This Is Not About Snape (not really anyway)
I'm going to do a rant calling out some dismissive bullshit that I saw yesterday on CoS forums. It might get little incoherent and there will be lots of F words. And I will be caling out one particular poster, eliza101. I usually don't call out people because 1) I'm a lazy cow 2) someone else has likely already addressed the bullshit already and 3) I don't like to hurt people's feelings even if they deserve it. But I don't care about hurting this one person's feelings, because they really really deserve it. This deals with abuse and might be triggering to some people.
Note: All the colorful italicized words are from eliza101. Now for the actual rant . . .
I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT SNAPE. HE IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER IN A FICTIONAL WORLD.
I do however care about the shit people say in order to justify their feelings about him. For example, this. . .
"Perhaps, but arguing is not the most terrible thing that can happen in a marraige. Perhaps Tobias put too much salt in the stew and Eileen complained, an arguement ensued, Eileen slipped in a bit of spilt stewand it looked like she was cowering."
. . . pissed me the fuck off. Emphasis mine. Of course the scene being referenced here is the one in The Prince's Tale where we see Snape's mother cowering while being yelled at and little Snape crying in a corner. In my infallible opinion, this scene (coupled with other bits and pieces from the books) shows that shows that Eileen (and possibly Severus) Snape was at least verbally abused by her husband.
The attitude displayed by this poster is one I see all too often. The attitude of dismissing abuse. Too often, when a woman is abused, the first thing peole do is try to find ways to explain how she wasn't really abused or how what she suffered wasn't even that bad. They say things like this . . .
"She was asking for it"
"She probably started it"
"That didn't look like it hurt that much"
"It was probably a one time thing"
"We don't have all the facts yet so I'm not gonna take her word for it (but I am gonna defend the abuser)"
"Maybe he fell fist first and landed on her chin (slipped in a bit of stew my ass)"
People who say things like this for some reason can't accept that sometimes people are abused. So when they see abuse, they invent rich and elaborate backstories that vindicate the abuser and blame the abused for starting the whole thing.
And then even when they do accept that an abused person is abused, they have to minimize the situation. Like here . . .
He is not beaten, exploited or in any kind of physical pain. So it seems to be neglect which is very far from the worst kind of abuse a child can suffer.
Did you hear that? If there are no physical scars from the abuse you suffer then it's not a big deal. Neglect doesn't matter. Verbal and emotional abuse don't matter. Stop being a fucking crybaby. Or here . . .
I could list bad abuse here but the Mods I feel sure would have something to say about it.
So apparently there is BAD abuse and there is . . . neutral abuse? Tolerable abuse? You know what? There's no need for you to list the "bad" kinds of abuse because they're all bad. No form of abuse is acceptable. The suffering of a neglected child is not lessened by his proximnity to a beaten child. There are no levels of abuse because all people respond to abuse differently.
When another poster asked her if she had any sort of statistics or research or evidence, etc for the claims she makes, this was her response:
You mean apart from my own life. Not really, I'm not a social worker, nor do I pretend to be. I have to say though that I don't think not being a social worker has impinged on my power of common sense.
Maybe you have common sense. You don't have common decency.
The sad thing about eliza101's post is that in her attempt to show her disdain for this fictional character, she has dismissed the suffering of countless people. It's entirely possible to dislike a character in a book without making light of the abuse people suffer.
. . . so I guess I was wrong about the F words :/