Redemption of Anakin and other redemption stories (moved from Main)

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" <sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> > Carol responds:
> 
> > I see no reason why Snape, who worked hard and suffered much and was much more important to the good side than any of them, would not also be redeemed, having paid for his major sins, and now, perhaps with their gratitude and understanding, he can finally lose his bitterness and his grudges and become the man he could have been if only Lily had loved him and there had been no Voldemort.
> 
> Magpie:
> But he didn't lose his grudges and bitterness, is my point. Sure we can imagine him any way we want in the afterlife, but that's something we do ourselves, not something in the story. I'm talking about his life here, not where he'd go in the afterlife. I would say Snape repentent for the things he repented in life as far as I can see. Sure he's not Voldemort--he never was. And he obviously has the ability to repent because he did repent certain things.
> 
> Carol:
> > Carol, who suspects that pettiness in the classroom doesn't count in the afterlife, either, or not for much
> 
> Magpie:
> As I said, I was just talking about Snape as a living person. But I don't know why pettiness in the classroom wouldn't count for much. If you spend your life making people unhappy in minor ways that's part of who you are. 

Carol:
It wouldn't count for much because, as you said, it's minor. If he'd treated Harry as Marvolo gaunt treated Merope, it would be another matter. The chief person he made unhappy was himself.

And you're talking about redemption, which is why I brought in the afterlife.

And there's always that last second of life. JKR says that he died hating Harry, but, if so, why care enough to show Harry, whom he thinks is also going to die, all those memories instead of just enough to show that he was Dumbledore's man? And, yes, he wanted to look into Harry's eyes to see Lily, but that also means that at last, instead of just seeing James in Harry, he saw Lily, too.

Besides, redemption has nothing to do with remaining imperfect. It has to do with expiating and atoning for a sin. And even if the sin he had in mind was revealing the Prophecy (and, by extension, joining the DEs in the first place), he did enough good for the cause and risked his life frequently enough to atone for ten sins. He saved Harry's life at least once (I'd say that conjuring those stretchers and getting four unconscious people off the grounds and away from the werewolf also counts--and, no, he didn't turn Black over to the Dementors; he turned him over to Dumbledore). He also saved the lives of Dumbledore, Katie Bell, and Draco, as well as, apparently, people that Dumbledore didn't even know about ("lately only those whom I could not save"). He came to believe in the anti-Voldemort cause and was, IMO and Harry's, its bravest soldier.

Petty sarcasm and point-docking and continued resentment of the boys who humiliated him when he was also a boy are human traits, probably unavoidable in a man as unloved as Snape was. It's impossible for a man like that to become a saint. At least he helped Harry to the very end, and at least he was angered by the idea of sending him as a "pig to the slaughter."

Obviously, we're never going to agree here, but I think that Harry has it right.

Carol, whose favorite moment in the book was discovering that Harry had named his son Albus Severus