[HPforGrownups] Dumbledore and Snape again. WAS: Re: Missing Horcrux = Ravenclaw's

[d.]

No: HPFGUIDX 137303

--- jjjjjuliep <jjjjjulie at aol.com> wrote:
> But the most telling thing for me in the Snape debate is his choice.  
> His choice to kill Dumbledore rather than die himself.  This is IMO 
> the most crucial decision made in Book 6, for it determines the path 
> the story would take after it.  If Snape truly good, truly devoted to 
> Dumbledore, truly on the side of good, there is no doubt in my mind 
> that he would have died right then and there rather than let the 
> wizarding world's best hope for victory against Voldemort die. 
> Instead he take the easy way--not the right way, but the easy way--
> out since Snape has one priority:  Snape.  

Not necessarily Julie. Are you absolutely sweepingly sure, without a doubt, what was easy
and what was right in that situation?  I don't think so!  And that's where the grand
Snape debate ensues (why do you think there're rooms for debate?). Let me ask you, when
Dumbledore asked Harry to force fed him those fatal looking posion, what was easy and
what was right?  According to you logic, Harry did what was easy because if Harry is
truly good he should have drank the poison instead of sacrificing Dumbledore-the-ww's
best hope, regardless what Dumbledore say. Harry made his own choice. So according to
you, Harry did what was easy. But most readers would argue Harry made the *right* but
*difficult* choice because DD convinced him that Harry's life is more valuable than DD in
this war, and Harry understoo that. Then did you notice (re-read those passages) we have
very same wordings choices in the paragraphs describeing this scene between Harry and
Dumbledore and that scene between Snape and Dumbledore?  The parallelization are too
jarringly deliberate to escape my notice even in my first reading. This has been
addressed numerous time on this list. So we do have a subtle hint literarlly. What if,
just like Harry, the *RIGHT* choice for Snape was to sacrifice DD, because just like
Harry, Snape is also more valuable to the war than DD?  Snape made the most difficult
choice to make in the entire series we've seen so far, because Snape was forced to kill
the only one who trust him, but he was trapped in the situation where this is the RIGHT
(but extremely difficult) thing to do. But really no one knows exactly what happen except
JKR, what people debating are mostly what they think will make a better story. For me,
Snape-the-trapped-spy-who-made-the-painful-difficult-but-ultimately-right-choice makes a
way more compelling story and what makes Snape such a beloved gift of a character.

This whole situation just rang too much like a popular but compelling plot device (that
always works) for spy roles, the kind of spy's trapping angst and tradegy suggests by the
title "Spinner's end". 

D.