Introducing George (Was Re: Did Snape betray his friends? Round 2)

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 34762

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at h...> wrote:

(About the problem of Snape's GoF mission)

> Yes, this is a problem, isn't it?  ::looks down at keyboard, shifts 
> uncomfortably in chair::
> 
> Oddly, this is a problem under all of the theories.  Under Prince of 
> Lies, Snape continues to risk his neck past the point at which he 
> obtained revenge.  (Although I can see why Snape would rather go on 
> offense and start spying again rather than live the rest of his life 
> jumping at small noises as he hides from Voldemort.)
> 
> It's also a problem under the Snape loves Lily theory, because Snape 
> continues to risk his neck after GoF when Lily is dead, dead, dead.  
> That must have been some torrid love affair for Snape to be willing 
> to return to spying to avenge the memory of someone who has been
dead 
> for 14 years, who never loved him anyway, who married his nemesis, 
> blah, blah, blah.  I'd have to question Snape's mental stability if 
> love of Lily's corpse keeps him spying after GoF.
> 
> Under George . . . who knows?  In don't understand George yet, 
> although I'll bet he is really adorable.  :-)

Okay, that's a good point.  I've mentioned George's name, but I
haven't properly introduced him, have I?  Let me, then expound on my
theory.

First of all, George was partially inspired by an actual real-life
example I read about years ago, a young man who rose to some
prominence in Germany's Neo-Nazi movement in the early 90's, but ended
up quitting the movement and actually working against it.  Voldemort's
obsession with cleansing the wizarding world of "impure" blood is no
too far off from the Nazi agenda, so I think I can legitimately make
the parallel without Godwinizing the discussion. <G>  Anyhow, the
article I read provided some interesting insights into this young
man's motivations, and those insights seemed useful when I started
thinking about Snape.

Now I believe that Snape originally joined the DEs not because he had
any conviction in their <ahem>ideals, but because they were the
enemies of his enemies, and he thought they might treat him decently
and not try to feed him to any werewolves.  (I believe this is
actually consistent with the Prince of Lies theory, Cindy, but correct
me if I'm wrong).  As I've mentioned before, Snape was very young at
the time, probably just out of Hogwarts.  He had a general idea of
what the DEs were up to, and thought he'd be okay with it.  When
you're an nasty, unpopular teenager with a supicious knowledge of Dark
Magic and a conviction that the people currently in charge are out to
get you, it's pretty easy to go around thinking you're evil and even
to get off on the concept (finding it glamorous and empowering, maybe)
-- until someone actually says, "Here, torture this baby," and you
suddenly find that maybe you're not as evil as you thought.

I think that the more time spent with the DEs, the more he became
disenchanted with them.  They were crappy excuses for human beings (or
whatever other kinds of beings they were); their agenda was evil and
destructive; whatever respect they may have given him (assuming they
gave him any -- maybe they didn't) wasn't worth it.  I don't think
there was any one grand epiphany that made Snape realize, "Hey, these
guys are evil and must be opposed," I think it was a gradual process
that eventually reached a point where he had to turn around and do
something, and it's at that point that he went to Dumbledore.

So that's George.  Under George, the GoF mission is not a problem:
Snape opposed the DEs fifteen years ago because he thought they were
scum.  He opposes them now because he still thinks so.  The fact that
he loathes most of the people on the good side is irrelevant. 
Whatever he thinks of Harry Potter, he knows Harry is never going to
go around torturing people to death just because they annoyed him, and
that's enough to make him preferable to Voldemort in Snape's book.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com