B (10:39)
When I had to think of my favorite moment that involves Snape, I went back to the first time that I ever read Half Blood Prince. And at first I was like, oh, maybe we talk about the sectum semper of it all. But then I remembered that I absolutely loved the moment when Snape reveals that he is the Half Blood Prince. I think part of it is because the drama of that particular section of the book, Dumbledore has died. Spoiler alert. And Harry is on a rampage. And rightfully so. Hagrid's house is burning. Bellatrix is running amok. And Harry pulls out Sectumsempra because he's like, this is where I'm at. And at this point, what's fascinating is that he knows what it will do and he still uses it against Snape. And the moment, first off, that Snape is basically still very much in Teacher mode and is like, dude, you've got to start not yelling your curses. Like, you've got to start using your mind. Otherwise people can, as I'm doing, continually block your spells. But I love the messiness of the moment because all throughout Half Blood Prince Harry, and by extension, us as readers, we have become increasingly reliant and grateful for the Prince. Like, he is the reason why Harry is able to get the memory from Slughorn, right? That battered old potions book is full of tips and shortcuts and secrets that help him succeed in a subject that he's always struggled in, right? Giving him the confidence to be able to do well in Potions, but also getting Slughorn to get the memory that Dumbledore was demanding. And here's the thing, that trust in the prince was never uncomplicated, right? Because the very same book that made Harry feel capable also led him down a fairly dark path. Like, if we take Hermione's perspective on this, which I don't, but some of us might, that, like, him using the Prince's book was cheating, then that is like the lighter part of the dark side, right? But also Harry's like using Levicorpus for the first time and just throwing it out there in his mind. And then he uses Sectumsempra and almost kills Draco. The Prince gave Harry power, but it was dangerous and one that revealed the thin line between help and harm. And there's something about that duplicity, that surface level generosity masking a darker undercurrent that I think captures Snape in a nutshell. The potions book works almost like a mirror to Riddle's diary. It's a glimpse into someone at a younger moment in time, but one that contains brilliance and danger and ingenuity and cruelty. And Harry grows attached to the Prince, and so do we, as readers, only to find that it was Snape all along. The man who, in that same book, had Myrtled murdered Dumbledore. Myrtled. Well, some might say he did Myrtle Dumbledore. You see what I did there? I turned my inability to say a word into a pun. That actually is apropos both in terms of Harry Potter, but also in terms of the fact that Myrtle is dead. Yes. Okay. And so this is another moment where we see Snape inadvertently, this time moving Harry's progress along. Right? Like, without the Prince, Harry would not have been able to get that memory from Slughorn because he needed to build the confidence of himself as a solid Potioneer in order for Slughorn to, like, recognize his connection to Lily. And there's a very tangled web that we weave. But the other thing that I love about this moment is the drama. Snape turning on Harry and snarling, you dare use my own spells against me? Yes. I am the Half Blood Prince. Like, that is an insane moment. I remember reading that for the first time and I threw my book across the room. I couldn't believe it. Because in that instant, the rug was pulled out from under us. And I don't think at that moment I had quite accepted Dumbledore's death. So I wasn't really like in a state of grieving. Cause I was like, that's fake. Fake news. Like, I was a subscriber to a website called dumbledoresnotdead.com from the time Half Blood Prince came out until Deathly Hallows came out. I was a firm believer that that's not what had happened. So in this moment, the rug was really pulled out from under me because I was like, this son of a son is out here betraying people left and right. He's done something to Dumbledore. I don't know what it is, but Dumbledore is not. He just can't die. We can't live without him. And it was insane. Because it turns out that Snape could be helpful. Because at that moment I didn't know that he had been doing all this other stuff behind the scenes. Right. And I love the messiness of that because I think it captures so much about Snape, a lot of the things that some of us really like about him. The duplicity, the contradictions, the way you think you can trust him, only to be reminded that trust in Snape always comes at a cost. And there's something to that that I think is just so incredible. And I just again, I love that he has. It's not quite as dramatic and divalicious as the graveyard moment for Voldemort, but the like I am the hop. Like just letting the girls know who you are, making sure that they don't forget that you've always been that prince. Okay. I love, love, love that. For today's arithmancy lesson, we are going to be focusing on three questions. Two from the Google form and one from Patreon. Just a reminder that we had about 550 responses from the Google Form. The first question that we're going to be grappling with today is, is Snape a good member of the Order of The Phoenix? About 72% of us said yes. About 18% of us said no. And about 10% of us said, don't. No. Someone wrote, double agents are always going to look bad to someone. But he was risking everything to stay