Sirius vs. Snape

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 99460

Alla wrote:
Neri, for someone who is not the fan of the character, you are doing
a great job of defending the said character, IMO.

Yes, I would not hesitate either if I had to choose who I want to
cover my flank, but because of the only reason that I am still a bit
afraid that Snape may switch sides.

I have no doubt that Snape can be just as loyal as Sirius was , the
problem is we still don't know where his true loyalties lie.

Neri:
Thanks Alla  :-)  but I think you misunderstood me a bit. I don't 
have any problems with Snape's loyalty. I actually believe he is 
loyal to DD. I think DD accurately estimated Snape (but a bit too 
late, unfortunately) when he said: "I trust Severus Snape. But I 
forgot — another old man's mistake — that some wounds run too deep 
for the healing. I thought Professor Snape could overcome his 
feelings about your father — I was wrong."

My problem with Snape is exactly that. He can't overcome his 
feelings, his "issues". Even when he knows that Harry learning 
occlumency can make the difference between losing the war and winning 
it. Where I served, Snape's behavior would have earned him an 
immediate court martial. He is a commander who practically aborted 
his mission, a most critical mission, because the troopers under his 
command (or actually his single trooper) where unruly and hurt his 
feelings. In a war, this is just not an acceptable excuse. If your 
troopers are unruly, you take care of it. By being brutal or by being 
nicer, whatever works. We don't care how you achieve it, but you 
don't abort the mission that was entrusted to you. You just don't. 
People's life depend on you completing your damn mission.  

Sirius also is known to let his feelings get the better of him 
sometimes, but never on the front under fire. Anyone with combat 
experience knows there`s only one way to survive and win in a war: 
everyone gives the maximum to the others, no one quits. When the 
bullets whistle, you don't have "issues". You give everything, 
including your life, to the trooper near you, even if you hate his 
guts. Because this is the only way to ensure that he'll do the same 
for you (even if he hates YOUR guts). And if anybody in your unit 
can't do this to anybody else in the unit, you've already lost the 
battle.

This is something that the Sirius type, or perhaps I should say the 
Gryffindor type, knows without explanations. Read again the behavior 
of the Gryffindors (and Luna) during the DoM battle, and you'll get a 
good example. All for one and one for all. This is not just a nice 
slogan from a romantic adventure book. On the front, this is the only 
way to work together and survive as a unit. Snape aborting his 
mission is, I suspect, typical Slytherin behavior. He slithered away 
from responsibility. In the front you quickly learn to recognize the 
Slytherin type. If you get a Slytherin to your unit, you transfer him 
to a back unit, or anywhere where other people don't depend on him, 
before he corrupts all the others. Because once mistrust creeps into 
your unit, once people start having the tiniest doubt if the guy next 
to them would do anything for them, you're all in big trouble.

This is also the reason why closing Sirius in 12GP for a whole year 
was such a terrible punishment for him. It is not (as some group 
members think) because he liked to take chances. It was because for a 
soldier like Sirius, staying safe in HQ while seeing his fellow 
soldiers risking their life each day, it is something just not done. 
It is practically the worst thing he could have done in his own eyes. 
He felt like he was deserting them, quitting on them, each single day 
again. Asking Sirius to stay behind while Lupin, Moody, Kingsley and 
Tonks went to the DoM was absurd. There was just no way in the world 
he'd let the four of them take on ten DEs while he's waiting for DD 
in HQ, even if it wasn't Harry, Ron and Hermione in there.     

Back to Snape, he might be a great double agent. Perhaps the same 
properties that makes him a terrible soldier and commander also makes 
him a great double agent. But if DD has any sense, he mustn't put 
Snape in a position where other troopers should depend on him and 
trust him. It just won't work. It is not a question of loyalty, it's 
a question of trust. I hope I've managed to make the difference clear.

Neri