LOLLIPOPS: Grey Snape as Yin (Lily as Yang?)

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 35256

Eileen (quoting Elkins, I think):
>>I tend to see (Snape) as someone whose *impulses* all lead him in one unerring 
>> direction -- but in a direction that he has chosen to reject on 
>> abstract and purely philosophical grounds.  In other words, I see him 
>> as a Dark Wizard.  In instinct.  In impulse.  In inclination.  To 
>> some extent, perhaps even in essence.  But by choosing not to act on 
>> those instincts and inclinations and tastes and desires, he manages 
>> to be something slightly different.  Grey.
>
> You see, your analysis 
that strikes me as completely true is rather at odds with my own 
attachment to LOLLIPOPS. I'll have to think about this one awhile. But 
unlike Ambush theories, which can be modified and reorganized to suit 
anyone, they may be unreconciliable. Captain Tabouli, help! I feel 
this uncontrollable urge to jump ship, to this nice little rowboat of 
Elkins's. A warm fuzzy voice is sounding in my mind. "Jump! Jump!"<

(Tabouli sounds the on-board bugle to drown the warm fuzzy voice in Eileen's mind, and summons her sternly to the captain's cabin)

Now haaaang on a minute here.  Being unable to read the minds of my crew, I don't know what anyone's personal version of LOLLIPOPS is, but again, I must remind people that my ship is large and cosmopolitan and easily, *easily* accommodates Elkins' vision of Snape of the dark instincts diluted to grey.  In fact, my very own Snape bio implies this view.  Let's try the all-day sucker version of LOLLIPOPS, which makes Lily pivotal in everything.  Snape was bitter and vengeful and bearing the entire Samboy factory on his shoulders, right?  (er, just in case this is too Aussie a metaphor to be understood, Samboy is a brand of potato chips).  He turned up at 11 knowing lots of curses, hung out with other children leaning into the Darkness, and ultimately became a Death Eater.  I'd say that gives him some pretty clear Dark tendencies, wouldn't you?

*However*, there's just one teensy problem... he's in love with Lily. His gang are appalled (a sentimental attachment to a spawn of the Enemy House??  For shame, Severus!)  She stood up for him against the Marauders' ridicule out of a principle of kindness and fairness, melting a corner of Snape's Dark, twisted heart, and, somewhere, rather shaming him.  She can stand out against her friends for him, and isn't likely to think much of him being taunted into submission by peer group pressure, so he tries to conceal his crush and, when it inevitably leaks to his gang, he bristles away their condemnation.  He wants Lily's good opinion more than anything, and is smart enough to realise that a strong, principled, kind girl isn't likely to be impressed by his precocious talent with Crucio and his skills with persecution and put-downs.  He suppresses his Darkness.  He tries to prove himself worthy, trying to excel in Potions (a class where Slytherin and Gryffindor combine), trying to show her his good side, and discovering, to his surprise, that he does have one, somewhere under the vengeance and cruelty.  Becoming, in effect, GREY.

When she marries James, this motivation ceases in a black cloud of fury, and Snape turns back to the darkness for avenues to vent his torment.  Yet having witnessed and admired her strength and kindness so much has left its mark on Snape.  Even as he relishes the torture of Muggles and slaughter of V's enemies, some little part of him becomes more and more uneasy.  The plot to kill the Potters is the last straw, thrusting Snape's own actions and their effects into relief so horrible that he changes sides, embracing the puddle of light in his Dark soul and returning to Dumbledore.

Perhaps a better way of putting this than calling Snape "grey" (though I like the grey Snape concept) is to think of Snape as Yin in the yin yang (says the inscrutable Tabouli, embracing her semi-Asian roots, donning brocaded robes, and expounding words of sweeping Oriental wisdom like a sage in a bad faux Sinophile movie).  A circle of Light in a tadpole of Dark.  Love of Lily compelled him into the circle of his better self.  When she left, he retreated back into darkness, but with new visions lingering from his moment in the light which troubled him more and more until he realised he could bear it no longer and stepped back into the spotlight where he crouches still, Dark pressing in from all sides, both outside and inside his tormented wizard soul...

Captain Tabouli (declaiming beside a smoke machine and considering the adoption of a two strand moustache...)

P.S.
Eileen:
> I'm trying to work hard on developing the ability to see it as 
it's supposed to be seen, just for the sake of understanding people, 
but in such cases, I often feel like a blind person hearing talk about 
colours. <

Ooo!  I'd been dying all my life to ask a born-blind person about colours, and I finally got the chance a few years ago when I made a blind friend.  His comments were fascinating, albeit to be discussed on OT...


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