loyal to a woman who he did not ever have a chance with, who is also deceased. Another person wrote, of course I had to say, yes, he does do an incredibly effective job at being a double agent and is crucial to the final victory. And one more person wrote, I don't think any number of words could fully capture the hatred I feel for this man. While I acknowledge that his work for the Order was heroic, vital and unbelievably difficult, and his motivations were never in the right place. And I think that this is really fascinating because it really does touch on a concept and a thing that we have brought to bear many different times, right as we think about outcomes and ends, justifying means, and whether or not it's important that the person and what they do and what ultimately becomes of their actions is done with good intent. And as I was reading through the post episode chat today, because there are still things happening there, Matt wrote something that I think taps into this writing. I disagree that Snape was being helpful with Lupin during the school year prior to the Shrieking Shack. I think he hated brewing the Wolfsbane Potion and it only furthered his hatred of Lupin. Kind of him mentally going, see, 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 for you. And. And in some ways I'm like, I absolutely buy into that. Simultaneously, concurrently. And I'm like, does it matter? Like, does Snape being mad about making the Wolfsbane Potion undermine the fact that he made the Wolfsbane potion? Does the fact that he helped Lupin stay Lupin during his transformations, is that changed by the fact that he didn't want to help Lupin? And I think that that ties into this particular dynamic that we're talking about here because most of us agree that Snape was indispensable, that the work that he did as a double agent was so crucial for the Order. But the split comes when we ask ourselves, does usefulness equal goodness? Because many of us saw his membership as purely self serving and driven by guilt and an obsession with Lill and not necessarily a principled rejection of Voldemort and all of the ideological things that he puts out into the world. And I think that this tension is what makes this question particularly interesting. Despite the fact that so many of us said, yes, he is a good Order, the good member of the Order of the Phoenix. Because the tension here is that, like, the Order needs him, but does being needed by a good organization make you good? Like, he may have been the most effective asset, but he was never one of their most principled ones. Right. And the other question we have to ask ourselves is, does being a good member of the Order of the Phoenix require you to actually believe in the cause of the Order? Right. Because many of us use his actions in the Order as a justification for why he was like a good person. And I'm not convinced that that's necessarily the case. Right. Like, he introduces this dilemma to us because we don't actually know what his ideological lean is. We'll talk about that a little bit more once we get to the half blood question, and I'm going to spend a considerable amount of time talking about it in the reflection. But the truth is, like, Snape's beliefs are murky. Murky as the dark lake, honey. Because did he ever really reject pure blood supremacy? Did he actually buy into the Order's values of equality and love and community? Or was he just working through guilt and obsession? And if it's the latter, if he didn't necessarily believe what the Order stood for, does that even matter? Can you still be a good member of the Order of the Phoenix? Good was in quotes, even if you don't share its ideology, as long as you advance its cause. Does it matter that he felt annoyed that he had to make this potion for Lupin? If he still made the potion? Right? Like with Snape, the answer might be yes. He played a pivotal role in bringing down Voldemort. He stood on the front lines with everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain. And maybe that has to be enough. Maybe the measure of being a good member of the Order of the Phoenix, which is not a question we've asked of many of the different characters. And in a future iteration, maybe we'll go back and we'll look at all the members of the Order and we can assess them. But is the measure believing in the thing that the Order represents, or is it your direct impact? Because if that's true, then we're left with a very different picture of what it means to be in the Order at all. Not a collective, bound together sort of group based on ideals, but a coalition of people, potentially with various motives, who happen to be fighting on the same side. Some, like Lilly and Moody, fight because they believe in the values the Order represents. And others might be out for vengeance, anger, family, betrayal, or might be Like Snape, who may not have believed in any of it at all, but whose impact was unmatched, which raises a harder truth. Because if belief isn't necessary, if what defines you as a good member is simply whether you weakened Voldemort, then the order becomes less about moral conviction and more about strategic necessity. And there are questions about this idea. And this is not a Dumbledore episode. But as we move into thinking about Dumbledore more and more as we get closer to his episodes, I think this is something that we're going to have to grapple with, because a body that survives because some of its members are willing to do what others can't or won't. And sometimes you need a Snape who can live somewhere in the ambivalent gray space who may not even believe in any of these things at all, but still gets the job done that meets the mission of the body to begin with. The next question that we're going to tackle is one that I actually forgot. Like, I legitimately didn't even think about adding it. And it wasn't until someone brought it up to me. I think it was Cassie who sent me a message saying, like, hey, don't forget to ask, do we think that Snape is a good Slytherin? And so, you know, we had to kind of retcon that thing. And so we put this one up on Patreon and we had 90% of us say, yes, Snape is a good Slytherin. 