"Bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death" Was:brew fortune, bottle fame

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 88140

> "strawberryshaunie" wrote:
> > hmm I always saw it as "stopper" meaning cork...like put liquid 
> death 
> > in a bottle, not "stop" (prevent) death. Any ideas as to what Snape 
> > meant?(sorry for the short post....)
> 
<handyman_321 at y...> wrote:
> I took it to mean that he could make a potion that would make a 
> person seem dead, but not really. Unfortunately I don't see this 
> helping Serius any.

Carol: 
I corrected the quote in the subject line since it keeps getting
edited out of the posts. 

When I first read the words, I took them to be poetic hyperbole, part
of the authoritative and intimidating pose Snape adopts with his
students. While I still think he has a flair for the dramatic
(sweeping out of a room, for example) and that he wants his students
to respect his authority and fear his anger, I wouldn't be surprised
if he could do everything he claims and more--a very intelligent man
and highly gifted wizard, our Snape, full of surprises.

As for the meaning of "stopper death," I originally took "stopper" as
 meaning to insert a figurative cork in a figurative bottle containing
death, a metaphorical way of saying "put a stop to death." However,
"brew" and "bottle" seem to be used literally, so maybe "stopper" is
literal, too, meaning that strawberryshaunie is right, and it's just
another way of saying that he can bottle death--or trap death in a
stoppered bottle so it can't escape unless he releases it, which seems
a bit more impressive. No doubt his shelves and Lucius Malfoy's secret
room contain many varieties of bottled death, from ordinary poisons to
deadly plagues that, if released, could kill hundreds or thousands of
people.

If "stopper death" did relate to immortality and Snape's abilities
were known to his Death Eater acquaintances, wouldn't Voldemort would
want Snape alive and in his service, not killed for leaving the Death
Eaters? (I know that others have argued that the one who must be
killed is someone else, but I don't think so. Karkaroff is the coward
and Crouch/Moody the faithful servant. There's no one else it could be.)

Carol, who assures our new member that most of the members of this
list share her view that Snape is a complex and fascinating character