"The Spying Game" problems and some Destiny vs. Choice

[porphyria_ash]

No: HPFGUIDX 39718

Since Pip (who must be exhausted by now) hasn't answered Marcus yet, 
I'm going to give it a shot based on her theory. Pip, if I'm 
misrepresenting you here, please forgive me! Also, I argue some 
additional points at the end of this post.

Marcus argued: 

> It first establishes that Snape wants to "Shut Lupin Up" about the 
> Rat, and then he wants to provoke Harry into zapping him so he can 
> pretend to be knocked out.  Are we to suppose that Lupin won't then 
> continue to tell his story?  

I understood from Pip's account that Snape only wanted to avoid 
letting anyone think that *he* knew that Peter was the rat; of course 
he wanted Harry to be told the story.

> If Snape wishes to establish plausible 
> deniability, wouldn't it be smarter just to remain cloaked?  Nobody 
> knows he is there.  They have all forgotten about the opening door.
> Why should he throw away an advantage like that?
> 
> Be honest, would the outcome been any different if Snape had not 
> revealed himself?  Lupin and Black would still have forced Peter to 
> reveal himself.  They would have still wanted to kill him.  Harry 
> would still have intervened.  So how does revealing himself help 
> further his supposed desire to free Petigrew and having Peter have a
> life-debt to Harry?  Snape could have silently watched the whole 
> thing, perhaps only revealing himself when the Dementors started to 
> swarm.  He might have even done some stealthy magic while invisible 
> to influence events.

If I understand Pip's version of events correctly, Dumbledore needed 
1) Peter to escape back to Voldemort and 2) for Sirius to not be 
properly exonerated because he couldn't provide Harry the kind of 
magical protection available at the Dursleys. Putting aside for the 
time being the issue of whether this is far-fetched (VBG, but I still 
like this theory), lets think about what would have happened if Snape 
had not intervened at all. It would have been quite likely that they 
would have managed to do what Harry intended in the end: the whole 
party would have made it back to the castle with Peter alive and in 
rat form, they would have demonstrated his animagus quality to Fudge, 
and possibly he would have been incarcerated and Sirius set free. 
Possibly. But it was a possibility that Dumbledore didn't want to 
take according to Pip's theory. 

So if I understand this correctly, part of Snape's job would have 
been to mess stuff up, sabotage the situation so that LifeDebt!Peter 
could have escaped by what looked like an accident. Since Snape 
probably knew that Lupin would eventually change into a werewolf, 
perhaps he thought that he needed to decloak in order to stall the 
situation even further. That way when Lupin finally transformed, 
Snape could just happen to "wake up," do something to immobilize 
Lupin and "accidentally" let Peter escape in the confusion. What I 
like about Pip's theory is that it actually does provide for the 
possibility that Snape was improvising as he went along, that he did 
encounter unforseen glitches (like getting knocked out for real), and 
that part of his motivation was real hatred towards Sirius and Lupin. 
This alone could account for his making an appearance in the shack 
when he also could have watched and waited some more. 

Also, if Snape were trying to establish plausible deniability then he 
couldn't have eavesdropped the whole time and then only decloaked 
when danger struck; that would have looked much fishier. He would 
have had to reveal himself right before Lupin said "Peter is a rat 
animagus" and then get knocked out. I still think this fits Pip's 
argument. 

Marcus again:

> As to deliberately provoking Harry, when does Snape NOT deliberately
> provoke Harry?  He always does his level best to goad Harry, Ron, 
> Hermione, and Neville.  Why should the S. Shack be any different?

Regardless of what Snape has in mind, his provoking of Harry always 
does have the same function: it makes Harry more stubborn, more 
uppity, more single-minded and tougher. It works here just as well as 
it works the rest of the time. 

I've snipped a little of Marcus's argument; I feel that there is room 
for more than one coherent interpretation of these events which is 
what makes it fun to discuss. 

Marcus concludes: 

> Face it, Snape is a mean, ugly shnook.  He is not pretending.
> 
> Perhaps we need the acroynm SIAMUS.  :)

Nothing in Pip's theory conflicts with this. She never argues that 
he's really a warm, fuzzy, sentimental type who just *wuvs* darling 
Harry to death. I have no problem in assuming that Snape is basically 
a nasty, sarcastic, mean-spirited, bitter, irascible misanthrope, but 
that he can ham up his usual personality if he needs to make a 
dramatic or rhetorical point. I'm quite sure he does it often, if not 
here, then in plenty of other places in the text. 