7% said no, and 3% said don't. No. Someone wrote, snape is not a good Slytherin. He is the number one Slytherin. He's absolutely my favorite character as he has so many layers to him. And based on the comments here, clearly others would agree with me. He successfully aligns with the qualities of a quote, unquote, good Slytherin. And we see those unfold throughout the series. His best move was buddying up to both Dumbledore and Voldemort. He lived through the first War and knows there will be another on the horizon. By acting as a double agent, he has the bigger picture of both sides. And if one turns against him, he can ally himself with the other. Someone else wrote, I think young Snape was ambitious. He invented spells and modified potions to make them more effective. I believe he had loftier ambitions than being a Potions Master and and probably wanted more than being a Death Eater. But he lived in an echo chamber in the Slytherin common room and he failed to fight for his friendship with Lily after He called her a mudblood and then defended Mulciber and Avery, attacking her friend instead of denouncing their actions and coming to his senses. So he doubled down and took the wrong path. By the time he came to his senses and turned against Voldadi. Listen, it's catching on. He. He was given no choice by Dumbledore and was stuck as Potions Master. Another person wrote. He probably. He is probably the best person who embodies Slytherin the most in the books. I think this is really fascinating because this was by far the most lopsided response of all the Snape questions. Nearly everyone agreed. Whatever else, he is a cruel teacher, complicated double agent, maybe even a villain. We'll get to that in the next. Not the next episode, but the one after that. Snape was undeniably a good Slytherin, but the consensus actually hides a deeper tension, I think. What do we mean when we call someone a good Slytherin? Are we saying he lived up to those traits of ambition, cunning and loyalty to his own? Or are we saying he represents the House well, even if he does so in a way that reinforces its darkest stereotypes? Now, this is what's fascinating because to me, the way that many people are praising him as a good Slytherin stands in the face of how we understand what it meant to be a good Slytherin before. Although perhaps not. You will talk about this in the post episode chat because while yes, he had to do some pretty nefarious things even as a double agent, and his ambition and his desire to be close to power also led him to go and align himself with Voldiva for a time. And so. But that alignment ultimately served a really good role in terms of his ability then to be in the room where it happens. In fact, he's in both rooms where it happens. And what's fascinating here is that the very qualities people often criticize in Slytherin's ambition, cunning, secrecy, self preservation are the exact same qualities that make them perfect double agents. And that's exactly what Snape was. Think about it. Like Slytherins want to be very good at whatever they take on. They're outrageously loyal, often to the point of obsession. They're sneaky, yes, but also really smart about how they hide their tricks. And their sense of self preservation makes them careful enough to avoid getting caught. That's what makes them so effective at playing both sides. And beyond that, I think as a Slytherin, Slytherins like a challenge. We enjoy manipulation, testing their ability to outthink and outmaneuver other people. So when you give them permission to bend or break the rules, regardless of whether it's for selfish reasons or selfless reasons, but particularly when it's in service of protecting someone that they care about or a cause or whatever, they're going to be really, really good at it. But the reality of it is, as well, is that this also has a dark side. And I think it's interesting because in order to truly understand the dark side and previous conversations that we've had, we're gonna leave Slytherin House and go over and see our Hufflepuff buddies. Now, I know. I know we've experienced the wrath of the badgers when I bring up negativity and Hufflepuff. But, y', all, I really hate to say it, but, like, there are some bad Hufflepuffs, and some of our Hufflepuffs get up to some nefarious things. And you know what? No judgment, no condemnation. But I think thinking about Hufflepuffs in particular, I want us to think about the reflection that I gave for the Hufflepuff episode about loyalty, right? And the fact that loyalty in and of itself is not automatically good. It depends on what or who you're loyal to. And in Snape's case, the things and the people he aligned himself with often asked him to do deeply, deeply problematic things. Voldemort demanded violence and cruelty. Dumbledore demanded secrecy and manipulation. Even the way Dumbledore recruited Snape into being a double agent, leveraging his guilt and grief over Lily, was itself problematic. And Snape, being so loyal, didn't question it. He just said