It's over, Snape is evil (but maybe not 100%)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 138405

Eggplant wrote: 
> <snip> the only hope Snape lovers have is if Dumbledore is not
really dead and the entire climax of book 6 was all just a colossal
hoax or practical joke <snip>

Carol responds:
Actually, we have another, more interesting hope: that Snape will feel
genuine remorse and redeem himself before he dies. That would fit with
the themes of Love and Choice much better than an angry Harry killing
an evil Snape in a fit of vengeance and becoming evil himself in the
process.

And let's think what would have happened if Snape, in the presence of
four Death Eaters and bound by his Unbreakable Vow (which, admittedly,
was a foolish mistake) had refused to kill Dumbledore or attempted to
help the very ill and possibly dying Dumbledore. Snape didn't have any
antidotes with him to administer, but how about a nonverbal Renervate?
But that wouldn't have worked. Even if the Death Eaters didn't realize
what he was doing and kill him, the vow would have done it.

All the choice to die would have accomplished would be to show Harry
(whom Snape must have known was present in his invisibility cloak
because of the second broom) that Snape was on the good side. And,
assuming that Snape had never killed before (which I think is
plausible given Bellatrix's remarks about his "slithering out of
action," HBP Am. ed. 35), he would have left his soul unsplit. The
question is, was dying the right choice, as it seems to be, or the
easy way out of his vow? If Snape still has to act as an agent of good
with all the Order viewing him as an enemy and his soul split by the
act of murder, that was no easy choice. But, yes. He could have chosen
to die rather than kill Dumbledore. That was his only other option.

Fine, you say. He deserved to die, and he should have died for
Dumbledore as Sirius would have done. I'm not so sure that's true.
Snape could not have saved Dumbledore, who would have been killed by
the Death Eaters if both Draco and Snape had failed to "do the deed,"
and Draco would have been murdered on Voldemort's orders. So there
would have been three corpses for Fenrir Grayback to maul. Once
Dumbledore had died, Harry would either have had to witness the
carnage in helpless horror or rush out rashly and recklessly as Sirius
would have done, adding his own death to the total and depriving the
WW of all hope of defeating Voldemort. Harry couldn't outduel Snape
alone; he could hardly have outduelled four Death Eaters, including an
unquestionably evil werewolf who would have loved to eat him. And then
the Death Eaters would have rushed down the stairs overly the corpses
of the nobly dead Snape and the heroically dead Harry, finished off
the Order members, and wreaked havoc in the school.

What happens instead is tragic for both Snape and Dumbledore but not
catastrophic. Snape can't save Dumbledore from the DEs or himself from
his vow but he does send Dumbledore's body from the tower so it can't
be ravaged by Grayback, saves Draco as he has sworn to do, orders the
DEs out of the school, keeps them from Crucioing Harry, and tells
Harry not to let his emotions control him or use Dark Magic, advice
Harry would do well to follow. The easy choice? It may seem so, but
Snape must know that, for him, the consequences will be terrible.

As for Dumbledore, he would have died in that scene no matter what. If
Snape hadn't killed him and he hadn't died from the poison, the Death
Eaters would have killed him. *That was their mission.* Snape kept the
death toll to one and took the burden of Draco's sin and folly on
himself. In a very unDumbledorean way, that's heroic, especially if he
was loyal to Dumbledore and hated himself for what he had to do. It's
a beautiful set up for redemption.

I know you don't agree. You think Snape's a murderer and that's that.
You think he's out for himself, and, anyway, he's mainly a plot device
to get DD out of the way. Maybe that's true. But I think the other
possibility, a complicated and tormented Snape trapped by his vow and
making the best choice he could under terrible circumstances, should
at least be considered. It's thematically much more profound, and for
those who love Dumbledore, it will prove that he was right to trust
Severus Snape.

Carol, who believes in ESC! (Ever So Complicated) Snape