CHARACTER DISSECTION || SEVERUS SNAPE - ALAN RICKMAN || HARRY POTTER

Well, I don't think Harry Potter is subjected to an introduction because of the popularity of the whole series of Harry Potter. Most of us are already familiarized with Harry Potter either via movies or books. Such is the popularity and craze of Harry Potter. No doubt, why it's called the masterpiece by J.K Rowling. Now, being a Potterhead, I often found some characters so interesting and confusing at the same time from the whole series that it literally becomes difficult for me to place the same in just one category i.e in the terms of villainous character or protagonist or just a side character or a filler character. The same goes with the character of Severus Snape. Snape forms one of the most controversial and complicated characters in the whole Harry Potter series. From hating this character, in the beginning, to falling in love with Snape is quite an astounding journey itself. So let's trynna explore this character and try to figure out what's so special with Snape that by the end of the story, most people including me fell in love with Severus Snape, a well-written character by JK Rowling and then perfectly performed by Alan Rickman is a cherry on the top.

LOYALTY TOWARDS ALLIES

Snape was deceivingly loyal to many but extremely loyal to one i.e Harry. Apart from Harry, Snape was loyal to Dumbledore as well. In fact, it was Dumbledore who masterstrokes and made Snape's protection of Harry, evidence of his love for Lily. Various characters in the story always doubted his loyalty but by the end, Dumbledore's trust proved to be the final word. Killing Dumbledore to justify his association with Voldemort was also pretentious in order to protect Harry from Voldemort, one way or the other. Dumbledore asked Snape to preserve the legacy of his beloved Lily in the form of Harry Potter and Snape at any cost was ready to sacrifice even his own life to protect that legacy, which clearly justifies his loyalty towards his allies.

INTELLIGENT AND MASTER OF HIS SUBJECT

 INTELLIGENT AND MASTER OF HIS SUBJECT

Snape was comparatively more intelligent and competent than other teachers in Hogwarts. He was the master of his subjects. Snape was one of the most courageous, intelligent, and skilled wizards in the whole Harry Potter universe. Being the only wizard in Hogwarts who mastered the Occlumency (the magic of closing one's mind against Legilimency) clearly highlights his intelligence and capability.

"I told you to empty yourself of emotion!... Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!"

This statement taken from the part when Snape was trying to teach occlumency clearly indicates the intelligence level of Snape.

Apart from this, he was the master of making potions, elixirs and Dark arts. He was able to create his own curse ''Sectumsempra'' at a very young age. It was only because of his brilliance that he was able to deceive Lord Voldemort himself by pretending to be on his side.

 A PERFECTLY LAYERED CHARACTER

Severus Snape forms a fine example of a perfectly layered character, a character that is neither black nor white. A grey character, a suitable Byronic hero, who hates the hero of the story yet somehow saves him, hates the father of the protagonist still did his best to protect the protagonist and was deeply associated with pain and emotions still manages to emerge as the most badass character of the story. He acted like he wanted to save the child of a girl he loved the most (Lily) and at the same time, he bullied the child of the person he hated the most (James). He was ready to sacrifice his life for Lily's son and was ready to make life hell for James's son. 

If ''you don't need to be good to fight evil'' had a face, it'd be Severus Snape. 

AN UNCONDITIONAL LOVER

Snape's love story is more than a tale, quite epic in its own sense, marking a fine example of devotion as well as dedication.

LOVE STORY OF SNAPE AND LILY: 

The love story of Lily and Snape follows a zig-zag path as growing up with someone being a friend and then marrying someone who always bullied your friend, seems quite interesting, Well yes, it is!

As a teenager, Snape had a crush on Lily. It was platonic at that time in a real sense but later on, it merely turns into a possession. He was very attached to Lily as Lily was the only person who valued him. Lily was the only solace to him in his childhood. At Hogwarts, both Lily and Snape were placed in different houses. He was kind of jealous of James' popularity and was feared of Lily's decision for choosing James over him. He called Lily a mudblood and later turned into an unexpected character. He started hating everyone except Lily and became a death eater, yet he never gave up loving Lily. 

After Lily's death, her memories form an important part of Snape's life. Lily was the only reason Snape devoted his whole life to protecting her son. From protecting Harry by counter cursing Quirell to acting as a dual agent and endangering his very own life and feeding Lord Voldemort with false information, Snape did his very best to protect the son of his beloved.

