Dumbledore's Choice (was Draco's Choice )

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 137290

Potioncat wrote:
> 
<SNIP>  

> When Harry gets back to DD's body, DD's face is peaceful.
> Whatever 
> the final cause of his death, he died prepared and at peace and 
> having set something in motion. God knows, I wouldn't be at peace
> if 
> I were AKed or fell off a tower, but then, I wouldn't sacrifice 
> myself for a toe-rag like Draco. 
> 


Chuckle.  You certainly have a lot of support for that kind of 
theory on the list, potioncat!  You may even be right.  However, I 
have to confess that if things turn out this way, with all of this a 
Dumbledore self-sacrifice plot and Snape Dumbledore's man through 
and through, I for one will retch violently.  At this point such an 
outcome would seem, to me, sickeningly contrived and as interesting 
as a sink full of dirty dishwater.

If, indeed, this is a story about character, it would be, IMO, most 
effective to show that not only can a person be good or evil for any 
number of reasons, but that the same person can be BOTH good and 
evil over the course of their lives AND over the course of the 
story.  A Snape who was genuinely repentant but suffered a relapse 
through resentment, or who was Dumbledore's man until forced to 
choose between Dumbledore's life and his own, would be a truly 
multifaceted and deep character.  A Snape who turns out to have been 
ESE through the whole seven books, or even worse, DD's man through 
and through despite having AK'd his employer, would be about as 
interesting to me as a snail marathon.

Unfortunately, HBP and OOTP have shown that JKR is overwedded to 
standard hero-narrative formulas (I suspect the only reason either 
Sirius or DD died was because she was slavishly following a literal 
interpretation of the hero journey) and not above using layer upon 
layer of cliches to move the story along.  I was afraid that for HBP 
she would sweep OOTP under the rug and come up with a Harry who told 
DD "All is forgiven, now let's go get Voldemort!" and I was 
unfortunately well-justified in my fears.  Therefore, an uninspired 
and boring outcome of Snape/Harry/Dumbledore, such as Harry 
magnanimously forgiving Snape for years of abuse because Snape was 
a "good" guy all along, while disappointing and, in my view, 
insipid, would not come as a great surprise.


Lupinlore