Pensieve memories/ Cowards

[Unicorn_72 at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 123493



Eggplant wrote:
> 
> Yes, the slime who piloted the airliners into the World Trade 
Center
> were very brave and also very evil.
> 

Karen's reply:

Brave.humm..I don't know how it can be considered brave to hold the 
controls of a airplain to fly into a building and vaporize yourself 
and a bunch of other people. To me that is not being brave...I would 
consider that being an idiot...I guess it just depends on what a 
person considers being brave. But I can not give those people that 
did that any notion of being brave...its just not possible for me to 
consider them brave at all.

If we're talking about the character of the book though, Professor 
Snape. I can give a lot of reasons to why he might have taken out 
those memories in the occlumency lessons.  I can't really say I 
would not have done the same thing. If you can imagin yourself being 
humiliated in front of a whole group of people. Its hard to really 
say hay he's a coward because he didn't want Harry to see the event. 
Being afraid doesn't always mean your a coward. Now I know I'm give 
a defence to Snape, and we don't know what happened at the end of 
that memory since Harry was pulled out by the older version of 
Snape, so we have no idea how far the humiliation when, or if Snape 
got out of it and attacked back..we just don't know, That is 
probably the major problem here we don't know. I'm more on the side 
of feeling a bit sorry for Snape as EVEN Harry felt bad about the 
situation, though his was more that he was let down by his father 
and friends actions.

But I can't really say from my own point of view and my own 
experience that he was a coward. Being made fun of by people is one 
thing, being humiliated can be considered far worse. And given the 
situation, I can see that in some way Snape was just trying to 
protect himself from further humiliation. Imagin if Harry went 
around and actually told that memory to all the school...which I 
imagin Snape assumes he will. We all know Harry will not because we 
are reading the story and know his Character, but the character of 
Snape does not have the option of reading the truth, misguided as he 
is about Harry. This is his failing I think. But, I think all of us 
at one time or another have misjudge people...so...I'd rather keep 
somewhat of an open mind about all the characters really.

Now most of us, the people that feel sorry for Snape, or wonder 
about his character or even might not like him at all are hoping 
that in the end he will see the light. Though some of us are blinded 
by what we read and try to see only good in the character of Snape. 
I for one can see he can be a nasty guy, who has an attitude...and 
needs an attitude adjustment. I dont' think anyone would really 
argue his a pillar of angelic behavior. I really don't know if its 
an American thing..or just something that happens when we get older. 
I think its the case of the anti-hero. A lot of us have gotten to 
the point that Superman is...somewhat...lacking. We want a hero who 
has a bit more depth to him...in imperfection we find perfection. We 
want a Picassso, not a Michaelangelo. Through struggle and hardship 
we find ourselves..all that poetic stuff. But mostly I think its the 
not knowing, the mystery that drives us to all wonder about this 
Character and why he is the way he is.

Most of us don't wonder about the evil of Voldemort...ok..maybe some 
of us do. But I don't think Voldemort ever tried to save Harry's 
life...Snape has...so we are confused. Go Figure...(laughs)

But, if you want to use the 911 people as examples, at some point in 
there determination to kill people they could have stopped at any 
time and made a different choice on what they wanted to do....As far 
as a fictional character goes, its not up to them, its up to the 
writer to make that choice for them.
I imagin its why there are so many fanfics about these HP 
characters...minus the..really strange stuff. Cause I think we all 
know what thats about (haha)

So I suppose Dumbledore was right, its the choices we make in life. 
Odviously we can judge from what we've read that Professor Snape 
makes a lot of wrong choices in his life...We don't know all the 
reasons and hows and whys to the character. In the end, maybe he'll 
be good...maybe he'll be bad. We just don't know.

Now, if you've read all that your head is probably spinning cause I 
make a lot of twists and turns in my thinking. I hope I didn't 
confuse everyone too much.

Karen