yes. And I think what else is interesting here, and we talked about this in the last episode, is that so much of what Snape ultimately does as it pertains to his loyalty to Dumbledore is both a loyalty and an appreciation and a reverence to for Dumbledore, but also, and I think, more importantly, to Lily. And so in Snape, we see both sides of Slytherin. Loyalty. It's what made him the perfect double agent, but it's also what made him vulnerable to manipulation, willing to carry out orders without much thought to their moral cost. And there's a moment in the Prince's Tale that I think is really interesting. And it's when Dumbledore basically tells Snape, like, you have to be the one to kill me, because I don't want Draco to do it, because I don't want him to damage his soul. And Snape's like, okay, Cool, bro. But what about my soul? And Dumbledore's like, I mean, what about it, though? I mean, he doesn't say that, but he's kind of like, only, you know, your soul. And I would care to wager that while you were in service of Lord Voldemort, you did some pretty questionable things. And so it would be better for you, and less damaging for you to be the one to kill me than for it to be Draco. And I think that there is a way that, you know, loyalty, and his loyalty to Dumbledore, even in that moment, is kind of fraught because we actually don't know what Snape did. I mean, we can make assumptions, and many of us kind of postulated a few things because there's no way that you end up in the inner circle of Voldy. There's no way that Voldemort is waxing poetic about the fact that he might have lost you forever when he returns after getting his body done. Also, I found the person who said getting his body done as a description of Voldemort coming back with a body. And it is an amazing person by the name of Melissa. And we are so grateful to Melissa for that particular turn of phrase, because let me tell you something, I will be using it all the time. The vocals are back, y'. All. The vocals are back. But I got sidetracked anyways. You don't end up being someone that Voldemort seemingly has an attachment to by not doing some nefarious, messy, probably murderous stuff. And so it's interesting, then, that he is willing, though, still to do this for Dumbledore. And I think what else is interesting is that we see this also mirrored in Harry's behavior as it pertains to Dumbledore in the cave. And so I think that Snape is an amazing Slytherin. And I think in some ways, he had to be to do the job he's doing. And it kind of goes back to what it means to be a good member of the Order of the Phoenix. It's like all those Gryffindors in there. No tea, no shade. But stealth is not a thing that Gryffindors are really known for. You know, bulls in China shops, some might say. But you need someone who's going to be able to kind of literally slither in, you see what I did there, and slither out. And you need someone who's going to be able to play both sides. Because when you're dealing with two geniuses, right, Voldiva and Dumbledaddy, you've got to have someone who can navigate both of them in an effective way. And I think that requires a certain acumen. And I feel like Slytherins are uniquely, uniquely able to do this. I think the loyalty piece is really important here and I think that the cunning is also really important here. But we also see other aspects of Slytherin identity playing a part in this. And so I think, yeah, I think there's a reason why 90% of us that he's a good, a good Slytherin. And I honestly believe that he had to be to be able to do what he did. The last question that we are going to be looking at is whether or not Snape is a good half blood. About 41% of us said no, 34% of us said yes, and about 25% of us said don't know. Someone wrote, as for being a good half blood, Snape didn't really embody that. He fell heavily into the magical world. His disdain for his father and falling into pureblood mentality cut off his ability to connect with his Muggle side. Someone else wrote, until Half Blood Prince, I'd have sworn up and down he was a pureblood. He buys into pure blood supremacy so much he completely rejects the Muggle side of his heritage. So in the eyes of pure blood supremacy, he is an ideal half blood. Another person wrote, I don't think Snape is a good half blood because he completely rejects his Muggle side. He hates his Muggle father, so definitely not a good half blood. If Snape had survived the war, he might have become one, but he never gets the chance. This question seemingly does what it always does, right, which is makes people have to really dive into the two paradigms that we tend to present when we look at this question. The one where it's an idealized version wherein this person is building a bridge between the magical and non magical world, or the one where the individual has bought into pure blood supremacy and is seeking to basically assimilate themselves into pure blood supremacist society as a means by which to not be seen as different. And I think that what's interesting about this, right, is that many of us argue that Snape could not be a good half blood because he rejects his Muggle side, despised his father and projected that disdain onto all Muggles and particularly Muggle borns, except for Lilly. But others saw the potential in him. And, you know, I think it's really interesting to think about this because Snape actively calls himself the half Blood Prince. And that to me is an indication of, at least in part, not a complete and utter rejection of this particular part of his identity. Now, questions remain as to whether