Harry's story , NOT Snape's (was Re: "An old man's mistakes")

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 138972

> lupinlore:
> And therein, I'm afraid, lies precisely the problem many people, 
> including myself, see with the Good!Snape scenario.  It in effect 
> means the books cease being Harry's story and start being Snape's 
> story.  I don't think that's what JKR intends (and I think that 
> accounts for most of her concern about Snape being so popular).

I keep reading post after post saying "I think Snape is good"
lately (and taking great comfort in them); who are these "many 
people" and where have they gone? I want to know what they think in
their own words in the wake of all the "Snape is good" posts just in 
case I need convincing otherwise. I also want to know if these same
people think Les Miserables is the story of Inspector Javert. (Or is 
that not a "hero" story?)

I don't recall when and where JKR expressed concern about
Snape's popularity that was obviously different from her concern
about Draco's popularity. JKR herself said that Snape is fun to
write; why wouldn't she want him to be fun to read? Neither Snape
nor Draco are characters JKR thinks are good, healthy romantic
interests or role models. Whether or not Snape and/or Draco end up on
the side of the light, they're STILL not good romantic interests
or role models. Anyway, if Snape is (and has always been) good and JKR
was counting on us thinking he wasn't, there's your concern
right there. And her expression of concern itself could be a fish of a
carmine color.

> lupinlore:
> JKR has implied pretty strongly that she's following the standard 
> patterns of coming of age/hero's journey literature.  Whether that 
> is a good idea or not is another question, but I think we can take 
> her at her word.  That means the story is about a Hero's growing up,
> and in the end facing his challenge alone with HIS OWN DECISIONS 
> being the crucial component of the outcome.  Yes, it's true that the
> actual resolution of the story might lie in the hands of a surprise 
> character (Gollum, Vader),  but it must be the independent choices 
> of the hero that bring everything to the climax.  It was Frodo's 
> choices, including his choice to spare Gollum, that brought 
> everything to a head at the Crack of Doom.  It was Luke's choice to 
> appeal and reach out to his father that redeemed Vader.

So, you can envision no denouement in Book 7 which would allow Snape
to have been exactly what Dumbledore said he was, an opponent of
Voldemort all along (from when he took refuge with Dumbledore) and
also allow Harry to fulfill a classic hero's journey? Here you
sell JKR short, IMO, while simultaneously saying "I think we can
take her at her word."

LOTR? Think of Gandalf's choices. And Sam's. Not to mention
Galadriel's (left to his own devices, Frodo would have been happy
to hand the ring over, lock, stock, and destiny). Eowyn's. (While
she didn't drive events AT Mount Doom, they wouldn't have been
possible without everyone who fought on the side of Light. That's
what makes it such a great epic.) What about Strider? (A hero's
story within a hero's story, that one!) Without him, there would
have been no Fellowship.

> The problem with Good!Snape, particularly the Dumbledore'sMan!Snape 
> variety of that theory, is that it effect reduces Harry to a puppet.
> The really important choices, in these scenarios, are those that 
> have been made by Dumbledore and Snape.  Dumbledore, through his 
> awesome and far-seeing plan, and Snape, through his wrenching 
> sacrifices, have engineered Voldemort's doom by cementing a traitor
> at Voldemort's right hand, and Harry is simply the first domino
> that will set the process in motion at the final confrontation.

What awesome and far-seeing plan? What wrenching sacrifices? And who's
to say which choices are the really important ones, at this point?

