Secrecy (Was: Re: It's over, Snape is evil)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 137544


> 
> Pippin:
<SNIP>
> What if Harry wins with assistance that only he could have won? You
> know, Frodo saved by Gollum, Luke saved by Vader, that kind of 
thing.

First of all, I think a huge percentage of her readers would roll 
their eyes and say "So you never finished LotR, huh, Jo?  So you 
aren't doing Star Wars?  Yeah, right."

Second, how would winning Snape's help be something "only Harry could 
do" if Snape is in fact super spy?  Presumably Snape would help any 
member of team Dumbledore out to bring down Voldemort.  Harry, Lupin, 
Ron, Hermione, Moody, McGonagall, it would not matter to super spy, 
he would help whoever had a chance. And if we say Snape knows the 
prophecy, that doesn't speak to the matter, either.  Harry would 
still not have "won" Snape's help, but only be the instrument to an 
end Snape already wants.

The only way such a scenario could play out, in which forgiveness and 
love, the power Voldemort knows not, "wins" Harry help only he could 
win, would be if Snape has, indeed, done something terrible and 
Harry's forgiveness grants him genuine redemption.  And at this point 
I don't think we're talking classroom interaction, or about something 
Snape did long ago and has been paying for ever since. At this point 
I think we're talking something personally known to Harry that really 
HAS separated Snape from the good side (not just apparently, but in 
truth) and for which Harry's forgiveness grants him a genuine new 
hold on a new way of being.  


> 
> Of course, not to weaken the drama, it should come when he's given
> up all hope of it. Whether Harry wins alone or with help, it   
should 
> underline the Big Theme,  which I believe we've been told is
> Tolerance. Well, right  now, it looks as  though Tolerance is a 
Very 
> Bad Idea. Was  there any virtue in trying to  overcome hatred, or
> trying to see beneath appearances? Apparently not. 
> 
> I can't believe Rowling's going to leave it there. We're being set 
up
> for a reversal.
> 

Well, that is of course a belief you are perfectly entitled to, and 
for which there is a great deal of evidence.  However, Rowling has 
given us a great deal of evidence going the other way, as well.

And even if we are being set up for a reversal, what KIND of 
reversal?  First of all, if it is Snape, is super spy the only kind 
of scenario, or even the best one, that would grant him redemption?  
Does redemption have to mean, as I ask above, that he is innocent?  
The power of love is the power of forgiveness, and you don't have to 
forgive people who aren't in the wrong.  Love and compassion mean 
understanding a person's motives and foregiving them for genuine 
misdeeds.  Piercing through illusion isn't loving or compassionate, 
per se, merely perceptive.  

Harry's power ISN'T perception, but love.  And at this point the 
power of love would not be very well illustrated if Snape put forth a 
logical argument with evidence that he is, after all, innocent and 
Harry says, "I dislike you but the evidence is on your side and I'm 
going to listen to the evidence rather than my dislike."  No, the 
power of love would be best illustrated if Snape reveals the reasons 
that he genuinely fell from grace and Harry says "I cannot abolish 
your objective guilt, Severus, but I will have compassion on your 
suffering and grant you foregiveness for your crime, just as 
Dumbledore did for your deeds long ago."

And why should the reversal be about Severus?  We have two more 
candidates for redemption -- Wormtail and Draco.  Are all of them 
going to be redeemed?  That would make for a good moral message but 
would be, from a literary standpoint, extremely over the top. Two I 
could see, I guess, but even that seems like straining the point.  Is 
Severus truly the best candidate for redemption?

Lupinlore