or not people actually know he calls himself that, or whether or not he just says it to himself or writes it in his books. But even if it's only an internal thing, what's clear to us is that like his half bloodedness is not something that he is particularly ashamed of per se. Right. And the other reality is, is that like I think that many of us kind of think that being a Death Eater means that you have to be a pureblood. And I'm not sure that it actually requires that. What I do think it requires though is the espousal of a particular ideology and that you do it with gusto so that people believe you. Right. And I think we see this with Voldadi himself. He's a half blood, but he rewrites his own identity so thoroughly, crafting a new name and a complete new lineage that kind of skips over the fact that his father was non magical and then he can pass for something else. And he goes so far as to make sure that no one even knows when he gets his body done. He calls, it's just him and Harry. Then he waxes poetic on the of his lineage. But once the girls show up in the graveyard, it's as if none of that ever happened. And Snape doesn't do that. He doesn't pretend to be a pureblood. He doesn't necessarily try to make people think that he's not one. But again, calling himself the Half Blood Prince, it seems like he's leaning into that. And maybe this is his way of, of trying to kind of match the energy of Lord Voldemort. Right? You know, the usage of a, the usage of kind of a royal title, but in his case it's his mother's last name, it's her maiden name. And I think what's interesting about that, right, is it actually does serve as kind of a bridge between the two worlds insofar that like he acknowledges his half bloodedness, but he also then brings together the magical lineage that he has by virtue of using his mom's maiden name and not his father's. But the bigger issue is how Snape engages with the ideology because again, we're kind of waffling between our questions about did he truly believe in pure blood supremacy or did he adopt it for belonging and superiority. Knowing Lilly didn't save him from supremacist views any more than one Good exception fixes Draco in fan fiction. He never interrogated those beliefs. And Snape also introduces to something else, that accepting your Muggle identity and despising Muggle Borns are not mutually exclusive. We often assume that building a bridge between these worlds must mean being pro Muggle. Snape doesn't show us that he embodies the contradiction. He's clearly proudly half blood, but he still has disdain for Muggleborns. And again, I know that some of us are of the mind that, you know, his relationship with Lily was. It was possible that him calling all the other Muggle Borns Mudbloods was for show. Here's the thing, y', all, and I've said it before, and I will say this for as many times as I need to say it. You don't just have slurs on your tongue. When he gets mad at Lily and just uses it, that's not something. Because what you all. What some of us, I should say might want to purport is that like, oh, he just says it around them so that he can fit in. I don't necessarily think that that's a necessity, number one. Number two, even if it is true and he's just doing that, it should not be a knee jerk reaction. It should feel relatively forced. Like, I'm sure you've heard people in your lives use some sort of slur or like word that just sounds unnatural to them because they don't use it very often. And there's a way that like that sounds, but that is also not your knee jerk reaction. When you get upset. Like when you get upset and things come out, that means that your brain stopped. Like the processing power between your mouth and your brain was short circuited because of your emotions and you could not control what came out. And when Lilly says to him, you call every one of my birth that. Well, the story tells itself. And so I think what's interesting about this is that I would actually say that Snape is anti Muggle born. And I know that some people will not like that, and that's cool, but I'm gonna stand 10 toes down on that one because I do not believe that this man actually thought that Muggle borns were good. I think his disdain for non magical people because of his father may have bled into his feelings about Muggle Borns. I think that Lily was the exception to his rule. And as a person who has been the exception to many a person's rule for a number of reasons, and I can tell you that that is not the vehicle for change. And so, no, Lily is not the vehicle that is like, oh, well, because he exceptionalized her, he has the potential to go and change. Nope. I'm so sorry. I know that that sounds good, but it is very, very, very, very unlikely that one person who he has set on a pedestal is going to be the impetus for him changing his ideological lean. And I think that that is meaningful because I think it means that he has somehow figured out a way to reconcile having this disdain and somehow still being proud enough to be a half blood that you would call yourself a half blood prince. What Snape does, let us see, maybe more clearly than anyone, is that blood status in the wizarding world is narrative. It's gatekeeping. It's about power. It's made, it's cultivated, it's enforced. The categories are so amorphous. Pure blood, half blood, Muggle, born blood trader, squib. None of these map onto anything biological. They're labels policed by families and schools and the state. And they are applied inconsistently and strategically. The Weasleys are pureblood, but they're also blood traders. Voldemort is a half