Culture
Half-Blood, Whole Paradox: Severus Snape’s Identity Crisis
In this episode of Critical Magic Theory, Professor Julian Womble delves into Severus Snape's complex character, exploring his duality as both a mentor and a potential villain. The discussion hig...
Half-Blood, Whole Paradox: Severus Snape’s Identity Crisis
Culture •
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Interactive Transcript
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Welcome to Critical Magic Theory, where we deconstruct the Wizarding World of Period Potter
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because loving something doesn't mean we can't be critical of it.
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I'm Professor Julian Womble, and today we are continuing our severest Snape journey
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with our second of three episodes on the Potions Master.
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Y'all, y'all, here's the thing.
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I knew that Snape was going to be divisive.
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That's who he is, he's a polarizing character.
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The way that that post-episode shot for both the first main episode and the prof-response
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episode yielded really, really fun and interesting conversations.
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You all never let me down.
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You all somehow find a way to one-up yourselves all the time constantly, and I think that that's
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the mark of a good critical thinker.
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And I also do want to thank you all for taking to heart my words about how we engage with one another.
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I just think that it's going to make our engagement much better, much more free-flowing, much more open,
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and that's really what we're all about here.
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I also want to take the time to thank you all so much for your willingness to be vulnerable
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and to take that feedback and to be open to shifting the way that we engage for the sake of community.
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And that's something that I think a lot about, and I'm so grateful to be a part of a community that
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is open to that feedback and receptive to it in such a way that we can all be in conversation with
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one another that allows for us to do that and still be vulnerable and still be critical and still
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have our opinions. And so thank you all so much for your willingness to do that.
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Y'all, this episode, at first I was like, oh, like the last episode, the post-episode chat was so
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good. If you haven't looked at it, what are you doing? You need to run to it.
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I was like, can we, how do we get better? Like, how do we do, like, is this episode going to be kind of
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a little like a bad sequel before the complete and utter chaos of the episode in two weeks,
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where we're going to talk about whether a Nas Nip is a hero or a villain.
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Some of you just gasped because you can already see the future and you have divine
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how chaotic that's going to be. And as I was going through this week's questions that we're
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going to be going over, I thought to myself, I want to really know. And then I started really
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thinking about it and I said, oh wait, there's chaos here. There is chaos here for us and I cannot
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wait to share it with you all. You all brought chaos in your survey responses. I took it and I said,
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I see your chaos and I raised you more than chaos. I don't know what that accent was, but don't
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worry about it. It's fine. What you do need to be worried about is the Bob. Because it's coming in
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three, in two, in one, let's pop.
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We need to talk about Harry Potter.
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I hope that you dance. Y'all, we are still in the midst of the Bob. Bob. And so if you are
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participating in that particular exercise, I applaud you. If not, you have well, two more chances.
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Three, three more chances. Counting. Anyways, you get it. Three more chances. I want that for you.
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And I think you need it for yourself in the times in which we are living. I think there's nothing
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better than a Bob. And if you can do a Bob, it doesn't require you to hurt your knees. Now, I have
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heard tale that some of us have not great necks. The Bob, Bob isn't for you then. And that's okay.
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That is okay. We are playing to our strengths in 2025. We are making decisions. Oh my god, I completely
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forgot to do that thing. You know what? We're just going to, we're going to pivot. All right. There's
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a thing that I forgot to do, but I'm going to do it. I'll just do it a little bit later than I
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don't really do in the episode. That's okay. You didn't even notice. I just realized it now.
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Anyways, welcome back, y'all. Okay. We're just going to keep it pushing. Welcome back.
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Welcome to those of you who are new to the podcast. Maybe checking us out for the first time.
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Welcome to those of you who have been on this crazy ride since day one. And welcome to those of you
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who maybe started at the very beginning of the podcast and are just now catching up to meet us
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here. Welcome. Welcome to Madness. Y'all, I just want to thank those of you again who participated
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in the post episode chats for the previous two Snape episodes. I can't tell you how amazing it was
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to just experience and read through your thoughts and to just go on this journey with you. You know,
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we took some time off before we got here because we needed to get ourselves together. And honestly,
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I know that some of us were a little bit wary of the decision to kind of dive into the houses first,
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but I personally think and yes, it's probably because it was my idea that it did us some good to
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take a step back. And so you're welcome. For those of you who are just joining us and have not
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participated in a post episode chat, please feel free to join us on patreon.com slash critical
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magic theory where you can join for free and be a part of our post episode chats that happen after
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every single episode. If you would like to become a paid subscriber, you can become an outstanding
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owl that gives you the perk of ad-free episodes that drop at midnight. You can also become a deep
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diver or a chronic overthinker that has access both to the ad-free episodes chronic overthinkers
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get them early. I'm they also have access to the discord that was just created that y'all let me
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tell you something about this discord. I know we're not supposed to spend as much time talking about
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these things, but I have to talk about the discord very quickly. Y'all we can cast spells in the
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discord. I get a daily allowance from greengots in the discord, okay? There are duels in the discord.
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There are all kinds of incredibly insanely magical things happening in the discord. Again, I don't
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know how to get to the discord from patreon. What I think I might do is ask one of the moderators
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of the discord who do know how to do this to just give me the instructions and then I can post them
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into the patreon. For those of you who are interested in joining, it's amazing. It is so much fun.
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It is adding on a new element to our community building exercises which you know I'm all about.
