[HPforGrownups] Re: Dark Mark and DEs /Snape's reaction to the Prank...

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 36852

Elkins:
> Eloise, Porphyria, and Amanda were having a really fascinating 
> conversation last week about Dark Marks, DEs, scars, and a whole 
> lot of great Snapestuff.  I was particularly sorry to miss out on
> it because I would very much have liked to direct people to an old
> message of Porphyria's, #35386, on the subject of scars: Harry's,
> Snape's, and how the two might relate to one another thematically
> as well as plot-wise.
> 
Eloise
Hi, Elkins! I wondered where you'd been. I'll leave in this ref to 
Porphyria's message because I couldn't find it when I wanted to refer to it 
and I thought it was particularly good.

I'm going to do lots of snipping. Your post is an excellent summary of things 
as they stand regarding the theory of Dark Marks, so take it as read that I 
agree absolutely with anything that I don't comment on.

Elkins:
   My feeling about this is that in GoF, Voldemort is willing the Dark
> Marks to reappear in visible form because he *wants* the DEs to know 
> that he's coming.  With the exception of a very few loyalists, they 
> all betrayed and abandoned him; while he was languishing in his 
> strange neither-dead-nor-alive nether-state for thirteen years, weak 
> and helpless, they all just went back to their nice cushy lives.  
> Most of them were probably secretly relieved to be free of him in the 
> first place, very few of them are going to be truly happy to see him 
> back, and he knows it.  And that *infuriates* him.  He is going to 
> forgive most of them for it -- because really, what other choice does 
> he have?  He needs followers, and disloyal though the DEs may be, 
> they're still the only one's he's got -- but he wants to make them 
> 

Yes, that sounds to me like the way he'd work.

> 
> 
> So that's my suggestion as to why the Dark Marks are reappearing in
> visible form throughout GoF.  It also explains why they start to fade
> away after the graveyard convocation.  Voldemort stops paying 
> attention to them after graveyard.  The DEs all know for sure that 
> he's back now, so he can stop concentrating on that.  I suspect that 
> by the end of the school term, they'd vanished from normal sight 
> 

I think this is a good explanation, completely at one with my contention that 
they *cannot* be visible at all times under normal circumstances. 
Circumstamces aren't normal during GoF.


Elkins:
> Eloise wrote:
> 
> > But I find it curious that Voldy examines Wormtail's arm for his 
> > ('It has come back') in the graveyard, when Snape's and Karkaroff's 
> > have been visible for some time. 
> 
> My interpretation here is that by "It has come back" Voldemort 
> meant: "It has now come back *completely.*"  In other words, now that 
> he is fully reincorporated, his will has become strong enough to 
> bring the dark mark back to *full* visibility, which means that it 
> will also be strong enough to summon the DEs to his side.  I don't 
> think that he could have summoned them in his slimy baby form even if 
> he had wanted to.  
. 

Eloise:
I think this has to be the only explanation. But he doesn't word it very well.

Elkins:
As to the question of how the dark marks normally served as a means 
> of identification among DEs, though, I find the notion that it wasn't 
> necessarily visual at all, but instead tactile or some form of more 
> mystical recognition believable.  I also find it perfectly likely 
> that it *was* visual, but normally under the conscious control of 
> those bearing the mark, thus allowing one to "show" the mark to 
> others when this seemed called for, while ordinarily keeping it 
> safely hidden.  This of course would do little to ameliorate the 
> friendly fire problem that Eloise suggested, but it would at least 
> help in preventing infiltration.  Tingling would indeed work better,
> but I don't know that I believe that Voldemort and the DEs were 
> necessarily all that canny.
> 
Eloise
I've wondered about this conscious control idea, too. But I still find the 
idea of *showing* your DM to someone a bit too risky. I mean you have to 
*know* already that they are on your side, don't you? It would work in those 
circumstances, as proof perhaps to a well-known DE that an unknown rookie 
really was who he said he was, but the idea of all these DEs going round 
saying 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' doesn't really wash. The 
good old password would be much safer. But as you say, Voldy and the DEs do 
seem to be short of nous. 

However did Snape get mixed up in that shower? New theory of Snape's 
defection. He was simply fed up of working with morons.

Elkins, quoting (?Porphyria)

> > Boy, I hope JKR is thinking this through as well as we are. ;-)
> 
> I hope that she isn't.  Without the inconsistencies, what on earth 
> would we have to talk about?
> 
> Besides, if she's thinking through this stuff nearly as 
> 

Exactly. I have a horrid suspicion that is exactly *because* she's thinking 
things through neurotically ( because she's got wind of the fact that there 
are these strange obsessives out there who apparently have nothing better to 
do than conduct endless convoluted conversations about her work) that we 
haven't yet got Book Five.