blood, but he recasts himself as Slytherin's heir. Muggleborns are rebranded thieves of magic by the Ministry commission that manufactures proof. The lines move to serve ideology. And what Snape names himself expresses how performative this category is. He doesn't erase his mixed status like Voldemort does, he just curates it. Embracing his mother's magical lineage while rejecting his father. That's a choice, not DNA. It's a story about belonging. He claims a label even as he weaponizes anti Muggle born prejudice. In other words, you can publicly accept your half blood identity, or even privately and still espouse supremacist ideology. These two things are not mutually exclusive, and Snape is the proof. And I think that this is what muddies the distinctions that we've made in our idealized and more real versions of what it means to be a good half blood. If we watch how institutions teach and reward these labels house culture, slurs and corridors. Blood trader as social punishment. Ministry propaganda. They normalize the hierarchy so thoroughly that blood status feels natural, it feels biological, it feels like something that's out of one's control. But Snape's contradiction keeps breaking the illusion. He lives at Spinner's Inn. He lives at his father's house. Right when Bellatrix shows up, she's like, why are you here in this Muggle dung heap? Like, what's going on and some of us might say, well, that's just the house he was left, so why would he get rid of it? Listen, the fact that he has not abandoned that place, like, although I will grant you that Voldemort definitely goes back to his, the manor house, the riddle house at the beginning of Goblet of Fire. But then he also kills a man there. And I don't think he considered that a home. I think that was just like him conquering the space. Snape was living at Spinner's End. That tells us a story. He serves a supremacist movement, then he serves the order. He is proudly half blood and keeps the movement alive through his actions. If blood were destiny, these things would not compute. They do because the category, category of blood status in half blood is so constructed and then enforced through incentives of shame and violence. So when we ask is he a good half blood? There's a nerve that's being touched, right? Because even the metric is unstable. It's good about pride in both heritages or not. Despising muggles about strategic usefulness to one side. Our survey shows that people arguing past one another because the meaning of the label shifts without context. Snape lets us see that the slippage is real. Blood status isn't what you are, it's what the world decides to call you and what you decide to do with that call. And I think that this is particularly important when we think about the many compositions of one's half bloodedness. I think that this kind of slippage and the amorphous nature of this particular label is confined to half bloods because as many of us have brought up the composition of your half blood, your half blooded identity, I should say if both your parents are half blood, that's a different dynamic than if you have a pure blood parent and a Muggle born parent or a pure blood parent and a muggle parent or two muggle born parents. Right. That those dynamics are different and then that's not. That's on top of what we've discussed as well. The, you know, whether or not your mother or father was the magical person. And it matters because all of this amorphousness that exists within the label of half bloodedness makes it difficult for us to really nail down what it means to be a good half blood. Because being a good pureblood and being a good Muggle born is very specific. But the combination of parentage and context means something very different for half bloods. And I, I think that that matters here. When we think about what it means for Snape, because he gives us a sense of the fact that you can appreciate your half bloodedness and still dislike some of the aspects that make you half blood. And that doesn't quite make a lot of sense in theory, but I think in practice it really does. And I think, yes, there is some internalized hatred, but I actually don't think it's that internal. I think it's at least not because of his dad. I think that's externalized. I think we see someone who has a lot of other internalized things. I don't think it has anything to do with his half blooded status. I think he's just the byproduct of someone who grew up in a household where there wasn't a lot of love and there was a lot of anger and a lot of abuse. And so it's. I think this has been my favorite discussion of half blood because I think Snape complicates it, because it would be one thing if he went the Voldemort route and basically tried to just remove evidence of his father, but he didn't. He calls himself the Half Blood Prince. And whether it's to himself or to others, it tells a story about how he understands that identity and that matters. For this episode's reflection, I want to begin here with the question of how Snape formulates his half blood identity. Because the question we just talked about, like, is he a good half blood? We kind of dove into the notion that being a half blood is a social construct, right? The circumstances of your family shape how you come to understand it. And many of you brought up questions about his relationship with his father and the role that that plays. And, you know, there are people who are half blood whose experience looks different ways. Right. And as I said before, there is this kind of interesting thing about half blood identity that makes questions