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Speaking of patreon, chronic overthinkers, we need to welcome our newest recruits,
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Viral, Brittany, Lurian, Sky, Marin and Summer. Welcome y'all. Welcome to the bumpy ride. I haven't
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sung for you all in ages. That was just a taste. I've been taking voice lessons.
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As always, there is still merch for us. You can still go to criticalmagictheory.com and click
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the merch link and it'll take you to the merch store. We've got three more episodes. I can't math.
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Three more episodes before we dive into the one and only Alba's Dumbledore. I might throw in a little
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bit of a palette cleanser. I'm trying to get some of my professor friends who are at various
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stages of their Harry Potter journey to talk to us a little bit about what Harry Potter means in
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2025, but particularly what parallels we can draw from the experiences that we're having now.
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What it looks like in the books. Maybe that's happening. I don't know. I haven't asked anyone yet.
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Charlie, I know there's a good chance you're listening to this. I'm talking about you.
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Diddy, also you. Public shaming always works friends. Let's get into Severus Snape.
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When I had to think of my favorite moment that involves Snape, I went back to the first time that I
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ever read Half Blood Prince. At first I was like, oh, maybe we talk about the
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Sectum Simper of it all, but then I remembered that I absolutely loved the moment when Snape reveals
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that he is the Half Blood Prince. I think part of it is because the drama of that particular
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section of the book Dumbledore has died, spoiler alert, and Harry is on a rampage. Rightfully so,
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Hagrid's house is burning, Bella Tricks is running a muck, and Harry pulls out Sectum Simpera
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because he's like, this is where I'm at, and at this point what's fascinating is that he knows
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what it will do, and he still uses it against Snape. The moment of first off, that Snape is basically
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still very much in teacher mode, and it's like, dude, you've got to start not yelling your curses.
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You've got to start using your mind otherwise. People can, as I'm doing, continually block your
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spells, and but I love the the messiness of the moment because all throughout Half Blood Prince,
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Harry, and by extension us as readers, we have become increasingly reliant and grateful for the
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Prince. Like, he is the reason why Harry is able to get the memory from Slughorn, right?
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That battered old potions book is full of tips and shortcuts and secrets that help him succeed
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in a subject that he's always struggled in, right? Giving him the confidence to be able to do well
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in potions, but also getting Slughorn to get the memory that Dumbledore was demanding.
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And here's the thing, that trust in the Prince was never uncomplicated, right? Because the very
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same book that made Harry feel capable also let him down a fairly dark path. Like, if we take
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Hermione's perspective on this, which I don't, but some of us might, that like him using the
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Prince's book was cheating, then that is like the lighter part of the dark side, right? But also,
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Harry is like using level corpus for the first time and just throwing it out there in his mind.
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And then he uses septum symphra and almost kills Draco.
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The Prince gave Harry power, but it was dangerous, and one that revealed the thin line between
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help and harm. And there's something about that duplicity, that surface level generosity, masking
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a darker undercurrent that I think captures Snape in a nutshell. The potions book works almost
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like a mirror to riddle's diary. It's a glimpse into someone at a younger moment in time,
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but one that contains brilliance and danger and ingenuity and cruelty. And Harry grows attached
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to the Prince, and so do we, as readers, only to find that it was Snape all along.
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The man who in that same book had murdered Dumbledore, Dumbledore? Well, some might say he
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did murder Dumbledore. You see what I did there? I turned my inability to say a word into a pun
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that actually is apropos both in terms of Harry Potter, but also in terms of the fact that
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Mertle is dead. Yes, okay. And so this is another moment where we see Snape inadvertently this time
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moving Harry's progress along. Right? Like without the Prince, Harry would not have been able to get
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that memory from Slughorn because he needed to build the confidence of himself as a solid
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postionaire in order for Slughorn to like recognize his connection to Lily. And there's, it's
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because a very tangled web that we weave. But the other thing that I love about this moment is the
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drama. Snape turning on Harry and Snarlant, you dare use my own spells against me. Yes, I am the
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half blood prince. Like that is an insane moment. I remember reading that for the first time
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and I threw my book across the room. I couldn't believe it because in that instant, the rug was pulled
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out from under us. And I don't think at that moment I had quite accepted Dumbledore's death.
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So I wasn't really like in a state of grieving because I was like, that's fake fake news.
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Like I was a subscriber to a website called Dumbledore's Not Dead.com. From the time Half Blood
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Prince came out until Deathly Hallows came out. Like I was a firm believer that that's not what had
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happened. So in this moment, right, like the rug was really pulled out from under me because I was
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like this son of a son is out here betraying people left. And right, he's done something to Dumbledore.
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I don't know what it is, but Dumbledore's not, he just can't die. We can't live without him.
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And it was insane because it turns out that Snape could be helpful because at that moment,
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I didn't know that he had been doing all this other stuff behind the scenes, right? And I love
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the messiness of that because I think it captures so much about Snape. A lot of the things that some
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of us really like about him, the duplicity, the contradictions, the way you think you can trust him
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only to be reminded that trust in Snape always comes at a cost. And there's something to that
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that I think is just so incredible. And I just again, I love that he has, it's not quite as dramatic
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and devalicious as the the graveyard moment for Voldemort, but the like I am the half like just
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letting the girls know who you are, making sure that they don't forget that you've always been
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that prince. Okay, I love, love, love that.
