Harry's story , NOT Snape's

[Cathy Drolet]

No: HPFGUIDX 138991

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).

CathyD:
I don't see this at all.  I've said before that IMO Snape has already been redeemed.  He is an evil man, I have no doubt that he could be as evil as Voldemort, but back when he found out how LV had interpreted the prophecy, he made the choice to switch sides and went to Dumbledore in an effort to protect the Potters.  Did Snape switch sides because of his debt to James, or because of a friendship/love of Lily?  We don't know yet, but he did switch sides, IMO.  The problem comes in because Dumbledore didn't tell anyone else why he trusted Snape so implicitly.  A mistake on his part I am sure.  Now no one trusts Snape but he is still working for the Order doing the task Dumbledore set him to do when he sent him back to spy on the DEs/LV in the first war and again at the end of GoF.  All that remains is for the Order - and Harry - to find out the truth of the situation.  How they find out will be in JKR's quite capable hands.

I also don't think Snape is going to last far into book 7.  In all honesty I will be very surprised if he makes it past the half-way mark.  There will be, IMO, some small act of heroism and then he will die.  He won't be the hero and it won't be Snape's story.  He will do some small heroic task - like Ron sacrificing himself in the chess game - and then he will be gone.  And maybe that alone will be the thing that makes Harry see Snape for who he truly is.

I think what concerns JKR is not Snape's popularity as a talking point, but more that she sees women/girls like him and Draco as bad boys and think they can reform them.  Others have said this before me.  JKR, in one intervew said "I hesitate to say that I love him."  But she does love writing him.  I love reading and trying to figure Snape out, but I wouldn't want to be married to him, or even have him as a member of the family.  He is a treasure as a character.

<snip>
>>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.

Oh, I see Snape as the first domino.  He set the whole mess in motion when he passed the Prophecy to Voldemort.  He and Dumbledore have been trying to stop, detour and clean up the mess ever since.   And Harry has been a bit of a puppet anyway, hasn't he - as someone else more cleverly wrote than I ever could...but I forgot to snip their quote. 

>>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.

Harry has been alone on several occasions, right at the end.  I think he will be again at the end of book 7 - or whenever the final battle comes in that book.  As I said above, I don't think Snape's going to be around for "the final moment."  He'll be long since passed on to the realm of wherever Sirius and Luna's mother are.  I'll be terribly surprised if he *is* still around, let's put it that way.  

Harry still has all his friends, all the Order members...so at this point even he is not alone, anyway.  And Harry's prejudices have led him astray on more than one occasion through six books.  At least that's how I read them.

I don't think the scene atop the tower was intended for Harry's viewing at all.  Unfortunately the chain of events that got them there kind of dropped him in it.  I could almost hear Dumbledore sigh when Snape walked through the door "Oh dear.  Dear, dear, dear.  This will add more fuel to Harry's already vastly burning fire of hate towards Snape and he's going to need Severus's help before the end."  There was no intent, as I read it, for Harry to be there.  Dumbledore was sending Harry to find Snape and bring him to Dumbledore.  (I'm not sure how Dumbledore expected this to happen really, with the history between the two.)  Then there was noise on the stairs and something must immediately be done.  It was, after all, Flitwick who roused Snape to the fact that there were Death Eaters in the castle, not Dumbledore.  I'm quite sure that given the opportunity Dumbledore would have wanted Harry to be anywhere other than standing, frozen, invisible on that Tower to watch the final showdown.

>>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, on the other hand, think an evil Snape, fooling Dumbledore for sixteen years, on Voldemort's side as Harry and Ron suspected all along, would be the more boring plot.  It makes Dumbledore a fool - not just a man who makes mistakes - but an utter fool, IMO.  Evil-Turned-Good!Snape is more interesting as a character. It is our choices that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilites.  Harry isn't *wrong about Snape again*...he's wrong about Snape.  Once...continually...constantly...unceasingly and for no apparent reason in some cases.  He knows Snape did everything he possibly could to keep Sirius safe, in OotP, but Harry hates Snape anyway.  I can't tell you the amount of time I puzzled over Harry's pronouncement of "whatever Dumbledore said, he would never forgive Snape .. never..." Why?  Prejudice.

>>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 don't think it does.  Harry will be the Hero.  At the end it will be Harry and Voldemort alone, I expect.  Dumbledore'sMan!Snape (don't like that term, I don't) will already be gone and forgotten.  Well, probably not forgotten, but he won't be there holding Harry's wand hand.  Sirius would jump into the fray, not stand by and let Harry fight the battle for himself.  He couldn't stay behind in Grimmauld Place how in the world would Harry get to go on alone with Sirius still alive?  It's why they all had to die.  Harry saw it.  His parents couldn't protect him, not Sirius, not Dumbldore - I hasten to add, not Snape - he has to do it alone.  The are, or all will be, gone by the time it comes right down to it.

Nora
>>If you go and actually think about what we know 
for dead sure about Snape, peeks into his character, it's remarkably 
thin. 

Funny you should say that.  After my second read of HBP my opinion of Snape was so completely different to what it had been for the previous 4 or so years, I did a complete re-read of the whole series to see if my view held water (I think it does, YMMV).  I was amazed at how little there really is of Snape in any of the books.  Apart from sniping at Harry & Co. from time to time, we get very little real insight into the man.  We've all formed an opinion on what is just a little shadow in the background, comparatively speaking.  For the amount he has been talked about on this list (and others, too, I imagine) you'd think he had pride of place...someone we knew as well as Harry, Ron or Hermione.

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