Big Bad Snape: the Riddle... (LONG)

[vmonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 135935

severelysigune wrote:
Part the First: Sevvie and Cissy
Narcissa –
so beautiful, so blonde and so alone – is desperate. Her husband
Lucius is in prison and her sixteen-year-old son Draco, the apple of
her eye, has been assigned a most dangerous task which she does not
think he can possibly carry out: killing Albus Dumbledore, the only
wizard whose magical power equals Lord Voldemort's. The Dark
Lord, she guesses, doesn't believe in Draco's success either but
has given him the job with the almost sole purpose of killing the boy
when he fails to deliver. What is Narcissa to do? Lucius is in prison
and out of favour; he cannot protect their son with his own hands and
his name does not mean much anymore. But another Death Eater has
taken his place in the Dark Lord's good graces – another Death Eater
with whom Narcissa is also on first name terms: the slippery Severus
Snape. Snape is a member of Dumbledore's staff and a wizard of some
talent; he would be perfect both to watch over Draco and, if
necessary, carry out the dirty deed himself. In order to save her
son, Narcissa will have to plead with Snape – he really is the only
one who can help her.

vmonte responds:
Wonderful post! I also think Voldemort gave Draco the task in order
to test Snape. I think he wanted to see just how far Snape would go
to help Draco.

severelysigune:
Severus Snape is a very cautious man. He has to be, if he values his
own life. Both Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort believe to have
him on their side as a spy so that, in order to keep his balance
between the two of them and maintain credibility, Snape has to watch
his words and actions at all times and keep both satisfied. When
Narcissa arrives in Spinner's End, Snape's position as a
servant of two masters is the following: he has Albus Dumbledore's
complete trust; and the Dark Lord has welcomed him back into the
fold. Voldemort, however, had referred to him in GoF's Graveyard
Scene as "the one who has left me forever; he will be killed, of
course" (confirmed by JKR in an interview as referring to Snape) –
which makes you wonder just how welcoming the Dark Lord really was
when Snape turned up on his doorstep... If Voldemort really
feels he can rely on Snape, would he send Peter Pettigrew, the Rat
Who Listens At Doors, to Spinner's End? Snape may well say Wormtail
is there to assist him; the truth is that he is being watched in his
own house.

vmonte:
Yes, I agree here.

severelysigune:
...Unbreakable Vow?
The Unbreakable Vow is the kind of narrative device that alerts the
reader of fairy tales to impending doom. Remember Beauty and the
Beast, Rumpelstiltkin and many other stories, in which a man or woman
is saved from a disaster in return for an indefinite reward along the
lines of, "Give me the first thing you see when you come home." Those
people always expect the `first thing' to be their dog or something
they are prepared to part with, but it invariably turns out to be
their own child or someone/something so precious that they would
gladly have forsaken the offered help...The Unbreakable Vow Narcissa
asks Snape to make is a spell that kills the `bondee' when they break
their promise... To agree to anything like an Unbreakable Vow...
there is bound to be a Nagini-sized snake in the grass. And hey
presto, there certainly is. Narcissa cleverly forces a third clause
on Snape: to carry out the mission in case Draco fails...

However, the most compelling pressure issues not from Bella, but from
her sister, whose tears flow freely, who clutches at Snape's robes,
holds his hands and throws herself at his feet. She strokes his
ego: "you could do it," she says, "you are the Dark Lord's
favourite", "you are Draco's favourite teacher", "/you/ would
succeed". All pretty transparent to this sceptical observer – but
Narcissa has touched a nerve. Consider who she is, where she is and
with whom she is pleading. Narcissa Black Malfoy, an elegant,
beautiful and upper-class pure-blood has alighted on a "Muggle
dunghill" to humbly beg the help of the ugly, frustrated and
unpopular son of a spinner – a half-blood wizard who craves
recognition, whose only pathetic claim to nobility lies in the sound
of his mother's name, who has painstakingly eradicated any sign
of his origins in his diction and dress but somehow never found the
acceptance and admiration he considers his due.

vmonte:
Narcissa did touch a nerve in Snape. He was loving her grovelling!
(This is Snape's greatest weakness IMO. Harry should use Snape's lack
of self worth to his advantage. Harry has always had the ability to
make Snape lose his cool (and vise-versa)--he should work this to his
advantage.)

