BtVS: "2+2=5" (Snyder)
Title: 2+2=5
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Main Character: Principal Snyder
Other Characters: Rupert Giles, Harmony Kendall, Xander Harris, Andrew Wells
Rating: G
Summary: "To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies-all this is indispensably necessary."
A/N: Apologies to likeadeuce for a brief reference to a brilliant albeit unfinished comedic masterpiece whose title, contents, and url I seem to have misplaced.
2+2=5"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully-constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, [. . .] to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the art of hypnosis you had just performed."--George Orwell
When Snyder was passing through that loathsome larval stage through which we all, no matter how elevated, must pass, he had a disgusting and dangerous habit: he liked to read. He was a devourer of books, of articles, of short stories, of long stories, of dime-store novels, of novellas and novellettes, of romans de clef and bildungsromans and anti-novels, and of the stash of s/m pornography he kept inside his sock drawer.
Now, in maturity, he does not read at all, save for those reports and memoranda to which he is obligated to be familiar with their contents. Reading is still a fully disgusting and dangerous habit: it threatens to expand one's horizons, to insert new ideas where they were not before and were not needed before.
Snyder likes his horizons exactly where they are, and he has no need for new ideas. Such things would only threaten chaos in the orderly workings of his mind--and if there is anything he detests, it is chaos.
He fully blames a good half of Sunnydale High's disciplinary problems on the fact that its students are constantly being compelled to read. As far as he is concerned, there is no need or reason to have children read, or for that matter to teach children how to read in the first place; far better if they are never even taught to speak.
Given this pedagogical philosophy on the part of our dear old Principal Snyder, it should give the reader no surprise to learn that he disliked the SHS librarian even before he met him. He was English, to begin with, and while Snyder had no problem (of which he knew) with the English people, anyone with the least knowledge of geography knew that they belonged in England, a small country off the coast of France; that this Rupert Giles should deign to appear in Southern California, a body of land nowhere near the coast of France, bespoke the most fragrant disregard of not only geography, but of boundaries of all kinds.
Still, Rupert Giles had been the curator of some museum in England, and Snyder knew that if English museums were anything like American ones, this meant he should have had some ability to organize and categorize. So Snyder had held some hope that man would be one who would be able to keep order, with everything in its place.
Instead, he was a force for chaos.
For one thing, he had turned the Sunnydale High library into a haven for undesirables and delinquents. Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and worst of all Buffy Summers all spent as much time there as they did in their classes.
And that on top of the fact that his sole job was to take care of books. Snyder had moved more than once to take out the library and have the space turned into a faculty lounge, but neither the school board nor the mayor would hear of it.
And somehow, suspiciously, all the strange and catastrophic events which plagued Sunnydale High School seemed to involve Rupert Giles.
* * *
When Snyder was passing through that loathsome larval stage through which we all, no matter how elevated, must pass, his favorite book had been Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell: a heartwarming tale of a man in a wonderfully well-ordered society who is able to triumphantly win the battle over himself and become sane.
He wrote a paper on it for his tenth-grade English class, perfectly typed with a fresh ribbon and with not a single comma splice in the piece, and still not only did his teacher give his paper back with a bright red "F" on the front of it, but she called his mother.
"I don't know what you did, Everett," his mother said once she had returned from the conference, "but whatever it was, I'll see you regret it."
His mother was a great woman who always carried through on her promises.
* * *
The sound of the fracas in the school library reached as far as his office, and Snyder frowned. The school day ended at 2:30; as late as it was now--past six o'clock--Sunnydale High should have returned to its ideal state, studentless. Snyder quickly rose from his desk. Noises occurring when noises should not have been occurring bespoke some degree of chaos in his school, and that was one thing up with which he would not put.
In the lobby, there were four figures: that delinquent Xander Harris, Harmony Kendall, Tucker Wells' brother, and a fourth, menacing figure with a distorted face who grabbed Miss Kendall and sank his his teeth into her neck. Xander Harris was busy trying to pry the creature off of Harmony, while the Wells boy just cowered in the corner.
Which, of course, was simply more proof that the universe as it currently existed completely lacked any sense of justice. Unlike Mr. Harris, Miss Kendall was a model student: one never found her thinking for herself, and she knew enough to stay away from the undesirable sort. It is not as if anyone ever found her in the library. Even when that sort had managed to corrupt the previously unimpeachable Cordelia Chase, Miss Kendall had admirably stood firm.
