The Needs of Snape's Redemption (was Re: Heroes or not)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 145360

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl at s...> 
wrote:
<SNIP>
> 
> "If you weren't insistent on living in your own little world, you 
would 
> have seen that I was working against Voldemort. You clearly felt 
your 
> little spying games were much more important than learning 
Occlumancy, 
> in spite of how important Professor Dumbledore told you it was. So 
I 
> gave up on that, and realized that the only way that you could be 
> convinced to learn your lessons was to make it personal. I 
couldn't 
> reveal what I was really doing, because you stupidly left your 
mind open 
> to Voldemort, so, in our last encounter at Hogwarts, I gave you 
clues to 
> what you needed to learn that even one as thick-headed as you 
would 
> understand what you needed to learn. I am, however, gratified that 
> SOMETHING I taught you managed to stick."



ROTFLMAO!! I'll lay good money that something like this is exactly 
what we WON'T see.  Not only would it be, IMO, so reprehensible as 
to lodge an enormous moral flaw at the very heart of the Potter 
books (making them nothing but kindling) but it would also fly 
directly in the face of almost every pattern JKR has established to 
this point.

Let's face it, JKR LOVE comeuppance, as Nora has often pointed out.  
It is the chief moral pattern of the entire series.  Now, I grant 
you that not everything is nice and neat at all times, but for her 
to flatly place a child abuser in such a superior position would, I 
think, be so fatal to these "moral" books as to complete defeat her 
avowed purpose of telling a "moral" story.

I have to confess I've never understood the appeal of Snape.  The 
man is a childish blowhard and an abuser of children.  But that he 
has such an appeal in some quarters is deniable.  However, that he 
does not have such an appeal for JKR is, I think, also well-stated 
in her interviews.  

Now, it is possible that we will see SOME speech like this.  But at 
the heart of the Harry/Snape "reconciliation/improved 
relationship/whatever?"  I very, very seriously doubt it.


Lupinlore