The Snape question (Was: Helping Muggle children) (SPOILERS!!)

[justcarol67]

 "Sherry Gomes" 
> 
> Carol,
> 
> Though I disagree with you on the matter of Snape, your ideas are
pretty good.  If i had kids who were questioning the things we adults
are all questioning, I might use some of your suggestions.  On the
other hand, due to my very strong feelings about the absolute
wrongness of what happened, I don't think i could ever go that far,
but then I don't have kids.  One of the reasons I'm in the Snape is
evil camp, is that it troubles me deeply to send a message to kids
that there could *ever* be an acceptable reason to take the life of
another person.  I want Snape to be evil because I can't justify the
deliberate killing of another for any reason that has yet been
proposed by people who think Snape is still a good guy. <snip>

Sherry, I respect your views and I confess I'm not altogether
persuaded that the justifiable homicide theories are correct, much as
I want them to be. (It would have been so much simpler if Dumbledore
had just die in the cave and then we could all just blame Voldemort.)

My concern is that I don't want good vs. evil in the books to be as
black and white as it appears to be in HBP. I don't think that's a
lesson we should be teaching kids, and they get so much of it already
in superhero cartoons. Surely Dumbledore was right to have faith in
Snape? It will be a serious blow to his role as a wise and admirable
counselor if he was not. (Granted, I think he made a terrible error in
judgment by leaving Hogwarts when he did, but that could have been
managed, plotwise, without having Snape kill Dumbledore. And I suppose
a case could be made that it's better to trust and be wrong than not
to trust at all, but that certainly is not the message that's coming
across now.) And from an adult perspective, Evil!Snape is a waste of a
complex character who seemed destined for redemption. 

Trust, choices, redemption: Snape as the quintessential Slytherin
ex-DE fighting for the good side was tied in with all those themes. I
hope that we find in Book 7 that he still is.

At any rate, when the children who are HP fans now grow up and have
children of their own, they'll have a huge advantage over their
parents because they'll know what's coming in HBP and how to help
their children deal with it. And the best solution will probably be to
tell them: "Don't despair! Read Book 7. No, Dumbledore isn't coming
back, but things will work out all right." At least for Harry if not
for Snape.

Carol