Inconceivable - More thoughts on Secrecy, wizarding politics, and Severus Snape

[condwiramurs]

I started replying to a comment posted to "I Would Sell Out the Nation," but it developed into a rather long post thinking my way through some things. And talking more about Snape, of course. I’m just thinking out loud here though

Comments

[sweettalkeress]

You bring up an interesting point when you claim that unions between a nonmagic man and a magic woman would be a particular hot-button issue because the woman would have to raise the child partly or entirely in the company of nonmagic folk. Thinking about it, the two most prominent characters in the Death Eaters' camp, Voldemort and Snape, are both children of magical mothers and nonmagic fathers. So...maybe that explains the drastic measures both of them decided to take--they, moreso than anyone else, are considered illegitimate in wizarding society, so they have the least to lose by working to end Secrecy.

[condwiramurs]

Yes, it's a curious parallel, isn't it? And yes, exactly: Severus would more than most people in the WW have the desire and incentives to want to end Secrecy, because Secrecy is what gives rise to the most fundamental problems in his life

[hwyla]

Interesting thoughts about how it is more unacceptable for a witch to marry a muggle than for a wizard. That is especially shown if you consider the literal halfblood in James' own gang. It is merely Pottermore canon, but Remus had a muggle parent - his mother.

But she is apparently integrated into the wizarding world. Or at the very least isolated from the muggle one. She becomes a stay at home mom who previously had a nice job. And when JKR wrote about Lyall and Hope, she stressed how pretty she was and how his father did most of Remus' home schooling, despite the fact that Hope did not leave for work everyday. And then, of course, once Remus was bitten, they seemed to isolate even further, so that by the time he goes to Hogwarts, Remus believes he cannot have friends.

My guess is that they lived in an extremely isolated area.

But James doesn't seem to mind THIS literal halfblood.

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BTW, the cop and motorcycle chase is supposed to take place during the summer between 6th and 7th year (since you wondered).

Part One (I'm formating thoughts one bit at a time :-)

[vermouth1991]

This essay (and the "arc" of essays that condwiramurs has been doing lately) really encapsulates why I love this livejournal group so much. Not that the essays and recaps that came before this are in any way lesser works, but this whole deal of digging into the WW's whole taken-for-grantedness of Secrecy really is shaking the core of the fictional universe and making us readers reevaluate just how decayed this world really is. Now I'm not blaming Rowling for writing the world this way (same as I won't blame Irvine Welsh for writing about the underbelly of Scotland that's infested with heroin addicts) but not realizing it herself, I won't say there's any malicious intent on her part in doing this; however, I am going to express a lot of sorrow here that a lot of her readers (which includes myself) could never see this deep into things, and a lot of them won't ever find places such as here to share and learn such things.

... in the least-clear/potentially-best case, the post-wedding revelation of his wife’s magic was “a bit of a nasty shock” for

Re: Part One (I'm formating thoughts one bit at a time :-)

[hwyla]

We do have two examples of wizards marrying muggle wives. Remus' parents and Dean Thomas' parents. Neither marriage is in the books

Toby and Eileen

[jana_ch]

Tobias presumably did have trouble with that, since he apparently expresses his physical power over her.We have no indication that Tobias Snape physically abused his wife or son. We know they had an unhappy marriage, though we don’t know exactly what form that unhappiness took. We know little Sev witnessed at least one argument in which Tobias was able to cow Eileen verbally despite her superior power. (I like to believe it was from Toby that Severus inherited the force of personality that allows him to intimidate people by his mere presence.) We don’t know that Toby ever beat either of them, or that he was a drunkard, or that he couldn’t keep a job, or any of the other things one sees in fanon. All of them are possibilites, but no more than that

Re: Toby and Eileen

[hwyla]

I believe that the reason Snape has not lost his magic due to depression is because of a strength of mind, not because he was male. To me, this is the reason he calls Tonks 'weak' at the gate. She has allowed her depression to keep her from doing her job adequately. For Snape, it may have something to do with occlumency, but it might just be a case of intense determination

[sunnyskywalker]

This shook loose something else, somewhat tangential, in my head. As you say, the friction comes from wizards trying to live secretly while still physically surrounded by Muggles. They can't help but use the Muggle train station, hide the government building behind a Muggle department store front in a Muggle neighborhood, live near Muggle towns even when in the country, dodge Muggle helicopters when traveling by broom, etc. The European wizarding schools are in isolated locations, as is Hogsmeade, but most wizards still live scattered around the Muggle landscape

[danajsparks]

Very good points.

--But that would mean giving up a lot of heritage, a lot of "but my family has been here since..."

I like this explanation. But why do the Blacks have a townhouse in London? According to a few different theorists, Grimmauld Place is probably located in or near Islington. This general area was actually still pretty rural until the late 18th century, so I was thinking that maybe the townhouses were built on what were once Black ancestral lands.

JKR posted on twitter that "a Black ancestor coveted the beautiful house, so 'persuaded' the Muggle occupant to leave & put the appropriate spells on it." But I'm not sure how seriously to take her twitter comments.

[sunnyskywalker]

That comment sounds like she just thew something out on Twitter and didn't think it through. Kind of like the house to begin with. Being on the spot of Black ancestral lands might work.

Or modify her comment a bit. A younger Black, one who wouldn't inherit Black Manor or whatever the original ancestral seat was, wanted some posh digs of their own and urban places are just easier to get than rural estates with lots of space. Then something happened--a freeway bypass through Black Manor that couldn't be stopped without too much risk, maybe--and suddenly the townhouse became the best replacement available.

[jana_ch]

It was common enough for a wealthy gentry family to have both a country estate and a house in town. Perhaps the Blacks of a previous generation split the property, and by the mid-twentieth century the Cygnus Blacks own Blackworth Park in Sussex while the Orion Blacks have Grimmauld Place in London.

Why ‘Blackworth Park’? Because:
1) ‘Black Manor’ is a dull name too obviously inspired by Malfoy Manor, without the dubious benefit of alliteration.
2) It sound sufficiently Jane Austen-ish.
3) The old Anglo-Saxon place-name element ‘worth’ (which means ‘homestead’) is part of my own last name.

[terri_testing]

Sectumsempra.

Oh, that last line gave me chills.

Now you've persuaded me Sev DID invent the spell, not just popularize it. It's too apt not to be.

Now I'm thinking about Sev's joining the Death Eaters, and what he thought he was doing, and what he thought he was being asked to sacrifice--and he always understood that it was a part of himself. The Muggle part. He was WILLING to cut that part out.

Only, he didn't understand that Lily (or rather, everything she symbolized to him: the possibility of beauty and kindness) was truly a part of his Muggle life, not of his wizarding one....

[condwiramurs]

Only if we assume that the Muggle-domination aspect was part of Sev's original recruitment. If he genuinely wanted to end Secrecy and bring the two worlds together, though, and just thought that the MINISTRY was what needed to be overthrown by force to make that happen...

He probably would have assumed wizards would be quietly privileged in some way, because that's the default assumption for all wizards, that they're better. But would he have seen the DEs program as cutting out his muggle part? Or as finally giving him a world where he and Lily DON'T HAVE TO? The two worlds integrated.

Because that's what the Secret-bound WW does, in practice. As long as it insists on staying forever severed from the muggle world. That's why he and Lily had to sacrifice each other - each was too muggle to be associating with, given their respective statuses.