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

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

Re: Toby and Eileen

[jana_ch]

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.

I quite agree that Severus is giving Tonks his version of a friendly warning when he comments on the weakness of her Patronus, not simply insulting her out of sheer nastiness, as Harry assumes. It’s hard to know whether he’s pointing out the on-going loss of her magic due to hopeless love, or warning her against the moral weakness of her love object. It may be both. He really does know Lupin’s spineless ways a lot better than she does, and would be the person in the best position to warn her against him, if his caustic manner didn’t guarantee his advise would be disregarded.

Severus’ mental strength and skill with occlumency may be protecting him from heartbreak-induced magic loss, but I find it a suspicious coincidence that it is the male character who has the mental discipline to resist such loss, while the poor weak female characters (