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For today's arithmetic lesson, we are going to be focusing on three questions, two from the Google
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form and one from Patreon, just a reminder that we had about 550 responses from the Google form.
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The first question that we're going to be grappling with today is, is Snape a good member of the
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order of the Phoenix? About 72% of us said yes, about 18% of us said no, and about 10% of us said
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don't know. Someone wrote, double agents are always going to look bad to someone, but he was
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risking everything to stay loyal to a woman who he did not ever have a chance with, who was also
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deceased. Another person wrote, of course I had to say yes, he does do an incredibly effective job
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at being a double agent and is crucial to the final victory. And one more person wrote,
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I don't think any number of words could fully capture the hatred I feel for this man. While I
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acknowledge that his work for the order was heroic, vital and unbelievably difficult, his motivations
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were never in the right place. And I think that this is really fascinating because it really does
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touch on a concept and the thing that we have brought to bear many different times, right, as we
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think about, you know, outcomes and in justifying means and whether or not it's important that the
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person and what they do and what ultimately becomes of their actions is done with good intent.
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And as I was reading through the post episode chat today, because there's still things happening
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there, Matt wrote something that I think taps into this writing, I disagree that Snape was being
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helpful with Lupin during the school year prior to the shrieking shack. I think he hated brewing
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the Wolf's Bane potion and it only furthered his hatred of Lupin, kind of him mentally going see,
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you're not as good as you think you are, I'm better because I can do this and you need me to do it
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for you. And in some ways, I'm like, I absolutely buy into that simultaneously concurrently and I'm
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like, does it matter? Like does Snape being mad about making the Wolf's Bane potion undermine the
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fact that he made the Wolf's Bane potion? Does the fact that he helped Lupin stay Lupin during
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his transformations is that changed by the fact that he didn't want to help Lupin? And I think
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that ties into this particular dynamic that we're talking about here because most of us agree that
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Snape was indispensable that the work that he did as a double agent was was so crucial for the order.
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But the split comes when we ask ourselves does usefulness equal goodness? Because many of us saw his
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membership as purely self-serving and driven by guilt and in obsession with Lily and not necessarily
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a principled rejection of Voldemort and all of the ideological things that he puts out into the world.
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And I think that this tension is what makes this question particularly interesting despite the
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fact that so many of us said yes, he is a good order, the good member of the order of the Phoenix.
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Because the tension here is that like the order needs him, but does being needed by a good
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organization make you good? Like he may have been the most effective asset, but he was never one of
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their most principled ones, right? And the other question we have to ask ourselves is does being a good
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member of the order of the Phoenix require you to actually believe in the cause of the order?
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Right? Because many of us use his actions in the order as a justification for why he was like a good
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person and I'm not convinced that that's necessarily the case. Right? Like he introduces this
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dilemma to us because we don't actually know what his ideological lean is. We'll talk about that a
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little bit more once we get to the half blood question and I'm going to spend a considerable amount
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amount of time talking about it in the reflection. But the truth is like, Snape's beliefs are
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murky, murky as the dark lake, honey. Because did he ever really reject pure blood supremacy?
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Did he actually buy into the order's values of equality and love and community? Or was he just
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working through guilt and obsession? And if it's the latter, if he didn't necessarily believe what
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the order stood for, does that even matter? Can you still be a good member of the order of the
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Phoenix? Good was in quotes. Even if you don't share its ideology as long as you advance its cause.
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Does it matter that he felt a no way that he had to make this potion for Lupin? If he still made
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the potion? Right? Like with Snape the answer might be yes. He played a pivotal role in bringing
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down Voldemort. He stood on the front lines with everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain.
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And maybe that has to be enough. Maybe the measure of good, of being a good member of the order
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of the Phoenix, which is not a question we've asked of many of the different characters. And in
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in a future iteration, maybe we'll go back and we'll look at all the members of the order and we can
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assess them. But is the measure believing in the thing that the order represents? Or is it your
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direct impact? Because if that's true, then we're left with a very different picture of what it
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means to be in the order at all. Not a collective bound together sort of group based on ideals,
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but a coalition of people, potentially with various motives, who happen to be fighting on the same
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side. Some like Lily and Moody fight because they believe in the values the order represents. And
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others might be out for vengeance, anger, family betrayal, or might be like Snape, who may not have
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believed in any of it at all, but whose impact was unmatched, which raises a harder truth. Because
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if belief isn't necessary, if what defines you as a good member is simply whether you weaken
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Voldemort, then the order becomes less about moral conviction and more about strategic necessity.
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And there are questions about this idea. And you know, this is not a Dumbledore episode, but as we
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move into thinking about Dumbledore more and more as we get closer to this episode, I think this
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is something that we're going to have to grapple with. Because a body that survives because some of
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its members are willing to do what others can't or won't. And sometimes you need a Snape who can
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live somewhere in the ambivalent grace base, who may not even believe in any of these things at
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all, but still gets the job done that meets the mission of the body to begin with.
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The next question that we're going to tackle is one that I actually forgot, like I legitimately didn't
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even think about adding it. And it wasn't until someone brought it up to me. I think it was Cassie
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who sent me a message saying like, hey, don't forget to ask, do we think that Snape is a good slither in?
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And so, you know, we had to kind of retcon that thing. And so we put this one up on Patreon.
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And we had 90% of us say, yes, Snape is a good slither in. 7% said no. And 3% said don't. No.
