Sirius vs. Snape

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 99544

> Neri:
> Could be. The teachers had a chance to work with him as 
equals.  However, it is not your relationships with the person 
during  peacetime that matters. You might like each other or hate 
each other,  it's almost irrelevant. The question is: do you 
absolutely trust him  to come and get you out of a difficult spot 
under fire?   <
> 
> Potioncat:
 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.<
> 
> Neri:
> No person is a perfect soldier, but I've met the Sirius type and 
the  Snape type during my service. The Sirius type might not be 
the right  man in certain positions but a priceless asset in 
others. The Snape type I wouldn't want on my platoon at all. He'd 
ruin any mutual trust  in it long before the first shot.<

Pippin:
Good thing it's not your job to unite the houses then <g>  I'm not 
even an armchair general, but I've always understood that 
non-uniform communication styles are a problem for irregular 
organizations like the Order. Snape's waspishness may be  as 
much cultural as personal--come to think of it, have we ever met 
a Slytherin who wasn't waspish?

I can't believe I've never thought of this before, but I'm suddenly 
reminded of the first meeting between my laid-back Midwestern 
husband and my Sabra (native Israeli) relatives. They all became 
great friends eventually, but for a while there they thought he was 
a hopeless wimp. And he of course thought they had determined 
to hate him on sight. Sheds a little light on Snape's interactions 
with Neville and Harry, doesn't it?

Dumbledore in GoF to Snape and Sirius: "I trust you both."

Neri:
>Do you believe this? DD, the supreme commander of the 
forces of Good, does not have an immediate way of 
communication with his own HQ??? 
Would someone please give him a two-way mirror, or a portrait 
of Phineas Nigelus, or just a cell phone???<

Pippin:
Cell phones wouldn't work in a place as heavily enchanted as 
Grimmauld Place. But  the WW probably *could* use Muggle 
expertise, including Hermione's--it's long been a theory of mine 
that Voldemort's imperialist ambitions come from his Muggle 
upbringing in the old days of the British Empire. Most of the 
WW's communications and transportation technology seems 
cumbersome compared to ours, at least for wartime.

An owl's really nothing more than a glorified carrier pigeon, is it? 
And floo powder is cool, but you can't put a fireplace in your 
pocket. The Ministry keeps  tabs on Apparation and Portkey use., 
which means Voldemort can too. Brooms and other flying 
vehicles are conspicuous and invisibility charms are prone to 
fail. The portraits can't be cloned, as far as we know. Phineas 
has been dead a while, so getting some of his blood and such 
to make another portrait would be difficult.

In any case, if 13 dead is the Ministry's idea of a horrific attack, 
 
they are way behind Muggles when it comes to what Professor 
Tolkien once called ingenious devices for killing large numbers 
of people at once. I seem to recall that  a lot of our advanced 
communications technology was developed for military use. As 
the WW doesn't seem to have fought a full scale war since the 
last Goblin rebellion, maybe they haven't devoted a lot of thought 
to this stuff since then.

 I am  slowly reaching the conclusion that wonderful as it is, 
magic isn't all it's cracked up to be as substitute technology. And 
that may be just what JKR intends.

Pippin