Character "rescues" (was Re: What cultural standards ...)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 144717

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:
And I don't think JKR means for us to see Snape as 
> a child abuser.  >


That may very well be true, but what JKR intends very often isn't 
what JKR gets.  We are back to the Problem of Three, as I mentioned 
in another thread.  Snape, in my opinion and that of others, clearly 
IS a child abuser, over and out.  And making said child abuser a hero 
would be so abominable that the books would be useful for nothing but 
rather expensive compost.  Just as Dumbledore, in not intervening at 
the Dursleys, clearly WAS an accomplice to child abuse, at least 
before HBP and, possibly, if you don't buy into the "rescue" JKR did 
with him in Chapter Three, after.

JKR unfortunately often lets her story get away from her, and ends up 
sending messages she doesn't intend.  The chief example of this, 
which has been better analyzed by Alla than by myself, is 
Dumbledore's speach at the end of OOTP, where JKR seemed to be saying 
that, hey, child abuse in a good cause is perfectly all right.

Now, she didn't intend to say that, and thus her attempt to rescue 
Dumbledore in HBP.  Some people find that rescue convincing, 
particularly if you find JKR sending the message "Let's just pretend 
he didn't say that."  I fall into that camp.  Other people think that 
Dumbledore's lack of action with the Dursleys places him permanently 
under suspicion, no matter what JKR tries to do to extricate him.

So, will she try to rescue Snape?  No, because there isn't any way 
that anyone can claim Snape didn't know what he was doing and ought 
not to have known he was completely in the wrong.  So how will she 
handle it?  That is the subject of all the "karmic payback" threads.

Of course, there still is the problem of why Dumbledore puts up with 
Snape, which bids fair to make him an accomplice to child abuse yet 
again.  How will she handle that?  She has said that we have more 
explanation for Dumbledore's blindness and emotional mistakes yet to 
come, and I suspect his tolerance of Snape's child abuse will be part 
of that.


Lupinlore