about identity in the wizarding world so specific. Right. And I think there's something worth investigating about how these dynamics play a part in how individuals come to understand what it means to be half blood in particular, because I think we often don't account for the identity formation when we're assessing whether or not they're a good half blood, you know, and so there are half bloods whose fathers are magical and their Muggles. Their Muggles are mothers. Well, yes, but their mothers are Muggles. Gosh, my dyslexia really kicks in sometimes. So does my vocal. You hear that? And then you have people like Harry, right, Who is half blood, right? Pure blood dad, Muggle born mom. But he was Muggle raised and with all the resentment and longing that upbringing produced. And then you have people like Snape and like Minerva McGonagall and Tom Riddle, right? Children of a Muggle father and a magical mom. And then you have Dolores Umbridge, right, who has a magical father and. And a non magical mother. And what's striking about these family dynamics is that they consistently shape the relationship that these characters have with both worlds, right? And so when we think about what it means to be a good half blood, we've often kind of criticized many of these characters for not building the bridge. But part of the reason why I think that they may not is a couple of is twofold, right? One is obviously society. Magical society really does promote full indoctrination and kind of inclusion of oneself into the magical world. But also their relationship with their parents is going to play a big part in this. When you think about how you identify on a number of dimensions, right, There may be a shift away from the way that you identified as a child, but there are some identities, even if they've shifted, that are still informed in part by your upbringing. For better or for worse, Hel. And it's not necessarily blood that defines how a person identifies. It's the lived experience of family, the socialization of school and the incentives of the world that you live in. In the case of Harry Potter, the magical world, if your Muggle parent was cruel, neglectful or abusive, it's much easier to forsake that world altogether. Voldemort's father abandons his mother before he's even born. Snape grows up in an abusive household with a father he despises. Harry grows up despising the Dursleys, not because they're Muggles, but because they're cruel. And so all three of these boys, in different ways, hurl themselves into the magical world as an escape. But what they do with that rejection differs. Voldemort erases his half blood identity altogether. He invents a new name, a new lineage, one that proclaims him heir to Salazar Slytherin, which is not false. Okay, I want to put that out there. I'm not saying he made it up, but he completely disowns his father. So thoroughly that he builds a career on the very purity he lacks. That's one way of constructing one's half blood, pretending it doesn't exist. Harry never erases the fact that he's Muggle raised. He just doesn't romanticize it. He finds belonging in the magical world, but he doesn't carry the shame that Voldemort and Snape do. He never despises Muggles as a category. He just despises the Dursleys for what they did to him. That makes him an outlier. One who can build a bridge, who can exist comfortably in both worlds, who can take the train to King's Cross and move fluidly between identities without shame. And then there's McGonagall. She too is the child of a Muggle father and a magical mother. A But where snape grows bitter, McGonagall grows disciplined. She acknowledges the difficulties of her household but never turns that into disdain for Muggles as a whole. Instead, she uses her dual identity to ground her in fairness and loyalty, qualities that mark her leadership at Hogwarts. Hers is the path of integration, of taking both parts and refusing to be ashamed. And then there's Umbridge. The novels don't spell it all out, but what we know is that she grew up with a Muggle mother and a squib brother, both of whom she rejects completely. She invents her own narrative, recasting herself as pure as possible, sneering her mother, denying her brother and her magical father whose position in society wasn't high enough for her. This is another way of constructing half blood overcompensation, cruelty and denial. This is a a similar way that we see from Voldemort. And then there's one Sevisev Snape. He doesn't erase his half blood status like Voldemort. He doesn't bridge it like Harry or McGonagall. And he doesn't overcompensate by denying it like Umbridge. Instead, he curates it. He names himself the Half Blood Prince. He claims it, but not through his father's name, which he rejects, but through his mother's. It's a way of rewriting without erasing, of saying I'll decide how this identity is remembered. But here's the paradox. Even as he claims it, he sneers at the Muggle side of his lineage. He uses slurs, he mocks Muggle borns, he weaponizes the very categories. He embodies that contradiction, proud of the label, disdainful of the people it connects him to is what makes Snape so instructive. And it also explains why you can have half bloods who are Death Eaters. Because what matters is not simply ancestry but how your connection to the magical and non magical worlds get constructed. If your Muggle parent is a source of shame, neglect or abuse and your magical parent is the entry point into A world that feels like an escape. Then even as a half blood, you can fully embrace supremacist ideology. Snape is proof of