He even begged his master Voldemort to spare the life of Lily and it was at this moment Lily decided to sacrifice her life to protect her son Harry.

Then accepting Dumbledore's offer of protecting Harry (perhaps out of guilt) justifies the true love of Snape for Lily.

CONCLUSION: Well every character has its flaws and perks and the same goes with the character of Snape as well. People found him evil as well as good with respect to different terms. In the words of J.K Rowling, Snape is a vulnerable and insecure character. At the same time, he's a damn confident and a perfect portrayal of self-assurance as well. In my perspective, Snape is a hero figure with numerous flaws. Though insecure but a truly devotional character, who literally devoted and dedicated his everything for the sake of his love.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE || PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKDOWN

 Writing about Nietzsche is a difficult task itself as decoding the philosophy of someone who is already misunderstood by thousands and misinterpreted by most of the people of his century is quite challenging. Apart from this Nietzsche is someone, I am fond of reading. Coming to the writings, Nietzsche's aphorisms and morbidly perplexing instances themselves served as the source of misinterpretation and misunderstanding. People believe Nietzsche was far ahead of his time and hence his ideologies and beliefs never satisfied the people of his century.

His writings owning the use of quite strong and aggressive words made it difficult for people to understand the same with ease. It's quite often people miss a number of vital points of his writings and hence misinterpret the whole stuff. One of the most famous examples includes, ''GOD IS DEAD''. In simple words, the whole philosophy of Nietzsche is the assessment of humanity as it stands and the prediction of where it's actually going.

GOD IS DEAD

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?

Now, this few word statement holds a deep and meaningful philosophy behind it. In short, Nietzsche is challenging people to rise over their theistic imaginations. He simply meant God can no longer provide values. By this statement, Nietzsche directly highlighted the replacement of religion by western civilisation in terms of ethics and morality. He simply analogues God with morality and hence meant that mankind's beliefs came to an end with respect to God because of new ideologies of Atheism, Nihilism, Marxism, etc and hence there's a need to establish a new system of beliefs and morality. 

Nietzsche both predicted as well as feared that without effective replacement, humanity would be left to struggle as well as suffer without any clear system and meaning and devolve into despair or say Nihilism.

UBERMENSCH 

Nietzsche challenged the whole concept of thinking by the introduction of the idea of ''THE OVERMAN'' or ''UBERMENSCH''. Enhancement of humanity and mankind forms the laying stone of the whole concept of Ubermensch. According to Nietzsche, humans hold the power of making their own decisions. We need not bear the burden of social constructs and seek and consume the truth without external influences affecting the same. The Ubermensch or the Overman is strong enough to reevaluate all values, overcome pity and sufferings, provide meaning to the meaningless life, express his will to power(The Will to Power) in higher forms and hence when a man is able to do this, he surpasses the level of being a man and become an Overman or Ubermensch.

SELF OVERCOMING AND SUFFERING IN LIFE

Self-overcoming forms the central theme of ''THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA''. Life is a struggle and full of suffering. Sufferings of life can't be eliminated, instead, can be overcome. There's no point in running from pain. The only way to grow is to take a direct dig at it i.e by facing the pain, growth can be experienced. In the words of Nietzsche, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.”. 

Nietzsche believed suffering is a good thing to be leaned into. Suffering acts as fuel towards the amassing of strength and psychological power. In short, suffering paves the way towards progress and growth.

“Man, the bravest of animals, and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far.”

EXISTENTIALISM AND NIHILISM 

Well, Nietzsche neither considered himself a Nihilist nor an Existentialist. But his philosophy, by different terms, supports the ideas of both Nihilism and Existentialism. According to my own views, Nietzsche was leaner towards existentialism.

Favouring Existentialism, he believed that men must accept that they are part of a material world, regardless of what else might exist. As part of this world, men must live as if there is nothing else beyond life. A failure to live, to take risks, is a failure to realize human potential.

In a nutshell, Nietzsche wants us to find meaning and purpose in a meaningless life. He wants to make us realise our self-worth and according to him, no price is high for the privilege of owning oneself. He strongly condemns the systems that already prevails. According to him, we destroy our integrity and free will just to get adjusted in the preformed systems and hence we need to withstand the herd mentality and find the true nature of life ourselves.