Xander Harris, holding a wooden stake in one hand and using the other to pull off the beast, finally managed to free Miss Kendall from its grasp. Angered, the vampire knocked him away; Xander was thrown against the wall, dropping his stake.
The vampire, however, seemed to decide to turn on Snyder, who really should have just stayed in his office and let it eat them all. "Come now," Snyder said, refusing to show fear, "this is school property, and I am the designated school official. I demand you leave immediately. I am rather well-connected, you know. Direct line to the mayor."
The vampire didn't seem to be impressed and as it came even nearer, Snyder had no choice but to pick up Xander's fallen stake and plunge it into the creature's heart. It exploded into ash.
"What are you kids doing here, anyway?" Snyder asked, not missing a beat. It was all their fault for being there in the first place, after all. Not that he expected anything else from Xander Harris, but he thought Harmony had more sense than that.
"We're in the school play." Harmony said, gesturing towards the Wells kid. "I'm playing Juliet and you're making me kiss Miss You-Know-Who even though I so said I didn't want to? Remember?"
Snyder nodded, gruffly. He didn't even bother asking Xander Harris what he was doing in the school; he was quite certain that he did not want to know.
Miss Kendall looked at where there was nothing but a pile of ash on the floor, then brought her fingers to her bloody neck. "Um, what just happened?"
There was not a vampire in the lobby of Sunnydale High School. There had never been a vampire in the lobby of Sunnydale High School. Vampires did not exist, after all.
"Mr. Harris, a week of detention for attacking Miss Kendall."
"But I didn't--there was a--" The boy broke off, looked from Harmony to Snyder to the pile of ash, and gave a resigned sigh.
* * *
Being principal of Sunnydale High School was a job which called for intense mental self-discipline; that was why the mayor had chosen Snyder for the job. One needed to keep one's convictions in the face of danger, of stress, and--most of all--in the face of evidence. But for Snyder all that was easy. He knew what he was being paid to do and think, and he did and thought those things with ability and competence.
He had won the battle over himself long ago.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Main Character: Principal Snyder
Other Characters: Rupert Giles, Harmony Kendall, Xander Harris, Andrew Wells
Rating: G
Summary: "To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies-all this is indispensably necessary."
A/N: Apologies to likeadeuce for a brief reference to a brilliant albeit unfinished comedic masterpiece whose title, contents, and url I seem to have misplaced.
2+2=5"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully-constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, [. . .] to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the art of hypnosis you had just performed."--George Orwell
When Snyder was passing through that loathsome larval stage through which we all, no matter how elevated, must pass, he had a disgusting and dangerous habit: he liked to read. He was a devourer of books, of articles, of short stories, of long stories, of dime-store novels, of novellas and novellettes, of romans de clef and bildungsromans and anti-novels, and of the stash of s/m pornography he kept inside his sock drawer.
Now, in maturity, he does not read at all, save for those reports and memoranda to which he is obligated to be familiar with their contents. Reading is still a fully disgusting and dangerous habit: it threatens to expand one's horizons, to insert new ideas where they were not before and were not needed before.
Snyder likes his horizons exactly where they are, and he has no need for new ideas. Such things would only threaten chaos in the orderly workings of his mind--and if there is anything he detests, it is chaos.
He fully blames a good half of Sunnydale High's disciplinary problems on the fact that its students are constantly being compelled to read. As far as he is concerned, there is no need or reason to have children read, or for that matter to teach children how to read in the first place; far better if they are never even taught to speak.
Given this pedagogical philosophy on the part of our dear old Principal Snyder, it should give the reader no surprise to learn that he disliked the SHS librarian even before he met him. He was English, to begin with, and while Snyder had no problem (of which he knew) with the English people, anyone with the least knowledge of geography knew that they belonged in England, a small country off the coast of France; that this Rupert Giles should deign to appear in Southern California, a body of land nowhere near the coast of France, bespoke the most fragrant disregard of not only geography, but of boundaries of all kinds.
Still, Rupert Giles had been the curator of some museum in England, and Snyder knew that if English museums were anything like American ones, this meant he should have had some ability to organize and categorize. So Snyder had held some hope that man would be one who would be able to keep order, with everything in its place.
