DADA and Karkaroff/ Snape vs. Dumbledore?

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 43782

Barb has posted whilst I was writing this. Sorry if there are major overlaps.

Cindy:

<>I think Karkaroff used to be a DADA teacher for 
Dumbledore before he joined up with Voldemort.  He certainly seems 
to have some prior connection to Hogwars.  Look at Karkaroff's warm 
greeting for Dumbledore upon his arrival at Hogwarts:

"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope.  "How 
are you, my dear fellow, how are you?". . . 

"Dear old Hogwarts,"  [Karkaroff] said, looking up at the castle and 
smiling. . . "How good it is to be here, how good . . . "

Sounds to me like a former colleague returning to the place where he 
taught.

Eloise:

Could be. But there are other possible explanations. Perhaps he has visited 
Dumbledore there before. Perhaps it has been the site of a headmasters' 
conference, or something. Perhaps it's just his general oiliness and is an 
ingratiating way of greeting Dumbledore. Perhaps he was a *student* there.

I think I actually rather favour the latter, based on his lack of discernable 
accent.
I don't know how Jim Dale reads him, but Stephen Fry reads him with strong 
accent which isn't supposrted by the text. Others, such as Krum, Mme Maxime 
and Hagrid, have their accents written in. IIRC (I think I once looked), 
Karkaroff's English is never written as anything other than standard, so that 
being brought up/educated here must be a strong possibility.

Cindy again:
Also, if Karkaroff is headmaster at Durmstrang, isn't it 
likely he obtained some teaching experience somewhere?  

Eloise:
I would hope so! Although it's far from certain! But he could have taught at 
Durmstrang, as Dumbledore taught at Hogwarts.

Cindy:
Not only that, Dumbledore seems somewhat sympathetic to Karkaroff in 
the Pensieve scene.  As Mad-Eye voices his anger toward Karkaroff, 
Dumbledore seems much more kind, disagreeing that the Ministry 
should hear Karkaroff's information and send him back to the 
dementors.  

Eloise:
But isn't this an expression of Dumbledore's dislike of the Dementors and 
disapproval of the MoM's alliance with them? He doesn't actually say anything 
about Karkaroff.

Cindy:
It makes me wonder what other DEs might have been Hogwarts DADA 
teachers.  Hmmm.  ;-)

Eloise:
Now there's another fun game!
Sort of Flying Hedgehogs in reverse! Burrowing Hedgehogs, perhaps. ;-)

Cindy -- who has to wonder if Snape wants the DADA job because Snape 
used to have that position before Snape went Bad

Eloise:
Cindy, how could you? You know I have to take you up on that, don't I?
You know as well as I do that there isn't a scrap of hard evidence in the 
books that Snape *ever* wanted the DADA position. The only canon is that 
statement of Percy's at the first feast, which tells us no more than that 
popular student opinion is that he wants the job.
I won't expand as it's been argued over too many times before.


The Lizard Queen:

> At the end of the book, whilst Snape was talking to Fudge about how 
> "he" "saved the day"(!!!), Snape comes incredibly close to actually 
> making a negative comment about Dumbledore. Sorry, I can't remember 
> exactly what is was, but it something to do with how he was worried 
> how Dumbledore would treat Harry's role in the incident.

Eloise:

         "...and of course Potter has always been allowed an extraordinary 
amount of licence by the Headmaster - "
That the one?

The Lizard Queen:
>Anyway, it made me begin to wonder about 
>Snape's true feelings for Dumbledore, and where his loyalties
>actually lie.

Eloise:
Porphyria wrote a piece about Dumbledore and Snape's relationship very 
recently (#43396). I disagreed with a detail of her interpretation of the end 
of PoA, but I can't improve on her summary:

Porphyria:
 >What makes even more sense to me is that they just plain have a 
>complicated relationship where they fight and fight and misunderstand 
>and occasionally lash out at each other and come back to an 
>understanding in the end when it really matters. In other words, like 
>family. Marcus is right, IMO, to say that Snape will never louse up 
>his relationship with Dumbledore because he is, finally, an insider, 
>a family member, and he values this too much to lose it. In fact I 
>see their relationship as a bit of a microcosm of Dumbledore's speech 
>at the end of GoF: 

<snip D's Speech>

>This is what Snape and Dumbledore exemplify, only on a much smaller 
>and more intimate scale. They know they often disagree, to some 
>extent they appear to come from different cultures, but they also 
>know they are on the same side in the end and act accordingly. So 
>while I think that neither of them behaves perfectly well towards 
>each other, I also find their loyalty completely convincing and not 
>too hard to reconcile with their moments of hostility. 