THANK YOU!!

SELF ESTEEM IN A NUTSHELL || KASHISH GUPTA

 Self Esteem simply means the overall evaluation of yourself i.e your own worth. It is a subjective approach and hence can vary accordingly. Self-esteem directly proportionates your self-confidence, abilities to compete/feeling of competence and your tendency to make strong decisions. With time and experience, self-esteem increases eventually.

 In the words of Osho, "The only thing that matters in your life is your opinion about yourself." With this statement, Osho directly highlighted the significance of healthy self-esteem. In a literal sense, if you lack self-esteem, you lack all the abilities necessary to prosper in life. Self-esteem is something that forms an utmost important element for living life with a positive or an optimistic outlook. 

It is wisely said, " Focus on your strengths and not weaknesses." Now focussing on strength demands avoidance of distractions or the factors that diverge your focus and shift your mindset towards your weaknesses. In order to stabilize the focus, you need to be confident enough of your decision and confidence ultimately demands your ability to resist the impedance hindering your goal and finally, you need to have a sense of strong self-esteem to withstand your goal. 

Well, I don’t think there’s a need to describe in detail the way we’re treated in our society. Memes and thousands of videos available over the internet are far more than enough to acquaint you with the problems faced by everyone. It's not something astonishing why 'Sharmaji ka ladka' attained such popularity. 

A LOAD OF INSECURITIES 

People often are not satisfied with the stuff they possess. They’re always in the hunger of possessing more and more and hence their so-called hunger for possessions never satisfies. Well if you’re not satisfied with what you have then you’re left with nothing but a ton of insecurities. And these insecurities stymied the development of your self-confidence and ultimately your self-esteem.

UNNECESSARY COMPARISONS

Comparing oneself with others is the natural instinct and is framed within human behaviour naturally so, there’s nothing to worry about but the bar limits to the extent till the comparison help us learn and grow in a community and also living together as cohesive groups but as this comparison ensures one is worse than the other, the whole concept of self-worth and self-esteem vanishes away. The one found superior ends up being a menace for the other. 

OVERTHINKING AND REMINISCING TRAUMATIC PAST

Well, past events act as one of the most important degrading factors for self-esteem. We are well aware of the fact how difficult it is to forget something that happened in the past. But at the same time, if we’ll remain stuck in the past then the chances of growth at both biological and psychological levels will be affected. Past events may hold the evidence of your low self-esteem that probably developed because of some low grades in any class or some sort of materialistic insecurities or some other factors. We evolve every day and hence our intelligence, abilities, thinking, etc everything attain a new level. We need to comprehend our capabilities and need not let our traumatic past dominate. 

If one wasn't quite confident and extrovert in his childhood that doesn't mean he'd remain the same throughout his life. The farrago of the past isn't something that can't be sorted.

CONFIDENCE AND SELF ESTEEM 

Well, both confidence and self-esteem go side by side. The more confident you are, the higher your self-esteem is. Having enough confidence ensures your domination in the room. With confidence, your social interaction, ability to make bold decisions, withstanding judgements of others, etc improves. 

If you let people’s perceptions of you dictate your behaviour then you can’t grow as a person.

STANDING ALONE || KASHISH GUPTA

Man is a social animal and hence need the company of others. This statement stands true in some sense but it has some negative impact as well. We are programmed since birth with the ideas of dependence over the company, friends, relatives, etc. This programming not only limits our notions but also narrows our spectrum of perceiving things with different frames and different angles. We often consider this belief of social dependence so seriously that we start rejecting our very own thoughts and hence one way or the other just try to attain the attention of others by doing the stuff that pleases others. We just keep on depressing our pragmatic and logical thoughts and keep on dwelling ourselves into the pit of these preconceived notions. 

Well, everything has its own importance in its own way. Social relationships are important and we need to maintain these as well but caring too much by going out of the way and after disturbing your own integrity doesn't seem good, right?

Now, facing the reality of life, the real truth is, no one gonna stand by your side at your lows. You're the only one who gonna face the miseries of your life. There's a quote saying, Don't depend too much on anyone in this world because your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness. Well, this quote is too deep philosophically and the depth of the quote grabs our attention. So, let's break it down and try to understand the real meaning of standing alone.

