.jpgOthering and Bullying in Chamber of Secrets; News and Commentary; a strange E-Owl

You can subscribe to the Hog’s Head PubCast through iTunes, and VOTE for The Hog’s Head for the month of March at Podcast Alley.

Update: I’ve created the account for the voicemail (thanks to HP Progs for the tip!). If you’d like to give feedback or share ideas for the podcast via audio file to be included in the next show, call 206-222-2491.  You’ll leave a voicemail, and it will send it to me via email.

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Snape, the Bully

by Travis Prinzi on April 11, 2007

As I write this, there are 169 votes in the Snape poll in the sidebar (the other 900 of you that come each day need to vote, k?), and “Good Snape” is not just winning – it’s annihilating the other two.

Frequent commenter seriously_black has frequently pointed to Snape’s bullying of children. Indeed, in an interview for the book Conversations with J.K. Rowling (or Telling Tales: An Interview with J.K. Rowling in the UK), she explains that for a teacher, “the worst and shabbiest thing you can do” is to bully children, and apparently she draws a parallel to Snape here (I don’t have the book, though I plan to get it from the library soon).

Snape certainly is a bully – his actions towards Harry, Neville, and Hermione are unjustifiable; and he shows favoritism (to Slytherins) – and favoritism and spoiling are seen by Dumbledore as another form of abuse (HBP, chapter 3)!

As an advocate for children and former teacher, Rowling does not take issues like this lightly.  So I’m going to pose an initial challenge and then do some follow-up in the near future:

Does Snape’s bullying of children pose a significant challenge to Good!Snape theories?

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