[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape's DE past/ Life Debts

[Barb P]

No: HPFGUIDX 44496


marinafrants wrote: 
 
--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Risti" <kristin at j...> wrote:
> Well, this is somewhat unrelated, but still related > to Snape's deatheater past, and the Life Debts 

> theories circling around.  I've always wondered 

> something.  Why didn't Snape kill James Potter?  We 
> know he was a death eater at one point-I would 

> imagine a through and through death eater as well, 

> no matter what his redemption was later on.  We know > that he hated James Potter.  Arthur Weasley said 

> that the DE's killed for fun, and what would be more > fun for Snape then to out his old enemy?  This is 

> early on, before any secret keeper, or even any 

> Harry.  The only reason I can come up with is 

> this:James Potter once saved Snape's life....

I'm sure the life debt was a big part of it, but I also think it's safe to assume that James Potter was no pushover.  Sure, Voldemort swatted him like a fly, but Voldemort was a special case.

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I have a wee problem with saying that Voldemort "swatted him [James] like a fly."  In PS, Hagrid tells Dumbledore, "...house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right..."  It sounds like there was a quite spectacular fight if the house was almost destroyed.  I don't call that being swatted like a fly.  I call that going out fighting tooth and nail.
 
Also, I don't believe we know enough about why Snape became a Death Eater; there is really no indication that Snape would cold-bloodedly murder someone, so expecting him to murder James if James had not saved his life at one time seems rather odd to me.  Aside from Snape having been a Slytherin in school and probably having many Slytherin acquaintances who probably did the same thing, we just don't know what pushed him into the DEs.  The trouble with this dubious "reason" is that Snape has not been portrayed by JKR as someone to just go sheep-like along with the crowd.  He's exactly the sort of parent, IMO, who would say to a child, "So!  You became a Death Eater because all of your friends did it!  If all of your friends chopped off their right hands, would you do it too?"
 
--Barb
 


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