LOLLIPOPS strikes back! (Dangerously Close To SHIPping)

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 34839

I was going to respond to this, but I figured everyone was sick and 
tired of these endless Snape threads so . . . 

What's that you say?  You want more?  You can't get enough?  Well, 
all right, then:

*******************

Tabouli wrote:

> OBJECTION ONE: Too EWW to be TREWW (Marina, Cole, others)
> 
> As far as I can see, this objection is based on the view that 
>LOLLIPOPS can't be true because it's mushy and sickening, an 
>overused, trite plot device.  Pah, I say.  

AND 

 
> For another thing, why is Snape/Lily by definition mushy and 
>sickening anyway?  I can't speak for my entire crew, of course, but 
>in *MY* version of LOLLIPOPS there is absolutely no need for Snape 
>and Lily to have had a relationship at any point.  In fact, I think 
>this is very unlikely.  I say Snape had a huge, unrequited crush on 
>Lily (and since when are those mushy?  They're torturous and 
>humiliating!).

Speaking for myself, the core of my Ewwwww objection isn't just that 
I don't care for SHIPping, although that is part of it.  The bottom 
line is that Snape's schoolboy crush on a girl he never had makes 
Snape insufficiently Tough.  It is the sort of thing Hagrid would 
do.  Despite all of the quarrels I have with Snape, I've never said 
he lacks Toughness.  Does he flee when the Dark Mark burns on his 
arm?  No, he sucks it up and deals.  Does he flinch at returning to 
spying?  No, he sucks it up and deals.  If anything, Snape might even 
be *too* Tough, which explains his nasty treatment of the students.

In the face of all of that Toughness, enter LOLLIPOPS.  I'm now 
supposed to picture Snape shivering in his cold dungeon, with Lily's 
yellowing yearbook pictures tacked to the walls, the floor littered 
with crumpled photos of Lily that Snape secretly snapped with a 
telephoto lense, Lily's wedding photo on the bedside table with 
Snape's head pasted on James' body, a stack of scribbled and 
undelivered love letters in the desk drawer, and the ring he never 
screwed up the courage to give her?  Ewwwww!

For what it is worth, I think the theory actually works a little 
better if Snape and Lily really did have a little roll in the Devil's 
Snare.  At least Snape would be clinging to a memory of something 
that actually *happened*.

For that reason, I can buy a bit of LOLLIPOPS, but it doesn't make it 
all the way to becoming a significant part of the motivation for 
Snape to turn from the Death Eaters.

So, what to do, what to do?  As I find the LOLLIPOPS-Motivates-
Snape's-Conversion idea a bit flacid, maybe it needs a little shot of 
a Viagra-like substance.  Rather than have Snape turn from his Death 
Eater career over Love of Lily, let's bolster it a bit and make his 
motivation more compelling.  In other words, let's give him an extra 
reason to care about Lily besides a schoolboy crush.

How about this?  In this theory, Lily does something truly heroic to 
save Snape's life while they are at Hogwarts.  Um, perhaps Sirius, 
prankster that he is, is about to do some dastardly thing to Snape, 
like drag Snape in the shower and wash his greasy hair.  (Why, oh 
why, is Sirius always the heavy?)  Lily learns of this and, having 
figured out that Snape is half-dementor and will dissolve in water, 
intervenes and saves Snape's life.  And we know what happens when a 
wizard saves another wizard's life:  Snape is in her debt.  We can 
call it "Mercy II."  (Well, you're probably not buying the half-
dementor bit, so someone may have to help flesh this part out.)

Then Snape begins his career as a Death Eater (motivated primarily by 
Dumbledore's failure to take his side in The Prank).  He knows he'll 
never have Lily (and has decided to suck it up and deal), but he is 
still properly grateful and in her debt that she used her influence 
to save him from death.  [Insert elements of "Prince George" to show 
how Snape becomes increasingly disillusioned with his Death Eater 
career.]

All is well until Voldemort decides that the Potters have to go.  
Voldemort tells Snape to betray the Potters or kill them outright; 
Snape refuses; Cruciatus Curses follow.  And that is the moment when 
Snape decides to return to Dumbledore.  It is the combination of his 
debt to Lily and the fact that Voldemort is treating Snape badly.  
Forced to choose between Voldemort and Lily, Snape chooses Lily, not 
out of love, but out of debt.  

This has the added extra-special bonus of making Snape look strong 
and principled.  He starts to look like someone willing to honor his 
magical debts even at great personal cost and risk, and less like a 
demented Hollywood stalker.

Note--It really isn't necessary to have Lily play any role in Snape's 
conversion under Mercy II.  After all, canon already tells us that 
James saved Snape's life in The Prank.  That would be sufficient 
motivation by itself for Snape to refuse to betray the Potters.

Does that work, Captain Tabouli?

Cindy (crestfallen that Tabouli's LOLLIPOPS explanation did not 
contain the word "ambush")