Standing alone simply means being bold enough to make own decisions without caring for others and without considering the "log kya kahenge'' statement. Caring about the opinions of others always limit your potential of thinking out of the box, limits your process of growth, make you the product of biases and ultimately transform you into someone sculptured by social decisions. As a result, you lose your real identity. 

So, if you can't withstand social opinions then you literally end up being a dependent body who is nothing in a real sense but a puppet controlled by society, incapable of making his own decisions and paralysed to take actions on his own. So the thing is, you need to have the courage of cherishing your choices and your decisions. You must be able to defend your opinions and you should be able to differentiate what's right and what's wrong completely on the basis of your abilities and not by the influence of society. 

ANIME TEACHES || NARUTO UZUMAKI

 From founding boring to falling in love with the manga series and anime Naruto, it seems my comprehensive and perceiving abilities improved a lot. The way Kishimoto [creator of Naruto] presented Naruto is just praiseworthy. All the characters of the Naruto series represent deep philosophies of their own, which make the whole Naruto series full of learnings. Naruto, being the protagonist has its own interesting approaches and hence form a subject of interest for all the people out there, who’re fond of philosophy and are inquisitive about something new to grasp.  Kishimoto had described the journey of Naruto quite adroitly, which made people including me fall in love with the character Naruto. Apart from Naruto other characters also teaches us a lot, but today we gonna talk about our most admirable character Naruto himself. We will be decoding the philosophy of Naruto. Now, let’s dwell on it.

    NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS

Since childhood, Naruto had a dream of becoming the Hokage of his village. He always wanted to be recognised and respected by everyone in his village. He was so dedicated that he can go far beyond his limits in order to achieve his dream of becoming Hokage. Naruto was so confident that his iconic dialogue, “ Believe it!’’ hits hard every time he use it. He was ready to bear any pain to fulfil his dream of becoming Hokage one day.

FRIENDSHIP - A BOND FOR LIFE

Considering friendship more precious than anything else in his life, Naruto was always ready to sacrifice everything to bring back his best friend Sasuke. Naruto was always ready to die for his friends. He literally considered the bond of friendship something too valuable to lose so easily. A number of times, Naruto jeopardized his life for the sake of his comrades. In the whole Naruto series, he frequently mentioned a special bond that existed between Naruto and Sasuke and he believed that bonds meant more than a bond of friendship to him. 

LEARN FROM THE PAIN  

Naruto had faced the pain of solitude and despair since his childhood. He was always poked and insulted by others. All the people in his village used to acknowledge him as a vessel of a 'Nine-tailed monster' or 'Jinchuriki'. No one ever tried to understand and acknowledge the soft heart of the child. He experienced the pain of loneliness and rejection and hence was able to empathize and understand the feelings of others who faced the same. Perhaps this was the reason, Naruto was able to make friends and change their behaviour and perception in such a fascinating way. For instance, he completely changed the monster of the sand, Gara, into a kind-hearted person, who later on was able to become 'The Kazekage'.

NEVER LEAVE YOUR COMRADES, NO MATTER WHAT!

Well, this philosophy originally belongs to Obito but this is worth mentioning because our hero, Naruto also believes the same. According to him, comrades value more than rules and the missions, so, it's okay to break the rules in order to save your comrades.

THE REALITY OF LIFE || PAIN AND SUFFERANCE || KASHISH GUPTA

 Well, sitting idle, thinking about destiny, evaluating the future and reminiscing past moments, I found myself entrapped in the web of few questions that literally make me question my existence and left me perplexed over the purpose and the goal of my life. 

Does this life hold any purpose? If so, why I’m unaware of it?

What’s the aim of my existence if I have to face death one day?

If my fate holds all my responsibilities, then why do I have to care about my virtues?

Is my destiny acting as a paralysing factor, restricting my abilities and refraining me from my own will?

The Existence of Humans 

Out of unknown reasons, a product of flesh and blood was formed, blessed with brain and was sent to this world as a pawn in the game of pain, sufferance, affliction and failures. The same creature was named human. Sometimes it’s literally like living in an illusional world, bounded to the thread of destiny and fate. 