----

Some other discussion. Pip says, of the Dementors: 

> ...why not hand Sirius over to the Dementors when he 
> has the chance? When asked about the Dementors he says "By the time 
> I came round they were heading back to their positions at the 
> entrances"(PoA p.284) - not 'they were nowhere to be seen.' Snape 
had
> an excellent opportunity there to say 'excuse me, but haven't you 
> forgotten someone?'

Eloise replied: 

> I firmly believe (sorry, those who have heard it before) that the 
*present* 
> reason why Snape hates Sirius so much is precisely that he *does* 
think 
> Sirius is Voldemort's spy (reminding him of his own past; zeal of 
the 
> converted, and all that) and moreover that he is the spy who 
outwitted him in 
> his attempts to keep the Potters safe -  something even more 
unforgivable. ;-)

Remember these can both work. Pip has suggested that perhaps Snape 
thought Peter and Sirius were *both* traitors to the Potters and that 
their eventual spat was simply a double-cross among crooks. Also, if 
Snape really does realize that Sirius was innocent, he might still 
resent him for switching secret-keepers. If you're inclined to 
dislike someone, it's easy to come up with reasons to do so. I too 
believe that Snape was traumatized over the deaths of the Potters 
(more than the Prank); not necessarily because he was in love with 
either of them, but because he might have felt that saving them was 
his ticket to redemption for having been a real DE, and when it fell 
through he was stuck with his guilty conscience and no way to make up 
for it. 

On the subject of choices, Pippin remarked:

> I also don't like the idea of Harry as a puppet in the shack, 
> manipulated into doing whatever Dumbledore and Snape have 
> in mind. It undermines the theme of choices. 

Pip has already defended herself on this count, arguing correctly 
that none of this in any way prevents Harry from having a free choice 
in the matter. However, this topic interests me, so I thought I'd say 
some more about it. 

Just to hammer in the point, it is a fact that Snape says very 
provoking things to Harry in the Shack, acts like he will refuse to 
listen to reason, and Harry makes the choice to disarm him. This is 
Harry's choice whether Snape was deliberately goading him or just 
being his usual nasty self. It doesn't matter; Harry is still making 
a choice. Likewise, it is Harry's choice to spare Peter's life. It 
doesn't matter that James would have done the same thing, or that 
Dumbledore suspected Harry would make this choice. It was still 
Harry's choice to make. 

This issue interests me because it intersects some of what I 
encountered when I wrote my Job essay (shameless plug!). In the Book 
of Job, Job finds himself in the middle of a cosmic conspiracy which 
puts him into an impossible situation in order for the powers that be 
to work out their theology of blessedness and grace. Despite this, 
Job still acquits himself on account of the choices he makes under 
duress. Harry is in much the same situation with Dumbledore (and 
Snape). The end of PS/SS makes this explicit: Harry suspects that 
Dumbledore has set him up: letting him see Hagrid withdraw the 
package from the bank, giving him the invisibility cloak, letting him 
see the Mirror of Erised, expressing joy that he'd figured out who 
Nicolas Flamel was. None of this dilutes the fact that Harry made his 
own choices in the situation; his heroism and courage remains the 
same whether he's right or wrong about what Dumbledore wanted him to 
do.

The HP series walks a provoking, paradoxical line between the themes 
of predestination and free choice. On one hand Harry does seem like 
he's the chosen one who will be the hero to defeat Voldemort. We see 
predestination in Voldemort's wand's twin choosing Harry, the hints 
that Harry might be the heir of Gryffindor, the continuing mystery 
around exactly why Harry dispelled LV in the first place (for those 
who don't completely buy the mother-love theory), Harry's seemingly 
innate heroic gifts like being able to resist an Imperius curse or 
fly a broom like a pro. On the other hand, we have the theme of 
making choices, explicitly stated in CoS, and acted on afterwards. 
This is also where we find the issue of legacy, which we've discussed 
at length. Some younger characters seem to be carbon copies of their 
fathers, some don't, and Harry is somewhere in between. So destiny 
and choice seem to be at war in the series, and I think this is 
perfectly reflected in Pip's theory: that Harry is both a pawn *and* 
has free will that he uses to its full advantage.

~Porphyria, who at least thinks Pip's theory deserves an acronym