[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape and purity of blood

[T.M. Sommers]

No: HPFGUIDX 76276

oh have faith wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "T.M. Sommers" <tms2 at m...> 
> wrote:
> 
>>We don't have much evidence about Snape's beliefs, but what we do 
>>have is entirely consistent with him holding the typical 
>>Slytherinish anti-Muggle beliefs, at least when he joined the 
>>Death Eaters.
> 
> But doesn't the fact that he apparantly renounced these beliefs 
> after a short time in the DEs indicate that he didn't hold them very 
> strongly in the first place?  

No.  For one thing, we don't know that he renounced the beliefs; 
all we know is that he betrayed the DEs.  We don't yet know why 
he betrayed them.  Also, we don't know how long he was a DE 
before he betrayed them.

> It seems they didn't stand up to 
> scrutiny.  I can imagine someone who has sympathy for the DE's cause 
> but not their methods, for example, not wanting to be a part of 
> them, but Snape is working so hard to undermine their entire cause 
> and destroy their organisation.  I can't see someone doing this 
> voluntarily if he does still have any sympathies for what they stand 
> for.  

He could have defected for personal, not ideological, reasons. 
Voldemort called him "Snivellus" one too many times, perhaps.  Do 
you think that everyone who defected during the Cold War did so 
for ideological reasons?

> Besides, apart from one "mudblood" shouted in rage when he was a 
> defensive, embarassed fifteen year old, there's no evidence in the 
> books that Snape dislikes the muggle-born any more than he dislikes 
> absolutely everybody else.  The only evidence we have about his 
> current beliefs is that he works for the Order - and that suggests 
> the contrary.  He's an equal opportunities hater!  

In the real world, anyone using such an epithet would be 
instantly and permanently branded a racist.  I see no reason to 
make a special case of Snape.