Elkins:

    As to the question of whether or not Snape's clutch at his arm during
> the staircase encounter in "The Egg and the Eye" was due to some Mark 
> Tingling action caused by the presence of fellow mark-bearer Crouch...
> 
> Oh, ugh!  No!  That's unspeakable!  I totally reject that notion.  I 
> reject it because...um...er...
> 
> <Elkins racks her brains to come up with some canon to back up her 
> instinctive emotional reaction>
> 
> Because if that had been the case, then surely Snape would have 
> recognized the particular *nature* of the tingle or the burn or 
> whatever.  He would have told Dumbledore about it immediately, just 
> as he'd been keeping Dumbledore informed throughout GoF on the status 
> of his own dark mark and of Karkaroff's.  Dumbledore therefore would 
> have suspected Moody much sooner, he would have taken some form of 
> action, and the entire tragedy would have been averted.  
> 
> Okay.  So that's not really canon at all, but merely extrapolation.  
> But all the same, I really do think it unlikely that it would have 
> 

Eloise:
I think you're right, although not telling Dumbledore would tie in with my 
observation about Snape not being a team player at certain significant 
moments. I doubt this is the case here, as we know that he is keeping 
Dumbledore informed about the state of his and Karkaroff's DMs. In addition 
to which in GoF, I have difficulty assigning a role to Snape (He's not trying 
to protect anyone or anything or catch anyone in particular). It seems to be 
a book where we learn about him, rather than his having much part in the plot 
itself... I think... I need to go away and think about this.

Elkins:
> Also, I don't believe for a moment that Crouch would have taken that 
> risk.  Whether or not all of the DEs know that Snape's in with 
> Dumbledore these days, I think it quite clear that Crouch himself 
> did -- or at least that he strongly suspected it.  I can't imagine 
> that he would have sent Snape a little "Hi!  I'm a Death Eater too!  
> R U Available?" tingle, just for the sake of some casual sadism.  I 
> mean, the man may have been slightly off his rocker, but he wasn't a 
> 


Eloise:
No, but he was a terrible show-off. He goes through the whole book telling us 
what he's doing.
> 
> Porphyria:
> 
> > I really like the idea of Snape's having properly hysterical pain 
> > there, especially since he acts ashamed of reacting to the pain, as 
> > if it shows up a weakness. 
> 
> Yes.  That's my primary reason as well.  For heaven's sake, that scene
> is one of the few places in all canon where poor Severus stakes a 
> claim on some pure and undiluted reader sympathy!  If you guys want 
> to water down his one unequivocal demonstration of overwhelming and 
> deeply-felt shame about his past, then you can go ahead, I guess, but 
> I'm not helping.  

Eloise:
No, no. I *want* readers to be sympathetic to Snape. You know that.


> <snip Amanda's excellent theory about the DEs' lives being linked to Voldy's>

Elkins:

> I also found Eloise's defense of the notion that "And then I ask 
> myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again?" 
> really means, "They knew I couldn't be dead, how could they think I 
> wouldn't regain my powers?" to be perfectly convincing.
> 
> Porphyria objected that if this were indeed the case, then it would 
> seem highly unlikely for the DEs to grant their allegiance to 
> Dumbledore, which is what Voldemort accuses them of in the graveyard, 
> as Dumbledore could bring about their own deaths.
> 
> I'm not quite sure that I agree.  Dumbledore is widely believed to be 
> the most powerful wizard alive, right?  And he worked with Flamel on 
> the alchemical work which led to the discovery of the Philosopher's 
> Stone.  I think that if I were Voldemort, Dumbledore would be the 
> very *first* on my list of people I'd suspect my disloyal, selfish, 
> lusting-after-the-secrets-of-eternal-life Death Eaters to turn to, 
> after I myself had vanished.  It's not merely the fact that 
> Dumbledore's the arch-enemy that leads to that accusation, in my 
> opinion, but also the fact that from Voldemort's point of view, 
> Dumbledore is a potential *rival* in the Promising To Grant Eternal 
> Life To Followers game.  This is Voldemort, remember.  He probably 
> comprehends the notion of rejecting eternal life about as well as he 
> understands that whole Protective Power of Self-Sacrificing Love 
> thing.  Those sorts of concepts really do seem to be somewhat beyond 
> 

Eloise:
And these are people who are out for themselves, remember, whose lives are 
not in danger, by Amanda's theory *as long as Voldy lives* - in some form or 
another.    They don't care about right and wrong, good and evil. Sirius 
accuses Wormtail of wanting to be allied to the biggest bully in the 
playground. Well, perhaps with Voldy out of the way, that's how they'd see 
Dumbledore. I suspect that's how Voldy sees him: the bully who wants to spoil 
all his fun with his high-minded ethical ideas.