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Someone wrote, Snape is not a good slither in. He is the number one slither in. He's absolutely my
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favorite character as he has so many layers to him. And based on the comments here, clearly others
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would agree with me. He successfully aligns with the qualities of a quote unquote good slither in.
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And we see those unfold throughout the series. His best move was budding up to both Dumbledore
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and Voldemort. He lived through the first war and knows there will be another on the horizon.
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By acting as a double agent, he has a bigger picture of both sides. And if one turns against him,
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he can ally himself with the other.
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Someone else wrote, I think young Snape was ambitious. He invented spells and modified
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potions to make them more effective. I believe he had loftier ambitions than being a potions master
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and probably wanted more than being a death eater. But he lived in an echo chamber in the
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after he called her a mudblood and then defended Mulsubur and Avery attacking her friend
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instead of denouncing their actions and coming to his senses. So he doubled down and took the wrong
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path. By the time he came to his senses and turned against Voldadi, listen, it's catching on.
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He was given no choice by Dumbledore and was stuck as potions master. Another person wrote,
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he probably, he is probably the best person who embodies slither in the most in the books.
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I think this is really fascinating because this was by far the most lopsided response of all the
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Snape questions. Nearly everyone agreed. Whatever else he is, a cruel teacher, a complicated double
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agent, maybe even a villain will get to that in the next, not the next episode, but the one after that.
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Snape was undeniably a good slither in. But the consensus actually hides a deen for attention,
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I think. What do we mean when we call someone a good slither in? Are we saying he lived up to those
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traits of ambition, cunning and loyalty to his own? Or are we saying he represents the house well,
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even if he does so in a way that reinforces its darkest stereotypes? Now this is what's fascinating
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because to me, the way that many people are praising him as a good slither in stands in the face of
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how we understand what it meant to be a good slither in before. Although, perhaps not, you will talk
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about this in the post-episode chat because while yes, he had to do some pretty nefarious things
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even as a double agent and his ambition and his desire to be close to power also led him to go
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and align himself with Voldiva for a time. And so, but that alignment ultimately served a really
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good role in terms of his ability then to be in the room where it happens. In fact, he's in both
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rooms where it happens. And what's fascinating here is that the very qualities people often
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criticize in slither in's ambition, cunning, secrecy, self-preservation are the exact same qualities
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that make them perfect double agents. And that's exactly what Snape was. Think about it. Like,
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slither in's want to be very good at whatever they take on. They're outrageously loyal
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off to the point of obsession. They're sneaky, yes, but also really smart about how they hide
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their tricks. And their sense of self-preservation makes them careful enough to avoid getting caught.
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That's what makes them so effective at playing both sides. And beyond that, I think as a slither in,
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slither in's like a challenge. We enjoy manipulation, testing their ability to outthink and
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outmaneuver other people. So when you give them permission to bend or break the rules,
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regardless of whether it's for selfish reasons or self-less reasons, but particularly when it's in
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service of protecting someone that they care about or a cause or whatever, they're going to be
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really, really good at it. But the reality of it is as well is that this also has a dark side. And I
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think it's interesting because in order to truly understand the dark side and previous conversations
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that we've had, we're going to leave slither in house and go over and see our Hufflepuff buddies.
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Now, I know, I know, we've experienced the wrath of the badgers when I bring up negativity and
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Hufflepuff, but y'all, I really hate to say it, but like there are some bad Hufflepuffs. And some of
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our Hufflepuffs get up to some nefarious things. And you know what? No judgment, no condemnation.
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But I think thinking about Hufflepuffs in particular, I want us to think about the reflection
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that I gave for the Hufflepuff episode about loyalty, right? And the fact that loyalty in and of
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itself is not automatically good, it depends on what or who you're loyal to. And in Snape's case,
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the things and the people he aligned himself with often asked him to do deeply, deeply problematic things.
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Voldemort demanded violence and cruelty, Dumbledore demanded secrecy and manipulation.
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Even the way Dumbledore recruited Snape into being a double agent, leveraging his guilt and
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grief over Lily was itself problematic. And Snape, being so loyal, didn't question it. He just said
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yes. And I think what else is interesting here, and we talked about this in the last episode,
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is that so much of what Snape ultimately does as it pertains to his loyalty to Dumbledore,
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is both a loyalty and an appreciation and a reverence to for Dumbledore, but also, and I think
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more importantly to Lily. And so in Snape, we see both sides of Slytherin loyalty. It's what made
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him the perfect double agent, but it's also what made him vulnerable to manipulation, willing to
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carry out orders without much thought to their moral cost. And there's a moment in the prince's
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tale that I think is really interesting. And it's when Dumbledore basically tells Snape,
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like you have to be the one to kill me because I don't want Dreyko to do it because I don't want
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him to damage his soul. And Snape's like, okay, cool bro, but what about my soul? And Dumbledore's like,
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I mean, what about it though? I mean, he doesn't say that, but he's kind of like, only you know
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your soul. And I would care to wager that while you were in service of Lord Voldemort, you did
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some pretty questionable things. And so it would be better for you and less damaging for you to do
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the, be the one to kill me than for it to be Dreyko. And I think that there is a way that,
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you know, loyalty and his loyalty to Dumbledore even in that moment is kind of fraught because
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we actually don't know what Snape did. I mean, we can make assumptions in many of us kind of
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postulated a few things because there's no way that you end up in the inner circle of
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loyalty. There's no way that, you know, Voldemort is waxing poetic about the fact that he might have
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lost you forever when he returns after getting his body done. Also, I found the person who said
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getting his body done as a description of Voldemort coming back with a body. And it is an amazing
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person by the name of Melissa. And we are so grateful to Melissa for that particular turn of phrase
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because let me tell you something, I will be using it all the time. The vocals are back, y'all.
