What kind of Snape is more interesting? Was: Re: Medieval attitudes

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 137882

> Julie says:
> I don't agree that DumbledoresMan!Snape is simplistic. Nor
> do I believe that designation demands that the character must
> remain static. DumbledoresMan!Snape may be guided by a
> decision he made sixteen years ago, and that decision may
> keep him on the side of ultimate Good, but it doesn't prevent
> him from taking evil actions from time to time, motivated not
> by his larger goal, but by his petty prejudices and his frequent 
> and all too human mistakes in judgment (e.g. the Unbreakable 
> Vow). 


Ah, but then he isn't a Dumbledore'sMan!Snape of the type many are 
postulating!  It seems that a popular opinion about such a character 
would be that EVERYTHING, or nearly everything, he does in is in 
accord with his loyalty to Dumbledore, including taking the 
Unbreakable Vow, which many are arguing is simply a permutation of a 
long-drawn out conspiracy designed to fix Snape firmly in Voldemort's 
favor.


> Julie says:
> But this is EXACTLY who Snape already is--a man too often torn
> between his urges, from all accounts (up until the uncertain events 
> in HBP) fighting on the side of good, yet unable to overcome his 
> prejudices, or to stop from venting his bitterness on those  unable 
to 
> defend themselves--his students. Rarely has a literary character 
> been shown to act in so many conflicting ways. 
<SNIP>


And yet, once again, a lot of people postulating Dumbledore'sMan!
Snape seem to disagree.  Many argue that ALL of Snape's actions, or 
at least almost all of them, can be explained in light of his mission 
and his loyalty to Dumbledore (i.e. he's toughening Harry up, 
Occlumency was never meant to succeed, etc.)

>  
> 
> Julie says:
> And if Snape turns out to be a spy basically loyal to Dumbledore,
> who in the press of the moment is forced to do something horrible
> because of his own error in judgment, an error in judgment that
> precipitated a chain of events (not a plan) leading to the death of
> the one man who truly trusted him--a man who accepted his own
> potential fate and demanded Snape accept the responsibility for
> his own error as part of that shared trust--and is left to live, 
and 
> probably die, with only one piece of knowledge to assauge the 
> heavy burden of that responsibility and trust and all it  cost him--
> that he remained to the end Dumbledore's man...is THAT not a
> character worth reading about?
> 
> 

And yet once again that isn't Dumbledore'sMan!Snape of the kind many 
people are arguing for, and the kind I find simplistic.  The Snape 
you postulate would be an interesting figure, I agree -- largely 
because so many of his actions, especially on the tower, could 
legitimately be ascribed to multiple sources (i.e. cowardice, 
desperation, a genuine desire to serve the plan in a bad situation - 
or is that simply a rationalization on his part).  This is not the 
kind of Good!Snape you often find in arguments.  There, Snape kills 
Dumbledore in response to a preset plan, or maybe in response to a 
rapid but incredibly detailed legilemency conversation of which we 
have not details.  There everything Snape does, including often the 
Vow and Occlumency, are in accord with DD's instructions.  The Snape 
you postulate is essentially the kind that both I and nrenka would 
like - a complex and flawed figure who, based on the evidence, might 
see himself as justified but whom others might very legitimately see 
as in the wrong, a character who must sink or swim based on his own 
wits and the way in which others are or are not willing to forgive 
his percieved sins, NOT  because Dumbledore appears as a memory or a 
painting and presents ironclad evidence that Snape was on the good 
side all along and was acting on DD's instructions.

Lupinlore