Somewhere in the series I decided that, were I in Dumbledore's
shoes, Harry would have led a very different life--from the instant I 
got ahold of him (after the murders). But Dumbledore limited his
interference to planting him in his relatives' care (the most
appropriate course of action even in strictly Muggle terms) and
invoking a continuation of his mother's sacrificial protections. I
would not have limited myself during Harry's first year at
Hogwarts to passing James's Invisibility Cloak to Harry with a 
suggestion he "Use it well," made the only exemption allowed
The Boy Who Lived an opportunity to play on the Quidditch team a 
year earlier than the rules specified, and I certainly would not have
restrained myself to give only advice regarding the Mirror of Erised.
I would have been directing Harry's every move pretty much
outright long before Dumbledore's hints to Harry and Hermione that
Sirius Black and Buckbeak could be saved. And I certainly would not
have allowed Harry to bumble and bungle his way through the Triwizard
Tournament (international relations be damned). As a matter of fact,
I'd have renewed a "homing beacon" charm on Harry
regularly so that he would never truly be out of my reach; events in
the graveyard would have had to happen without Harry's blood. I
would have made sure that Harry knew in his fifth year that my
unwillingness to so much as look at him had some meaning beyond what
he might imagine. All in all, it seems to me that Dumbledore has bent
over backwards to AVOID making a puppet of Harry.

As for Snape, well, HE signed up for a lifetime membership in a
murderous gang, then bailed. Dumbledore provided him with an
unassailable character reference with the MoM, saving him from prison
(where he'd be likely to be murdered by loyal DE's) and actual
physical refuge as well as a livelihood. Pretending to be
Voldemort's man while being Dumbledore's man was about the
only "viable" course of action left to Severus Snape, IMO,
unless we want to postulate that he could have gone into the
"we'll make them think you're dead" protection
program. (What do you want to bet, though, that the Dark Mark
functions a lot like the homing beacon I'd have fixed Harry up
with?)

> Consider, in order for Dumbledore'sMan!Snape to be true, Harry will 
> have never REALLY been alone.  He would have always been supported, 
> even at the final moment, by Superspy!Snape.  In order for this to 
> be true, Harry's choices have never really been the crucial steps 
> leading to the defeat of Voldemort, they are mearly variables in 
> Dumbledore's grand plan.  Furthermore, it means that the entire 
> scene atop the tower was a play for Harry's benefit, reducing him to
> a credulous dupe led astray by his own prejudices.

Was Snape present when HRH got past the protections around the Stone?
Was he there in the Chamber of Secrets? We know he was no help in
rescuing Sirius and Buckbeak, or we have been reading VERY different
books from what we've assumed. Did Snape help Harry get through
the Triwizard tasks? Face the resurrected Voldemort, fresh out of the
pot? What about the dementors in Little Whinging, was he helping
there? Where was he when Harry was leading his classmates and friends
on the raid at the MoM?

There have been about eleven posted scenarios about what really
happened on the tower, and only one of them suggested that the scene
on the tower was anything to do with manipulating Harry. I must be
missing big chunks of your argument, because I just don't see this at
all.

While HBP is the first book where every page (aside from the first
chapter of PS/SS) wasn't dependent on Harry's POV, and HBP is
the first book whose title did not refer to someone or something first
introduced within its pages, neither of these things, IMO, indicates
to me that this is in danger of not being Harry's story anymore.

> lupinlore:
> I have to confess that I agree with Eggplant in finding this
> outcome  contrived, poorly written, and just plain silly.  It would
> also be very, very boring -- Harry was wrong about Snape yet again,
> how terribly original of JKR.  

I am perplexed that you are so certain that it can't be done, and
done well. Do you plan to refrain from reading the final volume until
someone you trust has a chance to do so and let you know if it's
worth it? For all we know, the Founders may reappear, climbing back
out of the Sorting Hat, and "sort" everything out in some
sort of enormous, four-way deux ex machina. While I have a hard time
imagining how *that* could come about without being extremely
what-you-said, JKR may very well be capable of doing even that in a
way which leaves readers satisfied. (I didn't start reading HP
until after PoA came out, because I couldn't imagine "an
orphan in a world where magic is real" being a description of any
story I wouldn't find stilted, sickly sweet, and about as deep as
a postage stamp. Surprise, surprise! A sufficiency of my friends
finally vouched for HP, and the rest is part of my personal history.)