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The vocals are back, but I got sidetracked anyways. You don't end up being someone that Voldemort
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seemingly has a, an attachment to by not doing some nefarious messy, probably murderous stuff.
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And so it's interesting then that he is willing though still to do this for Dumbledore. And I think,
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and I think what else is interesting is that we see this also mirrored in Harry's behavior
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as it pertains to Dumbledore in the cave. And so I think that Snape is an amazing slither in. And I
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think in some ways he had to be to do the job he's doing. And it kind of goes back to what it
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means to be a good member of the Order of the Phoenix. It's like all those griffin doors in there,
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no Tino Shade, but stealth is not a thing that griffin doors are really known for.
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You know, bowls and china shops might some might say. But you need someone who's going to be able
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to kind of literally slither in. He's the one I did there and slither out. And you need someone who's
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going to be able to play both sides because when you're dealing with two geniuses, right,
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Voldiva and Dumbleddadi, you've got to have someone who can navigate both of them in an effective way.
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And I think that requires a certain acumen. And I feel like slither ends are uniquely,
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uniquely able to do this. I think the loyalty piece is really important here. And I think that
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the cunning is also really important here. But we also see other aspects of slither and I didn't
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be playing a part in this. And so I think, yeah, I think there's a reason why 90% of us said he's
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a good slither in. And I honestly believe that he had to be to be able to do what he did.
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The last question that we are going to be looking at is whether or not Snape is a good half-blood.
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About 41% of us said no. 34% of us said yes. And about 25% of us said don't know. Someone wrote,
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as for being a good half-blood, Snape didn't really embody that. He fell heavily into the magical
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world. His disdain for his father and falling into pure blood mentality cut off his ability to
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connect with his muggle side. Someone else wrote, until half-blood prints, I'd have sworn up and
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down he was a pure blood. He buys into pure blood supremacy so much. He completely rejects the
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muggle side of his heritage. So in the eyes of pure blood supremacy, he is an ideal half-blood.
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Another person wrote, I don't think Snape is a good half-blood because he completely rejects
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his muggle side. He hates his muggle father so definitely not a good half-blood. If Snape had
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survived the war, he might have become one, but he never gets the chance. This question seemingly
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does what it always does, right? Which is makes people have to really dive into the two paradigms
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that we tend to present when we look at this question. The one where it's an idealized version,
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where in this person is building a bridge between the magical and non-magical worlds,
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or the one where the individual is bought into pure blood supremacy and is seeking to basically
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assimilate themselves into pure blood supremacy society as it means by which to not be seen as
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different. And I think that what's interesting about this, right, is that many of us argue that
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Snape could not be a good half-blood because he rejects his muggle side, despises father, and projected
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that disdain onto all muggles and particularly muggle-borns, except for Lily. But others saw the
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potential in him. And you know, I think it's really interesting to think about this because Snape
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actively calls himself the half-blood prince. And that to me is an indication of at least in part,
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not a complete and utter rejection of this particular part of his identity now. Questions
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remain as to whether or not people actually know he calls himself that or whether or not he just
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just says it to himself or writes it in his books. But even if it's only an internal thing,
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what's clear to us is that like his half-bloodedness is not something that he is particularly ashamed
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of per se, right? And the other reality is, is that like I think that many of us kind of
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think that being a death eater means that you have to be a pure blood. And I'm not sure that
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it actually requires that. What I do think it requires though is the espousal of a particular ideology
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and that you do it with gusto so that people believe you, right? And I think we see this with
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VolDaddy himself. He's a half-blood, but he rewrites his own identity so thoroughly crafting a new name
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and a complete new lineage that kind of skips over the fact that his father was non-magical.
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And then he can pass for something else. And he goes so far as to make sure that no one even knows.
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When he gets his body done, he calls when in him and it's just him and Harry, then he waxes poetic
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on the realities of his lineage. But once once the girls show up in the graveyard, it's as if none of
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that ever happened. And Snape doesn't do that. He doesn't pretend to be a pure blood.
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He doesn't necessarily try to make people think that he's not one. But again, I'm calling
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himself the half-blood prince. It seems like he's leaning into that. And maybe this is his way
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of trying to kind of match the energy of Lord Voldemort, right? You know, the usage of a,
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the usage of kind of a royal title, but in his case, it's his mother's last name. It's her maiden name.
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And I think what's interesting about that right is it actually does serve as kind of a bridge
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between the two worlds and so far that like he acknowledges his half-bloodiness, but he also then
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brings together the magical lineage that he has by virtue of using his mom's maiden name and not
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his father's. But the bigger issue is how Snape engages with the ideology. Because again,
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we're kind of waffling between our questions about did he truly believe in pure blood supremacy,
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or did he adopt it for belonging and superiority? Knowing Lily didn't save him from supremacist views,
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any more than one good exception fixes Draco in fanfiction, he never interrogated those beliefs.
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And Snape also introduces us to something else that accepting your muggle identity and despising
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muggle-borns are not mutually exclusive. We often assume that building a bridge between these
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worlds must mean being pro-muggle. Snape doesn't show us that. He embodies the contradiction. He's
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clearly proudly half-blood, but he still has to stain for muggle-borns. And again, I know that
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some of us are of the mind that his relationship with Lily was possible that that
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him calling all the other muggle-borns mudbloods was for show. Here's the thing, y'all.
