What use is there in Dumbledore dying?

[huntergreen_3]

No: HPFGUIDX 133171

With all these theories floating around that Dumbledore and Snape 
arranged the death, and Snape is not really at fault, and it was all 
a great plan and all that, I have one burrowing question: what use is 
there in Dumbledore dying? 

There's plot-use of course, and it means something in Harry's quest 
and all that, but from inside the book, why would Dumbledore plan his 
own death? What would be gained?

And even worse, why would he plan to have Snape do this, and not tell 
Harry about it? The whole book is about him letting Harry in on 
Voldemort, and having Harry even help him with learning Voldemort's 
past, and figuring out how to kill him. Harry is the *only* person he 
took with him to the cave. We know that McGonagal didn't know about 
it, did anyone else (besides Ron and Hermione of course)? If no one 
did, or if very few people did, that means that he was taking Harry 
into his confidence, that he was *not* treating Harry like a sixteen-
year-old who doesn't deserve to know anything, and if he had planned 
his own death with Snape, that would be a pretty strong betrayal of 
the trust he had just forged with Harry through the whole book (and 
the series). He knows that Harry *does not* trust Snape, so if he did 
plan this whole thing out, then he is assuring that Harry will 
*never* trust Snape. There is nothing to be gained by that either.

I don't believe in the secretly good!Snape theories, not in the least 
bit. I would like to believe them, I really would, I liked Snape as a 
character before this, even would defend him, but there's no getting 
around the fact that he murdered Dumbledore. He said the curse (and 
we know he's very powerful, I have no doubt he could kill someone if 
he wanted to....and from the look on his face, he *wanted* to), it 
hit Dumbledore, and there's no blocking AK, Harry's the *only* one 
who has ever survived it. He's dead. As dead as Sirius.

I don't see what there is to be gained in Snape mantaining his cover 
when there's no one left to spy to. The Order seemed as shocked as 
Harry at Snape's death. And is a spy really worth the life of 
Dumbledore? Is Snape really more valuable than Dumbledore? 

I think that Snape knew what he was getting into when he made the 
Unbreakable Vow. Otherwise, unless he's ESE!, he shouldn't have made 
it. Or he should have made it, and broke it, and sacrificed his life 
for Dumbledore. 

Nora made a good point about this in:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/132944
>>There are any number of holes for ESE!Snape, which will be argued
over endlessly. But I like it, for a number of reasons:

It's BANG-y. Very BANG-y. And it's appropriately ironic. We keep
getting hammered into us "Harry is wrong, Harry's POV is limited".

This makes it much more 'woah' if and when Harry is really, really
right for once. Harry's intuitions, not this reliance on other
people or trust in dry analysis, are going to carry him through.<<

For once Harry is right. And he was, that was one of the points of 
HBP, since he was carrying on about Draco through the whole book and 
Ron and Hermione (who is almost always right) didn't believe him, and 
he was right. Dumbledore is failable, he's not a god, its possible 
that he *wanted* Snape to have turned to the good side so much that 
he believed it whole-heartedly when Snape's turn appeared before him. 
Dumbledore wants to believe the good in people. 

We'll never be sure though, until book 7.


-Rebecca / HunterGreen