severelysigune:
...but his vanity and pride send signals that are too strong for so
weak a man to resist. Snape is deeply enjoying his power over Pretty
Cissy. He says yes, not out of the goodness of his heart, but because
it is his moment of triumph over all he has wanted to be but has not
been able to reach. He has finally come to the point where he can bow
down to pick up a pure-blooded aristocratic beauty from where she is
grovelling in the dust. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

vmonte:
Yes, I agree. Snape was caught by a larger spinner--a black widow
spider! (I'm smiling with an evil smirk as I write this.)

severelysigune wrote:
Part the Second: Black Wizard, White Wizard – or, Dumbledore's Fatal
Mistake
...He is ashamed of having been tricked like a novice. He has made an
elementary mistake; and where in canon have we ever caught Snape
admitting a mistake? Dumbledore, yes. Sirius, yes. Remus, yes. Snape?
No way. He makes errors and he is aware of them, but he does not
admit them. He tries to solve his problems on his own, in silence. So
he does what he is good at: the telling of partial truths. He informs
Dumbledore of the assassination plot and of the fact that he has made
a Vow to protect Draco, but he never mentions the full pledge...

...Dumbledore, as JKR has pointed out in her last interview, has no
equals, no confidantes. No one is up to his standard. But
Dumbledore's greatest mistake is that he does not realise so.
Because he can forgive and forget, he assumes that Snape and Harry
can, too. Because he is not afraid to die, he thinks other people
shouldn't be either. Because he sees the good in others, he thinks it
is a natural thing and evident to everyone. Because he is willing to
sacrifice himself, he thinks that Snape must be, too. But Snape is,
unlike Dumbledore, not "a great man". He is not hero material. He is
brainy, yes; but in terms of personality he is small and petty and
weak...Dumbledore is constantly demanding everything, kindly for
starters, and firmly if kindness does not yield the desired result.
Look at how he – admittedly very politely and without raising his
voice – pesters Harry about his failure to retrieve Slughorn's memory
in "Lord Voldemort's Request". It is Harry's first experience of what
it is like to work under Dumbledore's orders; Snape has been under
this kind of pressure ever since Voldemort's resurrection...

vmonte:
Excellent thoughts! I so far agree with everything you say.

severelysigune:
Dumbledore exchange on the battlement is to me the most chilling
moment of Half-Blood Prince. If my assumption is correct and Snape
has kept the third clause of the Unbreakable Vow from Dumbledore,
then those few seconds are even more heart-breaking than I found them
at first sight. When Dumbledore whispers "Severus 
 please 
" he is
not pleading for his life, because he is not afraid to die; neither
is he asking Snape to kill him as arranged, because there was no such
arrangement. What he means is, "please don't tell me I was wrong
about you... There was, for once, no malicious intent on Snape's
side, and yet he has, one could say, committed what is possibly his
worst crime. Both he and Dumbledore have become victims of his human
weakness, of character flaws combined with the vulnerabilities
connected to his social and intellectual background, childhood events
and poor choices made in the past. Dumbledore's trust has been
justified, but he has overestimated Snape's capacities.

vmonte:
I agree that Dumbledore was upset and thought (rightly in my opinion)
that Snape had betrayed him in the end. I think that Narcissa'a bond
forced Snape to finally reveal "part of his hand." Snape is too much
of an outcast to belong to either group, and he enjoys power "too
much"(let alone his sadistic tendencies) to be on the side of the
Order (we see flickers of his flawed personality in his treatment of
the children, during PoA when he becomes excited over the possiblity
of getting an award for Sirius's capture, and of his evident
enjoyment in seeing Narcissa grovel for Draco's safety. I also
cannot help thinking of the time that Draco stroked Snape's ego by
telling him that he would make a better head master than Dumbledore--
boy did Snape love that!)

I'm also thinking that there must be something to JKR's comment:

MA: Oh, here's one [from our forums] that I've really got to ask you.
Has Snape ever been loved by anyone?

JKR: Yes, he has, which in some ways makes him more culpable even
than Voldemort, who never has.

It's got to be Dumbledore that loved Snape.
This sounds like Snape has made the wrong choice in my opinion.


Vivian

"Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to
make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what
happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he
strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."