Suffering and life 

In simple words, life means pain and suffering. In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, ''To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering''.

Even the first noble truth of Buddha explains life as suffering. Suffering forms an unavoidable part of life. You can’t escape the sufferings of life. One with the abundance also suffers and one having nothing also suffers. Rich as well as poor, both are the guests of suffering in their own way.

The whole philosophy of Stoics supports the concept of suffering. In the words of  Epictetus, ''It is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of death or pain''.

PAIN PAVES THE WAY FOR WISDOM 

Pain and Suffering pave the way towards wisdom. The idea that suffering promotes understanding and wisdom forms the core of Nietzsche’s thinking. As a consumer of Nietzsche's philosophy, I strongly believe in this idea of a direct relationship between pain and eternal wisdom. It's just absurd considering materialistic pleasures as the ultimate goal of life, instead, overcoming the pain do.

INNER PEACE FORMS THE ULTIMATE REALITY

The only truth about life is our continuous search for peace of mind, a state of mind associated with happiness and contentment. We are battling day and night with our miseries, hardships, afflictions and melancholy. Perhaps, life is a simple word describing all the aspects, a human face. The purpose of life is to overcome the state of misery as a warrior and face failure with the humility of a saint. The realisation of this truth results in the attainment of inner peace of mind and that's where lies the purpose of this life!

SOCIETY MAKING US MENTALLY ILL! || KASHISH GUPTA

Well, we all are part of society. Being social animals, we all have a need to interact and hence we form a part of society. This society is important in order to survive because of our dependency on one another but this society becomes toxic sometimes, resulting in affecting us physically as well as mentally. Quite often, we face so much as a repercussion of being a part of this society that shakes our mental health, resulting in suffering and resentment.

Society forms an important prerequisite for a sustainable life but at the same time, it exposes us to so many ill effects that not only sadden us but also bring us disappointments and rejections and all these ill-effects badly affect ones’ mental health. Let’s try to understand the whole stuff in a more elaborated way.

THE ACT OF BEING JUDGED BY OTHERS

We just can’t deny the fact that we are continuously exposed to the act of being judged by others. People often judge others on the basis of their appearances, looks, language, money, status, etc No matter whether you are an IIT graduate or a Harvard student. No matter whether you earn a salary in six digits or you possess a multi-million dollars business empire, you are gonna judge by society. You just can’t stop others from judging you. You can neither stop them from making derogatory remarks nor stop them from making false assumptions on the basis of their incomplete data. They gonna judge you and highlight your flaws, making fun of the stuff without even caring about the feelings of others. Well, you need not care about them and let these absurd remarks hit your psyche. Taking these remarks seriously will bring you nothing but weakness from a mental perspective. Giving importance to taunts and criticizing statements would degrade your self-esteem and affect your emotional balance as well. Sometimes it breaks the person mentally as well as emotionally. 

SENSE OF DISSATISFACTION AND ENVY

Every time we envy someone when we don't possess the same thing that they do. We generally possess the habit of complaining. We are never satisfied with the things we have and always desire more. Sometimes it may help you prosper but quite often it disturbs the peace of mind. Our desire for more can never be fed and perhaps brings us misery and resentment. 

Envy and dissatisfaction are quite related. These perhaps result as a consequence of the expectation of getting more and this ultimately arouse a feeling of pride and greed. With time this dominates the emotions and the one undergoes mental imbalance. Isn't it better to get comfortable in the zone you lie and stop desiring more?

SOCIAL MEDIA CULTURE TRAP

Well as human beings, we require someone to share ideologies, thoughts, and experiences, but, when this human interaction becomes toxic, the whole stuff of empathy and interaction takes the form of insecurities and envy. Mental health illness isn't only caused by some deep effect on the brain but can also be caused as repercussions of toxic society and damaging lifestyle, more often, the fake lifestyle flaunted over social media. 

People use to share their images, videos, reels, etc on social media showing their prosperous and extravagant lifestyle. There lies a possibility that this may affect the mental state of another because of insecurities he would be framing due to the lack of the same. He'd be cursing his destiny and fate because of the unavailability of the lavish lifestyle he wanna possess. Fear of missing out exacerbates the feelings that others are living the life of happiness and prosperity while he's still in a state of misery.