Elkins:
> So I don't have that problem.  I do have one cause for hesitation 
> before wholeheartedly embracing Amanda's theory, though, which is 
> that to my mind, if the relationship between Voldemort and the Death 
> Eaters binds them in life and death, then it would also seem likely 
> to me that it would bind their magical power as well.  I would expect 
> for the Death Eaters to have lost a good deal of their magical 
> abilities when Voldemort was discorporated, and to have remained 
> relatively weak for all of those years while he lingered on in his 
> impotent state.  And while I can certainly accept Eloise's suggestion
> that the reason that none but the looniest of the DEs ever tried to 
> find Voldemort because from their point of view, Voldemort alive -- 
> but also powerless, safely hidden away, and out of their hair -- was 
> a win-win situation, I find that notion a bit harder to swallow if 
> alive-but-powerless Voldemort also means alive-but-powerless Death 
> Eaters.  If that were the case, then I think more of them would have 
> 

Eloise:
Good point, but I'm not sure that we *have* to equate the DM with power, do 
we?

> 
> Eloise wrote:
> 
> > Ooh, Amanda....you've made me go all quivery. I might have to go 
> > and lie down for a bit. I wonder if Elkins still has that brandy?
> 
> Help yourself, but I'm warning you: Cindy put something in it.  You
> drink this stuff, and the next thing you know, first you'll be 
> telling perfect strangers all about your most embarrassing childhood 
> experiences, and then you'll find yourself jumping up and down on the 
> couch, screaming things about bloody ambushes.
> 
> But if you're willing to take that risk...  <hands Eloise the 
> brandy>  Here you go, kiddo.  

Eloise ( draped in pink featherboa):
I was wondering how that flamingo ended up dead. Oh...and here's one for 
George. Have fun, Marina!

Elkins
> On a somewhat related topic, I've been wondering for some time now: 
> what do people make of Voldemort's cheerful naming of names in the 
> graveyard?  I mean, Lucius Malfoy is one thing -- *everybody* knows 
> that Malfoy is a Death Eater -- but people like Avery?  Nott?  
> MacNair?  I don't get the impression that those guys were necessarily 
> so high-ranking that the entire DE circle would have known their 
> identities.  I *particularly* don't believe this about Avery, who 
> since he was one of Snape's contemporaries had to have been quite 
> 

Eloise:
But they *are* known, aren't they, to an extent? When Harry names them as 
being in the circle, Fudge responds that he is repeating names he could have 
found in court transcripts, people whose names had been cleared. DEs who had 
been careless enough to get caught, but had managed to get off through 
disowning their master and deserved to be shamed. Which, I think, is more or 
less what you go on to say.

Elkins:
> I find it telling, for example, that while Voldemort does name the 
> Lestranges (whose cover has already been blown sky-high), he never 
> once speaks Crouch Jr.'s name, nor those of the "coward" and 
> the "traitor."  Now, this is obviously primarily an authorial matter -
> - JKR wants to keep us guessing -- but I also think that it makes a 
> certain degree of in-character sense: Voldemort isn't yet *certain* 
> about what's going on with the suspected coward and traitor, and 
> before he knows for sure that they really aren't both loyal and
> potentially useful to him, he's not going to put them at risk by 
> 

Eloise:
Which brings us back to that whole thing about whether Snape is able to 
continue his role as a spy.

Elkins:
 Similarly, he obscures Pettigrew's identity
> by referring to him only as "Wormtail."  This may be simply because 
> that's just what Voldemort calls him, but it strikes me that it might 
> also be a precaution: Wormtail may have been disloyal enough to merit 
> some punishment, but he's also been loyal enough to merit a rather 
> large reward, and for the time being, Voldemort's clearly planning on 
> keeping him around as some kind of lieutenant -- or at the very
> least, as his personal valet.  It seems quite possible to me that he 
> really didn't want to reveal the man's real name to the entire DE 
> 

Eloise:
I suppose you may be right, although I took it just that he enjoyed using 
what is really a very demeaning sounding name for the pathetic little rat. 
Although I do respect him for cutting off his hand, in a way. I mean, I 
couldn't do it.

Elkins:
> Of course, I do realize that my reading here is more a little bit 
> weasel-like ("See, the reason that he names Avery and Nott is to 
> *punish* them, and to make them all the more dependent on him, but 
> the reason that he names *Malfoy,* see, is because Malfoy's an 
> *important* Death Eater, so everyone knows his identity already, 
> and...").  Nonetheless, I find myself believing in it.
> 
> 

Eloise:
Mmm...that Lucius Malfoy. Everybody knows he was one of Voldy's biggest 
supporters, yet he gets away with it. FIE!

