Newbie hi, who will die, James & Lily, Snape & Harry (long)

[Adana Robinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 30943


Hi from a newbie!  I'm thrilled to find this list.  I've been on it all of 
24 hours and have been very interested so far.

I have some viewpoints I'd like to share & see what you think.  I apologize 
if I cover anything already discussed.

Re: who will die

I'd pick Lupin or Snape.  Lupin because his life as a werewolf hasn't been 
great so far.  Very few people trust him, he can't get a job, and his best 
friends were killed.  He doesn't have anything to look forward to, either.  
He might view himself as expendable.

Snape because he's been thoroughly nasty so far, but from what we can tell, 
not actually evil since he reformed.  He may die trying to redeem himself 
(see below for more thoughts on Snape).

NOT Sirius.  Although his life hasn't been great either, he has something to 
look forward to if he can survive.  He will have his friend's son to take 
care of, and Harry will have the parental substitute that he only realizes 
at the beginning of GoF that he needs (when his scar hurts, and he doesn't 
know who to tell).   It was a major wrench for Harry (and all of us!) at the 
end of PoA when we think that Harry will get to live with Sirius, and then 
that chance is snatched away.  To have it permanently gone would be 
unthinkable.  (I REALLY like Sirius--can you tell?)

I'd also vote for Dumbledore, because of the major foreshadowing, and also 
because of the whole Obi-Wan Kenobi thing.

Re: James & Lily

Does anyone else think that somehow, they might have more parts to play in 
this whole thing?  Not as ghosts or spirits contacted by divination, that is 
not JKR's style, but somehow.

Notice that in the first two books, we don't learn too much about them, but 
their presence in the mirror of Erised establishes their presence in Harry's 
mind.  In PoA, we learn that Harry looks like his father, acts much like 
him, and Harry hears his parents' voices when the dementors get near.  We 
learn more about their final moments.

In GoF, they actually are characters who play a vital role, their shades 
emerging from LV's wand (in the wrong order!) to instruct Harry and distract 
LV.

It seems like at each book we learn more and they become more "real".  I 
think it's riddikulus to expect them to be resurrected; this series is set 
up a bit more realistically than that; but maybe through the pensieve or 
another device, we might be hearing more from them.  Anyone have any 
thoughts on that?

Finally, re Snape & Harry, and why Snape hated Harry before ever knowing 
him: IMHO!

I think Snape is a psychologist's dream patient--twisted, warped, and with a 
severe inferiority complex.  Snape was a Slytherin, and seemingly a loner 
even among them.  It's only natural that he should have resented the popular 
group of MWPP.  Since James was Head Boy, Quidditch player, and everything 
else, Snape was probably jealous too.  But when James saved his life, his 
resentment turned to hatred.  Why?  Because he knew he was not and never 
would be as "good" as James.  Not good as in sports or school, but good as 
in character.  Even though Potter and his friends teased and harassed him, 
when it came down to it, James was a good person.  Snape was mean, nasty, 
and sneaky even then, and knew it, and used it--but he hated himself for 
being that way, and he hated James Potter because James was everything he 
was not.

He eventually became a Death Eater for many reasons, but chief among them 
was that he knew Potter never would.  He was still trying to prove to 
himself that he did not _want_ to be good.  It was after James and Lily died 
that he came back to the good side, perhaps because he knew that something 
he did may have contributed to their deaths.  Helping to kill someone he 
refused to admit that he admired may have been too much for him.

So he came to Dumbledore, the only person he knew would believe him, and 
accepted a teaching post at the school.  But he never attained the maturity 
level to accept himself as he was and stop trying to hold himself to an 
impossibly high standard that he could never measure up to.  So he is still 
a sneering jerk at the time Harry shows up in PS/SS.  He still can't admit, 
even to himself, that there might be some good in him, and certainly can't 
admit that he's desperately searching for it. (Darth Vader)

He automatically hates Harry because he expects him to be like his 
father--courageous, brave, a person of character--and he knows he is still 
not that kind of person yet.  In a warped way, he is jealous of Harry--not 
his fame or his Quidditch skills, but his innocence and character.  He also 
probably feels some lingering guilt about Harry's parents, and we all tend 
to get angry and lash out at other people when we secretly feel guilty.  
When Harry is proved to be (mostly) innocent of everything Snape tries to 
pin on him, Snape nearly goes ballistic, because he needs to prove to 
himself that Harry is really not as good as he seems.

He favors Draco because he believes that the family is not evil, only sneaky 
and "creative", and he thinks Draco can make Harry miserable, just as he 
tried to make James miserable.  When he finds out Lucius is still involved 
with the DEs, it seems to startle him.

Snape wants the DADA job so badly because he feels that it would be a way to 
pay back somehow the damage he did as a DE.  Some of the children he would 
be teaching might have lost parents to the DEs (Neville, Harry) and he would 
be arming them against the same fate, without ever having to betray himself 
or risk having them think anything good about him.

At the end of GoF, when Dumbledore asks for his help, he knows that he owes 
Dumbledore, and he also knows that if he had been just a bit more 
forthcoming about what he knew, none of those events might have taken place. 
  (That's also why he turns away before Harry does at the table--he feels 
guilty.)  He sees one more opportunity to find the qualities in himself that 
he admired in James Potter and his friends, and I think he will risk his 
life to prove himself to himself.

What about it? :)

Adana

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