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And I've said it before, and I will say this for as many times as I need to say it.
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You don't just have slurs on your tongue. When he gets mad at Lily and just uses it,
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that's not something because what you owe what some of us, I should say, might want to purport,
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is that like, oh, he just says it around them so that he can fit in. I don't necessarily think
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that that's a necessity. Number one, number two, even if it is true and he's just doing that,
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when it should not be a knee-jerk reaction, it should feel relatively forced.
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I'm sure you've heard people in your lives use some sort of slur or word that just sounds
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unnatural to them because they don't use it very often. And there's a way that that sounds,
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but that is also not your knee-jerk reaction when you get upset. When you get upset and things come
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out, that means that your brain, like the processing power between your mouth and your brain,
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was short-circuited because of your emotions and you could not control what came out.
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And when Lily says to him, you call every one of my birth that,
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well, the story tells itself. And so, I think what's interesting about this is that
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I would actually say that Snape is anti-muggle-born. And I know that some people will not like that,
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and that's cool, but I'm going to stand tentos down on that one because I do not believe that this man
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actually thought that muggle-borns were good. I think his disdain for non-magical people because
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of his father may have bled in to his feelings about muggle-borns, I think that Lily was the exception
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to his rule. And as a person who has been the exception to many a person's rule for a number of
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reasons, I can tell you that that is not the vehicle for change. And so, no, Lily is not the vehicle
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that is like, oh, well, because he exceptionalized her, he has the potential to go and, you know,
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change, nope, I'm so sorry. I know that that sounds good, but it is very, very, very, very unlikely.
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That one person who he has set on a pedestal is going to be the impetus for him
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changing his ideological lean. And I think that that is meaningful,
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because I think it means that he has somehow figured out a way to reconcile having this disdain
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and somehow still being proud enough to be a half-blood that you would call yourself a half-blood
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prince. What Snape does let us see, maybe more clearly than anyone, is that blood status in the
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Wizarding World is narrative. It's gatekeeping. It's about power. It's made. It's cultivated. It's
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enforced. The categories are so amorphous pure blood, half-blood muggle-born blood trader squib.
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None of these map on to anything biological. They're labels policed by families and schools and
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the state, and they are applied inconsistently and strategically. The weaselies are pure blood,
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but they're also blood traders. Voldemort is a half-blood, but he recast himself as Slytherin's
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heir. Muggle-borns are rebranded thieves of magic by the Ministry Commission that manufactures proof.
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The lines move to serve ideology. And what Snape names himself express as how performative this
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category is. He doesn't erase his mixed status like Voldemort does. He just curates it. Embracing
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his mother's magical lineage while rejecting his father. That's a choice. Not DNA.
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It's a story about belonging. He claims a label even as he weaponizes anti-muggle-born prejudice.
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In other words, you can publicly accept your half-blood identity or even privately, and still
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espouse supremacist ideology. These two things are not mutually exclusive and Snape is the proof,
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and I think that this is what muddies the distinctions that we've made in our idealized and more
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real versions of what it means to be a good half-blood. If we watch how institutions teach and reward
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these labels, house culture, slurs and corridors, blood trader, as social punishment,
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ministry propaganda, they normalize the hierarchy so thoroughly that blood status feels natural.
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It feels biological. It feels like something that's out of one's control. But Snape's contradiction
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keeps breaking the illusion. He lives at spinners in. He lives at his father's house.
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Right? When Bellatrix shows up, she's like, why are you here in this muggle-dung heap?
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Like what's going on? And some of us might say, well, that's just the house he was left,
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so why would he get rid of it? Listen, the fact that he has not abandoned that place,
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like although I will grant you that Voldemort definitely goes back to his, the manor house,
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the riddle house at the beginning of Goblet of Fire. But then he also kills a man there,
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and I don't think he considered that a home. I think that was just like him conquering the space.
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Snape was living at spinners end. That tells us a story. He serves as a premises movement
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then he serves the order. He is proudly half-blood and keeps the movement alive through his actions.
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If blood were destiny, these things would not compute. They do because the category of blood status
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and half-blood is so constructed and then enforced through incentives of shame and violence.
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So when we ask, is he a good half-blood? There's a nerve that's being touched, right? Because even
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the metric is unstable. It's good about pride in both hair dages or not despising muggles.
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About strategic usefulness to one side, our survey shows that people arguing past one another
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because the meaning of the label shifts without context. Snape lets us see that the slippage is real.
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Blood status isn't what you are. It's what the world decides to call you and what you decide to do with
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that call. And I think that this is particularly important when we think about the many
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compositions of one's half-bloodedness. I think that this kind of slippage and the amorphous nature
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of this particular label is confined to half-bloods because as many of us have brought up,
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the composition of your half-blood, or your half-blooded identity, I should say, if both your parents
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are half-blood, that's a different dynamic than if you have a pure blood parent and a muggle
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born parent or a pure blood parent and a muggle parent or two muggle born parents, right?
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That those dynamics are different and then that's on top of what we've discussed as well,
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that whether or not your mother or father was the magical person.
