Harry's detention - James saved Snape's life incident

[spotsgal]

No: HPFGUIDX 136090

>phoenixgod2000:
> Now imagine that person as an arrogant 
>teenager and is it a huge stretch of the imagination to believe that 
>he would go after the werewolf, seeking to either kill or capture 
>it? Imagine the personal glory, imagine the name he would make for 
>himself, imagine the response he would get from the other students. 

Christina:

Would Snape really have gotten any glory from killing Lupin?  I think
trying to capture him is pretty impossible, considering the fact that
he already is captured in the shack.  Would Snape have gotten rewarded
for killing a werewolf that was already held in control and not out
hurting anybody?  I mean, I know the atmosphere in the WW is not
friendly to werewolves, but I doubt they'd be awarding Snape for
killing one.  After all, for all of the things we hear about the
prejudice against werewolves, there isn't much canon to show that the
WW does a whole lot (or, as much as they could) to curb the danger
they represent.  For example, they could require by law that
werewolves go to a special place to transform (and make sure they all
get the wolfsbane potion).  We know from the fact that Lupin pretty
much does what he pleases that there is no such law in effect.  They
also don't round up the werewolves and kill them all, or hunt them for
sport.

Outside any legal considerations, I'd still imagine Dumbledore would
be quite livid with Snape for murdering one of his students after
working so hard to protect him (Lupin).  Dumbledore doesn't seem to
like it when other people challenge his decision making skills.  I
honestly believe Snape has better self-preservation skills than that.


> Alla:
>
>I disagree. Please help me out, if you think that no ambiguity is
>present whatsoever.
>......<snipped the list>
>NO, I don't think we know everything about that night, not even >close. 

Christina:

If you look back at my post, you'll see that I never said we knew
everything about that night.  I agreed with the assertion that the
canon does not provide all the answers, but that what we *already
know* is *not* ambiguous.  That is, we don't know all of the events,
but we have no reason to doubt what is in the canon already.  And
while the questions that you raised are sound, they don't do anything
to show that Lupin is lying or wrong.  They are just questions that
have not yet been answered, and I suspect we'll never get the answers
to most of them.  JKR has said that she doesn't anticipate Book 7
being longer than OotP, which means that Harry has got a heck of a lot
to accomplish in roughly 800 pages.  He's got to find several
horcruxes, destroy them, and have a final battle with Voldemort, not
to mention the tons of other unanswered questions that still linger. 
I was convinced that we would see the wrapping up of the
Marauders/Snape feud storyline in HBP (why they hate each other so
much, all of the events surrounding the prank, etc), but unfortunately
that was not the case.  JKR doesn't have the physical page-space to
address all of the issues surrounding the prank, so we have to think
about the importance of the prank as a whole.  What is its importance
to the actual storyline?  I personally think that the importance of
the prank lies in the possible life debt that was created between
James and Snape (I'm sure JKR has commented on this possibility, but I
just can't dig it up...does anyone know if she has?).  Maybe it got
transferred to Harry when James died?  Maybe it is relevant to the
events surrounding James's and Lily's death?  Either way, I do think
that the answers JKR promised are coming surrounding the pranks, but I
doubt we'll ever see the complete logistics of it through a pensieve
or Harry questioning Lupin (particularly considering Harry's lack of
curiosity about his parents' lives, which is something that has always
bothered me) or any other means.

Christina