Elkins
> Oh, and I'm definitely in with SUCCESS.  But I'll take my juice glass 
> with Dumbledore's fingerprints all over it, if you don't mind.  I 
> don't think that Snape would have allowed Quirrell anywhere *near* 
> his pumpkin juice.  
> 
> And besides, I like imagining Dumbledore spiking the juice.  
> Twinkling as he did so, no doubt.  (Does anyone but me ever kind of 
> 

Eloise:
Take your juice glass as you like, my dear. I actually quite like the pathos 
of Quirrell managing it. Let's face it, we are talking about the wizard who 
can't student- (or Crouch-) proof his office. Maybe he knew that Snape always 
retired to his office for a cuppa (those yellow teeth, again!) after dinner, 
so he just broke in and dropped something in the tea pot! I mean, *why* would 
Dumbledore disable him? If he did, it implies that he *knew* Quirrell was 
going to make an attempt then, so *why* go off to London and then come racing 
back, saying ( in effect) that he had suddenly realised that he ought to be 
at Hogwarts rescuing Harry? It doesn't make sense to me.
No, I don't want to hit Dumbledore. I fact, I think I should rather like to 
have known him as a young wizard. Now, I think he is the kind of person it 
could be fun to grow old with. But that might be because it's my birthday and 
old age is on my mind.

> -- Elkins, who doesn't know about Diana, but who certainly doesn't 
> think that George has any problems with the idea that the DEs are an 
> elite group.  Certainly *her* SWEETGEORGIAN version of Snape was no 
> wimpy, wishy-washy fellow-traveller.  "Eyes Open" is, after all, part 
> 
.

Eloise:
Oh, yes, Diana likes her Snape to have been Very Bad Indeed. Now I have to 
try to remember what my acronym stands for. What was it again?

Giving Evil Overlord's Regime Genuine Effort, Severus' Soul Is Severely 
Troubled Eventually Rendering Defection Indeed A Necessary Act.

I had to look that up. Yes, it's part of the tenet. He went in eyes open and 
tried to be a good DE, because at that time he didn't buy into all that moral 
guff that Dumbledore had tried to din into his head at school. He'd decided 
on the road he was taking. ( I'm always reminded of that song : Poor Jenny, 
bright as a penny/ Her equal would be hard to find/ Deserved a bed of roses, 
but history discloses/ That she would make up her mind.... He's always making 
up his mind, and when he does, he's so often wrong.)   On the other hand, are 
you saying that *none* of the DEs are wimpy and wishy-washy? I don't think 
Crouch Jr would agree!

And a footnote

Amanda:
>Oh, thank you! Nobody seems to be responding to my commentary, and I thought
>my postings might be going to the Great Beyond instead of the list--there's
>often times when I don't *get* all the posts. Some Yahoo hiccup, I imagine.
<snip>
Elkins:
>> So okay.  Amanda's convinced me.
>Yaaay! Somebody thinks I make sense! Even us old guys need an attaboy
>occasionally!  :::does happy dance:::

Eloise:
So that's why you didn't get more involved in the conversation! Even after 
you'd got me into such a state that I needed Elkins' spiked brandy. (That was 
before Porphyria got in the Scotch, of course. And yes, I was on the 
Laphroaig last night, but my favourite is the Lagavulin. What very good taste 
you have, Porphyria!). Yes, you've been an inspiration!
 .........................

Marina (on Snape's reaction to the prank):
>Heh.  I knew nobody would like my version.  But why would Snape be
>ashamed of running away?  Seems to me that running away and leaving
>the other guy to be eaten by the werewolf is the perfectly correct
>Slytherin thing to do, particularly when the other guy is a stupid
>Gryffindor who got you both into this mess in the first place.  Oh,
>sure, the kids from other houses might grumble about cowardice, but
>what do they know?  The Slytherins, on the other hand, would've all
>patted Snape on the shoulder and said, "Good job, Sev, but next time
>remember to Stupefy the Gryffindor git before you leave him as
>werewolf bait."  And they're the only ones whose opinion matters,
>right?

>No, I think the only way Snape would feel any shame about his reaction
>to the Prank would be if he had reacted in a way that damaged his dignity.

Eloise:

Reading this makes me feel like that bloke Dave, on the Fast Show, who 
changes his mind to agree with everything the last person said.
I suppose I think that Snape *does* see himself as Tough and that running 
away, although really the only option in the circumstances, would involve a 
loss of dignity. He was in no - win situation, wasn't he, and I think that 
might dent the dignity, too, not being able to choose his own course of 
action.

Eloise.

'But why, Severus', said Dumbledore sadly, 'why did you have to follow him in 
the first place?'


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