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And it matters because all of this amorphousness that exists within the label of half-bloodedness
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makes it difficult for us to really nail down what it means to be a good half-blood because
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being a good pure blood and being a good muggle born is very specific. But the combination of
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parentage and context means something very different for half-bloods. And I think that that
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matters here when we think about what it means for Snape because he gives us a sense of the fact that
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you can appreciate your half-bloodedness and still dislike some of the aspects that make you half-blood.
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And that doesn't quite make a lot of sense in theory, but I think in practice it really does.
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And I think yes, there is some internalized hatred, but I actually don't think it's that internalized.
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I think it's at least not because of his dad. I think that's externalized. I think we see
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someone who has a lot of other internalized things. I don't think it has anything to do with
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his half-blooded status. I think it's just the byproduct of someone who grew up in the household
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where there wasn't a lot of love and there was a lot of anger and a lot of abuse.
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And so it's I think this has been my favorite discussion of half-blood because I think Snape
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complicates it because it would be one thing if he went the Voldemort route and basically tried
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to just remove evidence of his father, but he didn't. He calls himself the half-blood prince.
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And whether it's to himself or to others, it tells a story about how he understands that identity.
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And that matters.
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For this episode's reflection, I want to begin here with the question of how Snape
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formulates his half-blood identity because the question we just talked about is he a good half-blood?
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We kind of dove into the notion that being a half-blood is a social construct. The circumstances
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of your family shape, how you come to understand it. And many of you brought up questions about his
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relationship with his father in the role of that place. And there are people who are half-bloods
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who's experienced looks different ways, right? And as I said before, there is this kind of
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interesting thing about half-blood identity that makes questions about identity in the
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Wizarding World so specific, right? And I think there's something worth investigating about how
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these dynamics play apart and how individuals come to understand what it means to be half-blood.
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In particular, because I think we often don't account for the identity formation when we're
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assessing whether or not they're a good half-blood. And so there are half-bloods whose fathers are
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magical and their muggles, their muggles are mothers. Well, yes, but their mothers are muggles.
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Gosh, my dyslexia really kicks in sometimes. So does my vocal. You hear that?
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And then you have people like Harry, right? Who is half-blood, right? Pure blood, dad,
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muggle-born mom, but he was muggle-raised. And with all the resentment and logging that upbringing
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produced. And then you have people like Snape and like Mnurva Magonigo and Tom Riddle,
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right? Children of a muggle father and a magical mom. And then you have Delores Umbridge, right?
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Who has a magical father and a non-magical mother. And what's striking about these family dynamics
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is that they consistently shape the relationship that these characters have with both worlds, right? And
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so when we think about what it means to be a good half-blood, we've often kind of criticised many
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of these characters for not building the bridge. But part of the reason why I think that they may not
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is a couple of twofold, right? One is obviously society, magical society really does promote
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full indoctrination and kind of inclusion of oneself into the magical world. But also their
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relationship with their parents is going to play a big part in this. When you think about how you
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identify on a number of dimensions, right? There may be a shift away from the way that you identified
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as a child, but there are some identities, even if they've shifted, that are still informed in part
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by your upbringing for better or for worse. Hello? And it's not necessarily blood that defines
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how a person identifies. It's the lived experience of family, the socialisation of school, and the
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incentives of the world that you live in, in the case of Harry Potter, the magical world.
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If your muggle parent was cruel, neglectful or abusive, it's much easier to forsake that world
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altogether. Voldemort's father abandons his mother before he's even born. Snape grows up in an
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abusive household with a father he despises. Harry grows up despising the dursleys, not because
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they're muggles, but because they're cruel. And so all three of these boys in different ways
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hurled themselves into the magical world as an escape. But what they do with that rejection differs.
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Voldemort erases his half blood identity altogether. He invents a new name, a new lineage,
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one that proclaims him heir to Salazar Slytherin, which is not false. Okay, I want to put that out
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there. I'm not saying he made it up. But he completely disowns his father so thoroughly that he
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builds a career on the very purity he lacks. That's one way of constructing one's half blood
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identity, pretending it doesn't exist. Harry never erases the fact that he's muggle raised.
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He just doesn't romanticize it. He finds belonging in the magical world, but he doesn't carry the shame
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that Voldemort and Snape do. He never despises muggles as a category. He just despises the
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dursleys for what they did to him. That makes him an outlier. One who can build a bridge,
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who can exist comfortably in both worlds, who can take the trained of King's Cross and move
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between identities without shame. And then there's McGonagall. She too is a child of a muggle
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father and a magical mother, but where Snape grows bitter, McGonagall grows disciplined. She
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acknowledges the difficulties of her household, but never turns that into disdain for muggles as a whole.
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Instead, she uses her dual identity to ground her in fairness and loyalty, qualities that mark
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her leadership at Hogwarts. Her is the path of integration, of taking both parts and refusing to
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be ashamed. And then there's Umbridge. The novels don't spell it all out, but what we know is
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that she grew up with a muggle mother as a squib and a squib brother, both of whom she rejects
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completely. She invents her own narrative, recasting herself as pure as possible, sneering her mother,
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denying her brother and her and her magical father, whose position in society wasn't high enough for her.
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This is another way of constructing half-blood identity over compensation, cruelty, and denial.
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This is a similar way that we see from Voldemort. And then there's one sebi-sev Snape.
