Literary? DWELLING, LOLLing about on SHIP again (this time with timeline evidence!)

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 33401

Ana:
> > I almost started answering to Eloise's post, but finally thought I'd
> better leave it to people who are knowledgeable in literature and
> theory of writing. Maybe Tabouli, Elisabeth Dalton, Cindy(sphinx) and
> all you other literary experts, whose thought-provoking posts never
> fail to impress me, would like to reply to this one.<

I second Elizabeth's "I'm a literary expert????"  High praise!  Aside from high school English classes, I've never studied literary analysis at all: most of my comments on this list reflect my musings from a perspective of being (a) a writer, and (b) obsessively analytical (some might blame my psychology degree for this, but this is chicken/egg stuff... I was obsessively analytical long before that!  That's why I chose psychology in the first place).  My impression is that Luke and Ebony are the English Lit specialists among us, though more may be lurking...

Rycar:
>Is there an acronym for not being able to stand all this Draco-angst 
stuff? He's a jerk, and the worst kind; I can't stand him, and don't 
see him ever being "redeemed" or whatnot.<

D.W.E.L.L.I.N.G. (Draco Won't Ever Let Lucius' Insufferable Nastiness Go)?

judyserenity:
> JKR may have *intended* Snape to be a horrible 
person, but what she has actually written (so far) is a character who 
has a very unfriendly, sarcastic manner, but loads of positive 
qualities.  Just what positive qualities?<

There's one more I'd add: Snape is, undeniably, eloquent.  Take out the "dunderheads" part, and his opening speech in Potions was almost poetic.

Tex quoting david_p:
> > In PoA we are told that a spy within He Who Must Not Be Named's 
>> organization had revealed the plan to attack James and Lily - my bet 
>> is that it was our friend Severus.
>
>Yes, likely, although that should have "evened the score" in the 
>life-saving column.

...except that he didn't actually succeed in saving their lives, not in the end, anyway!  Come now, all ye landlubbers disdaining to board the Good Ship LOLLIPOPS: isn't this a tad suspicious?

Think about it.  Lily, James and Severus leave school.  Lily and James marry almost straight away, Severus joins Voldemort and rises to the rank of Death Eater (are all V followers DEs?  I'm assuming they're an elite group, but I could be wrong), which gives him an outlet for years of spite and resentment.  Nine months later, Harry is born.  Something about him alarms V so much, he starts plotting to kill him and James.  About three months later, Wormtail swaps sides and starts giving V information, and, judging by the fact that the Potters survived another year, Snape probably swapped sides as well at around the same time (otherwise surely V would have polished off the Potters much sooner) and been a much better spy (to no-one's surprise), leading to Dumbledore setting up the Fidelius charm, etc.etc.

(The weak point of this is that we don't have any concrete evidence of when exactly Snape swapped sides, but on the basis of a not-much-younger Dumbledore's comment in the Pensieve that it happened "before Voldemort's downfall" does make "not long before V's downfall" reasonably likely)

Doesn't this rather suggest that the motivation behind Snape's change of heart had something to do with the plot to kill the Potters?  *Especially* when we that there's some as yet unrevealed dark secret behind Snape's unprovoked, James-projection hatred of Harry, one strong enough to make the indiscreet Hagrid go evasive in front of 11yo Harry, yet overcome by a still stronger motivation for protecting him?

Let's add love of Lily into the equation and briefly spell out the LOLLIPOPS theory yet again, for the benefit of the squeamish anti-shippers and the unbelievers.  Say the wedding of Lily and James is the last straw for jealous Snape, driving him to V not long after graduation.  He works off his anguish wreaking death and destruction.  Then something happens which shocks him into realising how despicable this is: a plot which will kill James (all for it, serves him right), kill the son of James and Lily (mixed feelings: loathing that he should exist at all, but recognising his death will deeply upset Lily, a distressing thought) and very likely also put Lily in mortal danger (this thought is unthinkable and horrifying to Snape, even after she chose James, even after two years of murder and torture)... and he's fighting on the side which imperils her!  There's only one effective thing he can do to protect Lily... turn spy for Dumbledore.  So he does.  He manages to keep them safe, just, for about another year, but then V finds them with Wormtail's help, kills James (good riddance), and, to Snape's deep devastation, Lily, because she loves her son so much she is prepared to die protecting him.  Hence Harry is doubly to blame for his mother's death: it was he who motivated V to murder (for some undisclosed reason: perhaps Trelawney's first prediction), and it was he for whom Lily died.  Yet he is also all that remains of the woman Snape loved, and her eyes stare at him out of Harry's face in every Potions class...

Fits quite well with current evidence, doesn't it?

-Rycar, proud member of L.O.L.L.I.P.O.P.S.

Welcome aboard!

Tabouli (reminding listmembers that berths are still available on the Good Ship...)


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