that. Voldemort is proof of that. Umbridge in her own way, is too. Supremacy is about ideology, not blood. And here is where I want to turn it back to us as readers because we're not immune from this socialization either. Even we, through the way the books are written, are invited to jettison the Muggle world. Think about it. The only Muggles we spend real time with are the Dursleys. And we don't like them. So even though we as readers are technically from the non magical world we spend so much time curating our magical identities, our Hogwarts houses, our wands, our patronuses, that we too start to care less about the Muggle world. The books make the magical world feel better, more exciting, more worthy of belonging. And so we, like Muggle borens and half bloods in the story, get socialized into a kind of implicit anti Muggle bias. And I think that these moments show up particularly, particularly when we think about what happens to the Dursleys. The fact that every single year the magical world inserts itself into their lives and upends everything. The tale with Dudley, the dinner with the Masons when Dobby shows up, blowing up Aunt Marge, blowing up the living room. The dementors coming in book five, Dumbledore wreaking havoc on their lives when he comes to to pick up Harry. All of these instances where the Dursleys are subject to magical intervention in a way that they cannot, they did not consent to and cannot defend themselves from. And we are laughing, we are cackling and some of us are like, absolutely. They deserve it. Okay, okay, okay, I hear you. You're heard by me. But I think that part of this is our own socialization in these books. And this matters because it helps us understand why the idealized version of being a quote unquote good half blood, someone who bridges both worlds, is so hard. Not just because of characters like Snape who have fraught relationships with their Muggle parentage, but because the magical world itself incentivizes them and us to reject the non magical side. When many of us picked up these books and started reading them, we wanted to escape. We wanted to escape the mundanity of our lives in the non magical world and go to the magical world. Which means that anything that happens in the ma in the non magical world feels trite and unnecessary. And so we don't care about the problems that they're facing. And they're facing many problems as a result of the negligence of the magical community. The text leaves us very few positive examples of Muggles to latch onto. And so both characters and readers are pushed towards privileging the magical world, even when we know that comes from forms of prejudice and discrimination. So what does it mean to be a good half blood? Maybe it isn't about blood at all, but about how you reconcile it, whether you deny it, rewrite it, despise it, or find a way to integrate it. Voldemort chose erasure. Umbridge chose denial. Harry chose some kind of integration. McGonagall chose discipline. Snape chose contradiction. And contradiction became his cage. And that's in some ways a tragedy of his character, because identity isn't just something you're born into. It's something you form through your family. Your chosen family, your friends, your ideology, the choices that you make and how they all make up parts of you. And you choose what you will own and what you'll disown. And Snape's story reminds us that those choices have consequences. They shape not only how others see you, but how you see yourself and ultimately what side of history you stand on. And maybe that's why listeners struggled so much with the question about whether or not Snape is a good half blood. Because in asking whether Snape is a good half blood, we are really asking what good even means in a category that is socially constructed, unevenly enforced, and often cruelly policed. And we're also asking what it means for us, how we've been invited by these books to devalue the Muggle world, to build ourselves identities in the magical one, and in doing so, replicate some of the same biases we critique in Snape. Snape forces us to see sit in that discomfort, to acknowledge that usefulness and goodness are not the same thing, that loyalty can be admirable and dangerous. And that identity is not simply inherited, but constructed. And that construction is never neutral. It is never uninformed by the world in which we live. In the words of Kamala Harris, you think you just fell out of a coconut tree. You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. And that's why, of all the questions we've asked about Snape, this one lingers the most. Not because it gives us a neat answer, but because it refuses to. This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble, and if you like today's episode, first of all, thank you please feel free to like rate, subscribe, do all the things that one does where pods are cast y'. All. I cannot wait to see what we get up to in the post episode chat. I know this episode was a little bit shorter but honestly we could use a little bit of a break because I know that the next like big stape episode is gonna be madness and we need a break for it. That didn't quite work but you get what I was getting at. Okay, you get what I was getting at. Anyways, please feel free to join us on Patreon patreon.com CriticalMagic Theory Find us online at criticalmagic theory.com Follow me on social media at Prof. JW on TikTok and ProfW. On Instagram Y'. All. I will see you in the post episode chat and or in the discord where we will be chatting about this. Until then, be critical and stay magical my friends. Bye.