The Lizard Queen:   
<>> 
> Point 1:- If it *is* true that Snape is after the DADA job, then 
> obviously he'd be a little miffed that he hasn't been considered, 
> especially after the disasters which have occurred through 
> Dumbledore's appointments for the position in the past.

Eloise:
Well, I disagree that he is. He is actually *doing* DADA, rather than 
teaching it.

The Lizard Queen:
> 
> Point 2:- No secret that Snape detests Harry, whilst Dumbledore
> pretty much favours him (giving him so many chances after bending the 
> rules, 
> etc. Ok, even if things have usually turned out for the best, I
> almost agree with Snape that any other student would be expelled after
> taking so many dangerous risks and disobeying orders so much). I cannot 
> believe that Dumbledore's preferential treatment of Harry has not hit 
> a nerve of Snape's.

Eloise:
I'm sure it has! But, as has been noted recently, people *don't* seem to get 
expelled from Hogwarts. Hagrid is the only one we've heard of.

The Lizard Queen:
> Point 3:- Considering Malfoy, and the average Slytherin's dislike of 
> "mudbloods" entering the school, it is hard to believe that Snape 
> agrees with this policy. 

Eloise:
Snape has never done or said *anything* as far as I recall, which indicates 
he has a prejudice against those not of pure wizarding blood.  He unfairly 
favours Malfoy and his own house, for whatever reason (we don't *know* why, 
whether it's genuine preference, or strategy) but discriminates even handedly 
against everyone else! Hermione is Muggle-born, Neville is pure-blood and he 
apparently detests them equally!

The Lizard Queen:
> Point 4:- Dumbledore's affinity for Sirius, and the fact that 
> Dumbledore didn't even expell him after the prank which nearly cost 
> Snape his life.

Eloise:
I think he finds this *very* hard to bear: I'm sure he feels like the 
Prodigal's elder brother. I'm so looking forward to the team dynamics on 
Dumbledore's side in the next book!

The Lizard Queen:
> <> With the imminent split between the Dumbledore 
> faction, and the Fudge faction at the end of GoF, it will be very 
> interesting to see where Snape's loyalties lie. Even if he isn't a
> DE, he could still join the Fudge camp, and possibly campaign for a new 
> Headmaster of Hogwarts (possibly even himself?). He's
> (apparently!!!!) gone to do Dumbledore's bidding for the moment, but only 
> time will tell.

Eloise:
You're right, only time will tell. But I cannot, under any circumstances, see 
him joining the Fudge camp.
IMHO, either he remains Ever-So-Evil and his conversion to the side of right 
was all a sham, or he's in with Dumbledore. He took the most enormous risk in 
spying against Voldemort. OK, it worked out well for him in the end, as 
otherwise Karkaroff would have fingered him and he'd be in Azkaban. But he 
didn't know that would happen. At the time, it was a risk and he must have 
had very good reason for doing it. 

He has been active on both sides. I see no reason why he would now sit on the 
fence, or pretend nothing was going on, which is how I interpret the Fudge 
faction. He has no fence to sit on. If he's not with Voldemort any more, then 
Voldemort is against him, whether he actively supports Dumbledore or not. 

The only other interpretation I can think of is that he never truly left 
Voldemort and always has been and remains a double agent, on nobody's side 
but his own, thus profiting from the protection of both sides. But I don't 
believe that. For one thing, I don't think Voldemort *would* truly protect 
him and the nature of the job means that the other DEs, even if they knew who 
he was, couldn't know that he was a spy, just as I am sure that Sirius et al 
didn't know that Snape was spying on their side. In fact, he doesn't now, if 
that's what he's doing. Sirius is sent from the room before Dumbledore sends 
Snape to do whatever he does.

Eloise




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