Malice and Ulterior Motives

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 138805

Alla:

> I don't see narrator letting him get away with 
> it - as if devaluing human life so much that if 
> Dumbledore is old and weakened he needs to be done 
> away with.
  
> Sorry, just don't see it, don't see it at all.

houyhnhnm:

Not because Dumbledore is old and weak and "needs to be done away 
with".  Because, once he arrives on the tower, Snape has only two 
choices.  See post 138769.

You say the only way Snape can keep from damaging his soul is to let 
himself, Dumbledore, possibly Draco, Harry, Trelawney, and others die 
at the hands of the Death Eaters.  That's your personal feeling--and 
you have a perfect right to hold it--but it is not supported by 
text.

*My* personal feeling, and one which I think has a lot more support
in canon, is that Snape's soul has been in much greater peril from 
his inability to care about other people, than from some legalistic 
technicality about performing an AK, *if* the only way he can save 
many other lives is by sacrificing Dumbledore.

Oh well, I'm never going to turn a Calvinist into a Universalist.  
You have a right to your opinion and I have a right to mine.