[HPforGrownups] What would Snape have to do....

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 138865

--- doddiemoemoe <doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com> wrote:

> All the Snape posts...one question keeps pecking the back of my 
> brain pan. What would Snape have to do to redeem himself?
> [SNIP]
>  
> Doddie
> (who really doesn't understand why so many 
> loathe PP but not Snape?!?!)


How about this?  Snape and Dumbledore set the bait on the greatest
trap of all - Snape kills Dumbledore in full view of witnesses - so
that Voldemort's last remaining doubts of Snape's loyalty evaporate
immediately.  (After all, it's kind of hard to be loyal to Dumbledore
when he's dead.)

Result is that Snape is toast as far as everyone on the Good Side is
concerned and he's notso hotso on the DE side because they're all
madly jealous of his new closeness with the Dark Lord.  The only
person who's unabashedly pro-Severus is Voldemort himself.

So Snape "redeems" himself by being a human time bomb at Voldemort's
side who detonates at the right moment so that Harry's odds get
better for his final confrontation.  

The problem I have with lists of what Snape's done wrong is that they
lack context.  We don't know what plan Dumbledore and Snape were
running for the past three books because Harry doesn't know it and
wouldn't recognize it.  But if there are two people in this series
who know how to strategize, it's Dumbledore and Snape.  They both
know Voldemort better than anyone on the Good Side and they're the
ones most likely to come up with a plan that exploits Voldemort's
weaknesses.  Everyone else is still wetting their robes at the
mention of the guy's name.

So blanket condemnations of Snape's evilness strike me as not
relevant until the plan plays out and we know what the strategy was. 
Then we can judge if they were right or not and if the risks were
worth taking.

And speaking personally, Chapter 2 is proof to me that Snape is Good.
 If Chapter 2 had not been there, it would have been proof that Snape
is Evil.

Magda

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