Pettigrew: Snape Through the Looking Glass

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 45496

Becky wrote:

> I can see the desire to have a "good guy" in Slytherin (and not 
> an "apparently good guy" like Snape), but the we miss out on 
> Gryffindor!Peter going evil.

Indeed we do.  We also miss out on the perfectly lovely 
Snape/Pettigrew parallels which the text of PoA and especially of GoF 
keep drawing for the reader.

Way back in my very first post, I annoyed a good number of Snapefans 
by tossing out the statement that "Severus Snape is Peter Pettigrew 
through the looking glass."  A lot of people really didn't like that 
statement very much, and so I defended it -- so very skillfully, in 
fact, that all dissent was quelled.  No one DARED argue!  Ha HA!

Or, um, so I thought.  Recently, however, it has been brought to my 
attention that, er, well, that the post in which I defended that 
statement actually, er, never even saw the light of day.  It never 
actually appeared on the list at all, in fact.  It vanished utterly 
without trace.

Which might explain why no one ever argued the point with me.  

Oh.

Yes, well.  So.  Now that I am handed this opportunity, allow me to 
reiterate my claim that Peter Pettigrew serves as a literary double 
to Severus Snape.

Peter Pettigrew is a fallen Gryffindor.  Severus Snape is a fallen 
Slytherin.  

The two characters are "mirror images" to each other: they exhibit 
both symmetry and reversal.  The mirror reflects, but it also 
reverses.  The mirror always reverses that which it reflects.

The symmetries are obvious enough, I think.  

Both men are traitors.  Both men acted as moles during the war.  

More specifically, both betrayed their old circle of school friends 
by passing on information to the enemy, information which eventually 
led to some of their friends' violent deaths.  

In both cases, this old circle of school friends included people who 
were killed in the last year of the war (the Potters, Rosier, 
Wilkes), those who were sent to Azkaban but who have either already 
escaped or who seem likely to be liberated in the near future (Black, 
the Lestranges), and those who may have escaped death or 
imprisonment, but who nonetheless seem to have suffered profound 
psychological damage as they have not achieved much of anything with 
their lives in the years since the war (Lupin, Avery).  

Both circles also included a married couple (Lestranges, Potters), 
including a woman who was both the token female member of the group 
and unusually talented and/or formidable. 

There are indications that both of these two characters were always 
in some sense on the fringes of their respective groups, accepted but 
not fully invested, somehow neither in nor out.

In making the decision to turn on their companions, both men 
effectively sealed their fates for the rest of their lives up to the 
start of canon.  At the series' opening, both men are in some sense 
trapped.  Neither seems to have gained very much of anything in the 
way of contentment or happiness or personal satisfaction out of 
life.  Both have been effectively enslaved by their past decisions.

Both men respond with more emotion and indignation to accusations of 
disloyalty than to any other type of slur.

Both seem to be struggling with deep-seated feelings of guilt and 
shame.

Both have incurred a life-debt to a Potter after being protected from 
Black and Lupin in or near the Shrieking Shack.  

In both cases, this debt is given pride of place in one of the 
"closing Dumbledorian arguments," the scenes at the end of each novel 
in which Dumbledore explains or pontificates upon the plot for 
Harry's benefit. 

Both men seem somewhat fixated on Harry's resemblance to his father.  
Both of them try to influence his behavior by giving their own 
interpretations of what James was like, how he behaved, or what 
he would do.

Both characters have a "neither fish nor fowl" quality.  They are 
both painted in shades of moral grey.
 

So for the symmetry.  


As for the reversals, the "mirrored" traits:
 
- Snape is the redeemed representative of what is generally held to 
be a corrupted House.
- Pettigrew is the corrupted representative of what is generally held 
to be a virtuous House.
 
- Snape betrayed his friends.  By doing so he was acting in 
accordance with his principles, but much against his instincts.
- Pettigrew betrayed his friends.  By doing so he was acting in 
accordance with his instincts, but much against his principles.
 
- Snape owes a self-imposed "life-debt" to Harry Potter; he struggles 
to fulfill it even though it would seem to be purely a bond of 
personal honor.
- Pettigrew owes a genuine life-debt to Harry Potter; he struggles to 
ignore it even though it would seem to be a bond of ancient magic.

- Snape is imprisoned by his desire for atonement
- Pettigrew is imprisoned by his fear of atonement

- Snape places his Slytherin talents -- cunning, shrewdness, the 
capacity for deceit -- at the service of Gryffindor Dumbledore
- Pettigrew places his Gryffindor talents -- pluck, nerve, daring, 
decisive action (think Bertha Jorkins) and raw physical courage -- at 
the service of Slytherin Voldemort
 
- Snape willingly serves Dumbledore and his cause  -- even though his 
temperament militates against it.
- Pettigrew willingly serves Voldemort and his cause -- even though 
his temperament militates against it.


Was Pettigrew a member of House Gryffindor?  

Yes.  Yes, I insist that he was.  

And Snape was a proud member of House Slytherin.


Elkins