It's over...

[Cathy Drolet]

No: HPFGUIDX 137773

Eggplant 
>but before HBP JKR could
> perhaps morphed him into a good guy, or at least into a less
> despicable character; but now JKR has burned her bridges as far as
> Snape is concerned. After what we saw in HBP if she tries to turn
> Snape into a good guy the last book in the Potter series will be a
> disaster because killing Dumbledore is quite simply unforgivable.

CathyD:
I think this will be my last argument on this.  (Ok, ok, I can hear the cheering from here!)  

JMO.  JKR doesn't have to *turn Snape into a good guy*.  JKR made it clear that Snape made a conscious choice to leave the Death Eaters and join Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix years ago before Voldemort fell.  While Snape is clearly not a nice person, (I think colebiancardi said yesterday *sadistic bastard*), he has put his DE role behind him and is now wearing a white hat.  He is, while not a good person, working for the good guys.  Snape has already been redeemed therefore, and doesn't need another redemption, but only to be seen, by Harry and the Order, for what he truly is: A bad guy working for the good guys, loyal to Dumbledore and the Order.  When that revelation comes in book 7, it won't make Snape the hero over Harry.  He might be a momentary hero, as he was when we found out he was actually trying to save Harry from the bucking broom; when he gave fake Veritaserum to Umbridge, when he saved Draco's life after the Sectumsempra spell, but he won't be *THE* hero.  *THE* hero is Harry.  

As to whether or not Snape *really* killed Dumbledore that is open for much interpretation.  Certainly Harry believes it, and his testimony convinced those present when he told the story.  But they are (or were when we last saw them) still in the first throes their grief.  Harry will come to realize, though Hermione's help, or Moody's help, that what he saw wasn't a true AK (as many of us have already suspected), and he, or they, will try to work out what really happened on that tower, while Harry was being "short-sighted" by his invisibility and overcome by grief and anger.  As I've said before a Pensive would be quite handy in this situation to check for links and patterns.  It would also be a possible good use for Time-Travel.

I think Snape's part in the final book will be quite limited.  There is no Dumbledore to *spy* on so LV will set him a different task.  He will have to reveal himself to the Order in some fashion and somehow prove to them that he is on their side and always has been (Hopefully, Dumbledore will do that for him, by leaving a bottled memory in his Gringotts vault).  He will perform some small *heroic* act (curing Bill, saving Draco, saving any one member of the Order), and then he will die.  And some of us will be just as sad at his death as we were when Sirius and Dumbledore died.

>From the time I read GoF until I finished reading HPB, I believed, and argued strongly, that Snape was a double agent working for himself.  Looking back, I think it was the easiest route *for me*, because I simply couldn't make a decision which way Snape swung so I sat on the fence.  Since reading HBP (four times) I am absolutely convinced that Snape is, as I described him above, a bad guy working for the good guys.  *It is our choices, Harry, show what we truly are,  far more than our abilites.*  Snape is an able Dark Wizard, and I think he would be quite a match for, maybe worse than LV, except that he made the *choice* to serve the good side.  For Snape to turn out anything other than on the side of the Order, makes Dumbledore a complete and utter fool. And while I think (and he says) he was mistaken about many things I am quite certain that he was no fool.  

Nobody has to agree with my opinion.  It is mine after all.  I'm not asking anyone to believe as I do.  My opinion is, however, as valid as anyone else's.  It took me five years to get here, lots of thinking and reading and pondering and scribbling of notes, re-reading JKR's interview answers about Snape, more reading, more scribbling.  I am as convinced of it as I am that the good guys will win in the end, that Dumbledore is indeed dead, and that there are going to be more deaths of important characters before JKR is finished.   

CathyD 
Who believes Voldemort is the Villan, Harry is the Hero and the rest are the supporting cast.

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