Instead, he was a force for chaos.
For one thing, he had turned the Sunnydale High library into a haven for undesirables and delinquents. Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and worst of all Buffy Summers all spent as much time there as they did in their classes.
And that on top of the fact that his sole job was to take care of books. Snyder had moved more than once to take out the library and have the space turned into a faculty lounge, but neither the school board nor the mayor would hear of it.
And somehow, suspiciously, all the strange and catastrophic events which plagued Sunnydale High School seemed to involve Rupert Giles.
* * *
When Snyder was passing through that loathsome larval stage through which we all, no matter how elevated, must pass, his favorite book had been Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell: a heartwarming tale of a man in a wonderfully well-ordered society who is able to triumphantly win the battle over himself and become sane.
He wrote a paper on it for his tenth-grade English class, perfectly typed with a fresh ribbon and with not a single comma splice in the piece, and still not only did his teacher give his paper back with a bright red "F" on the front of it, but she called his mother.
"I don't know what you did, Everett," his mother said once she had returned from the conference, "but whatever it was, I'll see you regret it."
His mother was a great woman who always carried through on her promises.
* * *
The sound of the fracas in the school library reached as far as his office, and Snyder frowned. The school day ended at 2:30; as late as it was now--past six o'clock--Sunnydale High should have returned to its ideal state, studentless. Snyder quickly rose from his desk. Noises occurring when noises should not have been occurring bespoke some degree of chaos in his school, and that was one thing up with which he would not put.
In the lobby, there were four figures: that delinquent Xander Harris, Harmony Kendall, Tucker Wells' brother, and a fourth, menacing figure with a distorted face who grabbed Miss Kendall and sank his his teeth into her neck. Xander Harris was busy trying to pry the creature off of Harmony, while the Wells boy just cowered in the corner.
Which, of course, was simply more proof that the universe as it currently existed completely lacked any sense of justice. Unlike Mr. Harris, Miss Kendall was a model student: one never found her thinking for herself, and she knew enough to stay away from the undesirable sort. It is not as if anyone ever found her in the library. Even when that sort had managed to corrupt the previously unimpeachable Cordelia Chase, Miss Kendall had admirably stood firm.
Xander Harris, holding a wooden stake in one hand and using the other to pull off the beast, finally managed to free Miss Kendall from its grasp. Angered, the vampire knocked him away; Xander was thrown against the wall, dropping his stake.
The vampire, however, seemed to decide to turn on Snyder, who really should have just stayed in his office and let it eat them all. "Come now," Snyder said, refusing to show fear, "this is school property, and I am the designated school official. I demand you leave immediately. I am rather well-connected, you know. Direct line to the mayor."
The vampire didn't seem to be impressed and as it came even nearer, Snyder had no choice but to pick up Xander's fallen stake and plunge it into the creature's heart. It exploded into ash.
"What are you kids doing here, anyway?" Snyder asked, not missing a beat. It was all their fault for being there in the first place, after all. Not that he expected anything else from Xander Harris, but he thought Harmony had more sense than that.
"We're in the school play." Harmony said, gesturing towards the Wells kid. "I'm playing Juliet and you're making me kiss Miss You-Know-Who even though I so said I didn't want to? Remember?"
Snyder nodded, gruffly. He didn't even bother asking Xander Harris what he was doing in the school; he was quite certain that he did not want to know.
Miss Kendall looked at where there was nothing but a pile of ash on the floor, then brought her fingers to her bloody neck. "Um, what just happened?"
There was not a vampire in the lobby of Sunnydale High School. There had never been a vampire in the lobby of Sunnydale High School. Vampires did not exist, after all.
"Mr. Harris, a week of detention for attacking Miss Kendall."
"But I didn't--there was a--" The boy broke off, looked from Harmony to Snyder to the pile of ash, and gave a resigned sigh.
* * *
Being principal of Sunnydale High School was a job which called for intense mental self-discipline; that was why the mayor had chosen Snyder for the job. One needed to keep one's convictions in the face of danger, of stress, and--most of all--in the face of evidence. But for Snyder all that was easy. He knew what he was being paid to do and think, and he did and thought those things with ability and competence.
He had won the battle over himself long ago.