Sirius vs. Snape

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 99479

> 
> Neri:

 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.


Potioncat: (who also served in a war zone):
An officer tells a subordinate that they'll continue later.  The 
officer comes back and finds the subordinate reading his personal  
papers.  Something would happen to that subordinate!
At this point throwing Harry out makes sense.

If Snape goes to DD and reports the incident and DD says to stop 
lessons.  Then Snape has not aborted his mission.  

If Snape keeps quiet until much later...say just before the DoM 
battle, then he did abort his mission and was a poor commander.

We don't really know which way it happened.  Too bad no one 
officially told Harry that the mission had changed.

Also, not to carry the comparison too far, but Occlumency was a 
training 
session, not a combat mission. 


  
Neri: 
> 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.

Potioncat:
And if someone's duty was to be at a certain place to give the 
arriving general a briefing, I'd want him there!
> 
>Neri:
> 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.

Potioncat: 
Agreed to this part.


Neri:
 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.     
>

Potioncat:
Someone needed to stay and at this point, Black was really the best 
choice.  The others were better suited by training to go to the MoM.

Neri:
> 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.
> 

Potioncat:
Snape has set himself up to be distrusted by Gryffidors.  But I'll 
bet if you had a group of "good" Slytherins, Snape could lead them.  
I'd bet a number of teachers would follow him too. 

I'd still rather have Snape protecting the rear than Black.  At 
least I'd know he would be there while Black might be charging on to 
the front.
Potioncat (who should add that she served in the field in a hospital 
and was very glad to be surrounded by Marines who did not dash to 
the front no matter how much they wanted to!)