Snape didn't kill DD with AK!! And here's the evidence

[lolita_ns]

No: HPFGUIDX 138747

> zgirnius:
> He planned to leave Sirius 
> to the Dementors, actually, for whatever reason. (Though I would 
> grant that in that scene, Dementors seeming a worse fate would make 
> great sense as the reason!) 
> 

As far as I remember, Snape first pointed his wand at Sirius and said 
something along the lines of 'Give me a reason to do it, and I swear 
I will', after which event Sirius backed down. Now, don't 
misunderstand me, Snape is my absolutely favourite character, and I 
don't think that he is The Arch-Villain of the story, and I am not 
trying to give a list of reasons for his being bad. I'm just 
following the reasoning that he did kill DD, and that he did do it by 
AKing him. And as far as THAT is concerned, there is definitely more 
than meets the eye in that scene, and we have probably been force-fed 
a nice, big portion of red herring.
As for SS's planning on leaving Sirius to the dementors, the most 
probable reason is that he didn't want to risk a stint in Azkaban at 
the time (however unlikely the possibility that if he had AKed an 
escaped criminal he would have been convicted). After all, Snape's 
ultimate concern seems to be Snape's own arse. And I absolutely 
degree that a Kiss would be far worse a fate than a quick AK.

zgirnius: 
> AKing Dumbledore is another 
> matter. If Snape has not been duping him all these years, if Snape 
> really was remorseful when he went to Dumbledore lo these many 
years 
> ago, Snape ought to be profoundly grateful to Dumbledore. For 
> believing him and giving him a position of trust, for the 
opportunity 
> to work to undo the evil he feels he has done, and for helping to 
> keep him out of Azkaban despite his prior affiliation with the 
Death 
> Eaters.

Far enough. Under the condition that Snape was the one who approached 
DD, and that he did feel remorse (It seems more likely to me now that 
it was DD who asked Snape for a little chat concerning his future). 
But we do not know for sure what the agreement between the two of 
them was, so we cannot tell with  certainty that Snape was a 
repentant ex-DE who went to DD and put himself at his mercy. In all 
our attempts to postulate a theory of Seeking Redemtion!Snape, we 
seem to have forgotten that he was a Death Eater. He most definitely 
was enough of a bigot and a bully to join Voldemort's little club in 
the first place. Whether he still feels that way is going to be 
revealed in Harry Potter and the Final Showdown :)

> 
> zgirnius:
> In the Pensieve scene of Book 5, 
> Snape casts some nonverbal spell which causes a small cut to open 
on 
> James' cheek. Is this Sectumsempra? If so, why so little damage? 
One 
> explanation is that Snape was still perfecting the spell. Another, 
is 
> that the spell can be used by a skilled caster in a controlled 
> manner. One can see less than entirely Dark uses for such a spell. 
> Harry's gutting of Draco could have been because Harry was not a 
> skilled user of that spell, not because the spell *must* work that 
> way.
> 
> Further, even if Sectumsempra is as Dark as it seems in that 
chapter, 
> it appears that Snape also developed the counter curse (whatever 
that 
> singing over Draco was that he did.) We know Snape has always been 
> into the Dark Arts. Apparently he has longed for the post of DADA 
> Master. Thus, he could have developed Sectumsempra and its 
> countercurse out of sheer love for the subject, on an intellectual 
> level. I'm not saying this makes him a saint...just not a totally 
> black villain.
>

Again, Snape is my favourite character. I do not see him as a totally 
black villain either. Do I sound like I do? I am not speaking about 
his psychological profile, but his actions. And I don't think that he 
invented Sectumsempra out of sheer love for the subject, for he wrote 
sth like 'For your enemies' next to it. He most definitely intended 
to use it. And we saw in the Pensieve scene his own Levicorpus used 
against him, so maybe he invented the countercurse because he was 
afraid (and with reason) that James & Co may decide to force-feed him 
another dose of his own medicine, this time Sectumsempra. However, I 
am inclined to think that Potions was his primary passion (I can 
teach you to bottle fame yadda yadda..), and that the reasons for his 
wanting the DADA position are probably linked to some Voldemort's 
bright idea. In order to keep his arse covered for those many years 
(LV was gone, but DEs weren't, and I doubt that SS would be so chummy 
with Lucius Malfoy if he didn't act as a DE on loose), he re-applied 
for the position over and over again, probably quite aware that he 
wouldn't get it. 
And it seems to me that JK hasn't given us any explanation of what 
the Dark Arts actually are. The explanations are different from one 
book to another. Either she is going to thoroughly explain everything 
in Book 7, or she is far less skillful a writer than I first thought 
she was. I am reluctant to admit that I fear the latter might be 
closer to truth.
> 
> zgirnius:
> I'm not sure I agree, my first response is, which genre? (I love 
how 
> the books have grown to be a wild mix of fantasy, boarding school 
> story, growing up story, spy thriller, mystery, and the kitchen 
> sink...) 

Yes, there is quite a lot of genres mixed in HP - JK's tribute to 
Postmodernism, I would say - but the underlying genre is 
Bildungsroman (dealing mostly with the development of the hero - 
maybe the best example is Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young 
Man) that uses a lot of conventions from classic genre of Quest 
(think Siegfried, or, if you feel like poetry, T. S. Eliot's The 
Waste Land). The basic sketch is that the hero has to grow up, lose 
everybody he cared for along the way (most prominently, his mentor 
who teaches him everything he knows and then dies, so that the hero 
may step in and take over) embraces his fate and confronts his enemy 
in a final one-on-one showdown (Star Wars, anyone?)

Cheers :))

Lolita