> lupinlore:
> Now, just because it's Harry's story doesn't mean other characters 
> can't change and make effective choices.  In fact, one of my 
> arguments with JKR to this point is that she has been so VERY
> wedded to the standard formula that she has missed a lot of 
> interesting possibilities in this regard.  But those choices can't 
> be allowed to undercut the Hero's status, and Dumbledore'sMan!Snape 
> would do exactly that.  If JKR goes in that direction of 
> undercutting the Hero's Journey formula, I would have been much more
> impressed had she kept Sirius alive to give Harry love and support 
> -- that at least would have been a refreshing and pleasant change of
> pace.  Dumbledore'sMan!Snape would just be forced and preachy.

I think that one conflict we will see in Book 7 will be Harry's
struggle with his hatred of Snape. I think it will "dog" him
throughout the final volume, but that he will not readily question his
choice to feel for Snape all the hatred he believes Snape deserves.
While Harry is the Hero, he is a hero the wise and kindly
wizard-mentor already reminded again and again that the most special
and important thing about him was how much he was loved and that he
could love. I think Harry will have to let go of his hatred of Snape
without any evidence that Snape is deserving; handily for my theory,
this would comprise part of the books' becoming "less
secular"--in that the greatest love in Christian theology is one
which *no one* is deserving of.

While it might be inherently "preachy," whether or not it is
"forced" will depend on the writing. JKR has proven herself
already capable of unbelievable things. And I'm not a proponent of
Christian theology, yet such a "preachy" outcome does not disturb me
unduly. The books have already been fairly preachy, IMO.

> lady.indigo:
><snip> 
> I think a lot of Snape's continuing problems have to do with Harry 
> being an utter idiot towards and about him. The instant he 
> discovered that his father was a lot of things that Snape had always
> claimed he was, Lupin's "well, we were very young then" nonsense or
> no, the *first thing* Harry should have done was gone to Snape and 
> both apologized about poking into his very private things and said 
> "What my father did was unforgiveable but I am not my father." It's 
> a lot of his own failings and pride that has allowed this 
> relationship to fester into something even worse than what he began 
> it to be. (Though Snape has a huge part in this too, certainly, and 
> I don't excuse his bitterness or cruelty towards all of his students
> in the least.)

I think a lot of *Harry's* continuing problems have to do with not
seeing beyond the hatred Snape has so efficiently engendered in him.
And I can just imagine the scene if Harry had done as you propound. I
believe Harry was actually prepared to say something at least vaguely
conciliatory to Snape when Snape became outright violent. (This is an
old argument; I was here for it after OoP came out. I am on the side
that says Snape's behavior towards Harry was and always had been
unconscionable and that Harry's response had been, erm, to be
expected. Otherwise known as deserved. See my previous paragraph +1.)

> lady.indigo:
> Frankly, up until now Harry has BEEN a puppet to everyone around 
> him, including Dumbledore, when it comes to the bigger picture as 
> opposed to the villain of the day.

> nrenka:
> I belong to a school of thought that thinks this line is 
> overemphasized.  Rarely is it that the text comes out and says 
> "This was actually all set up"; more often, this is an assumption 
> folded in by fans (particularly the conspiracy theorists--how is 
> the Safe House these days?) to explain things when the surface 
> explanation (things just *happened* that way!) seem unsatisfactory. 

Along these same lines, one of the things I find both charming and
maddening about the books is JKR's propensity for throwing out
things like the (actually nonexistent) "garroting gas" in
OoP. We get whiplash wondering what we are to take seriously: okay,
there is a vapor capable of killing people and no one is calling the
MoM in with aurors to track down the source in spite of the fact that
it *seems* someone has filled a school corridor with the stuff. Or
that Peeves lying in wait to push a bust of someone or other onto the
head of some unsuspecting student is just SOP and no one thinks much
of it, in spite of the fact that such an injury in RL would likely
prove mortal. It's one of the reasons the books work...and one of
the reasons they don't, sometimes. (Very much like life, IMO. I
may treat my upcoming full 6-book reread as an occasion to document
each and every time the books have counted on one hand on our
suspension of disbelief and gently mocked us for it on the other
hand.)

Sandy aka msbeadsley, well aware little of this is original