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He doesn't erase his half-blood status like Voldemort. He doesn't bridge it like Harry or McGonagall,
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and he doesn't overcompensate by denying it, like Umbridge. Instead, he curates it. He names himself
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the half-blood prince. He claims it, but not through his father's name, which he rejects, but through
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his mother's. It's a way of rewriting without erasing, of saying, I'll decide how this identity is
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remembered. But here's the paradox. Even as he claims it, he sneers at the muggle side of his lineage.
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He uses slurs, he mocks muggle-borns, he weaponizes the very categories he embodies. That contradiction,
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proud of the label, distainful of the people it connects to him to, is what makes Snape so instructive.
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And it also explains why you can have half-bloods who are death-eaters, because what matters is not
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simply ancestry, but how your connection to the magical and non-magical worlds get constructed.
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If your muggle parent is a source of shame, neglect, or abuse, and your magical parent is the
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entry point into a world that feels like an escape, then even as a half-blood, you can fully embrace
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supremacist ideology. Snape is proof of that. Voldemort is proof of that. Umbridge, in her own way,
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is too. Supremacy is about ideology, not blood. And here is where I want to turn it back to us
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as readers, because we're not immune from this socialization either. Even we, through the way the
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books are written, are invited to jettison the muggle world. Think about it. The only muggles we
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spend real time with are the dursleys, and we don't like them. So even though we as readers are
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technically from the non-magical world, we spend so much time curating our magical identities,
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our Hogwarts houses, our wands, our patronuses, that we too start to care less about the muggle world.
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The books make the magical world feel better, more exciting, more worthy of belonging, and so we,
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like muggle-borns, and haplets in the story get socialized into a kind of implicit anti-muggle bias.
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And I think that these moments show up particularly, particularly, when we think about what happens
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to the dursleys, the fact that every single year their magical world inserts itself into their
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lives and upends everything. The tale with Dudley, the dinner with the masons with Dobby shows up,
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blowing up Aunt Marge, blowing up the living room, the dementor is coming in book five,
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Dumbledore wreaking havoc on their lives when he comes to pick up Harry. All of these instances where
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the dursleys are subject to magical intervention in a way that they cannot consent, they did not
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consent to and cannot defend themselves from, and we are laughing, we are cackling, and some of us
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are like, absolutely, they deserve it. Okay, okay, okay, I hear you, you're heard by me,
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but I think that part of this is our own socialization in these books, and this matters because it
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helps us understand why the idealized version of being a quote unquote good half-blood, someone who
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bridges both worlds is so hard. Not just because of characters like Snape who have front
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relationships with their muggle parentage, but because the magical world itself incentivizes them
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and us to reject the non-magical side. When many of us picked up these books and started reading them,
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we wanted to escape, we wanted to escape the mundanity of our lives in the non-magical world
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and go to the magical world, which means that anything that happens in the non-magical world
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feels, um, trite and unnecessary, and so we don't care about the problems that they're facing,
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and they're facing many problems as a result of the negligence of the magical community.
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The text leaves us very few positive examples of muggles to latch onto, and so both characters and
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readers are pushed towards privileging the magical world, even when we know that comes from forms
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of prejudice and discrimination. So what does it mean to be a good half-blood? Maybe isn't it
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isn't about blood at all, but about how you reconcile it, whether you deny it, rewrite it,
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despise it, or find a way to integrate it. Voldemort chose a racer, Umbridge chose denial,
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Harry chose some kind of integration, McGonagall chose discipline, Snape chose contradiction,
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and contradiction became his cage, and that's in some ways the tragedy of his character,
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because identity isn't just something you're born into, it's something you form through your
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family, your chosen family, your friends, your ideology, the choices that you make, and how they
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all make up parts of you, and you choose what you will own and what you'll disown. And Snape's
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story reminds us that those choices have consequences. They shape not only how others see you, but how you
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see yourself, and ultimately, what side of history you stand on. And maybe that's why listeners
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struggled so much with the question about whether or not Snape is a good half-blood. Because in asking
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whether Snape is a good half-blood, we are really asking what good even means and a category that
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is socially constructed, unevenly enforced, and often cruelly policed. And we're also asking what
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it means for us, how we've been invited by these books to devalue the muggle world, to build ourselves
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identities in the magical one, and in doing so, replicate some of the same biases we critique in Snape.
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Snape forces us to sit in that discomfort, to acknowledge that usefulness and goodness
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are not the same thing, that loyalty can be admirable and dangerous, and that identity is not simply
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inherited but constructed, and that construction is never neutral, it is never uninformed by the world
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in which we live. In the words of Kamala Harris, you think you just fill out of a coconut tree?
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You exist in the context of all in which you live, and what came before you. And that's why
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of all the questions we've asked about Snape, this one lingers the most. Not because it gives us a
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neat answer, but because it refuses to.
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This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble, and if you
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like today's episode, first of all, thank you, please feel free to like, rate, subscribe, do all the
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things that one does where plots are cast. Yo, I cannot wait to see what we get up to in the post
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episode chat. End of this episode was a little bit shorter, but honestly, we could use a little
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bit of a break because I know that the next big Snape episode is going to be madness,
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and we need a break for it. That didn't quite work, but you get what I was getting at, okay?
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You get what I was getting at. Anyways, please feel free to join us on patreon patreon.com
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slash criticalmaggishleary find us online at criticalmaggigdary.com follow me on social media
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at prof.jw and tuk-tuk and prof.w on Instagram. Y'all, I will see you in the post episode chat
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and or in the discord where we will be chatting about this until then be critical and stay magical
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my friends. Bye!