Severus, Albinus and Machiavelli

[torigirl1976]

No: HPFGUIDX 133701

After I posted my post on Spinner's End I remembered
something I had read after book 4 came out.  It was
an analysis by someone about how Harry Potter has shades 
of Machiavelli's "The Prince"

So I dug out my copy of "The Prince" and I'll quote the
passage in particular.  It is from chapter XIX: On avoiding
being despised and hated. Warning:  This is long, but 
I felt the whole passage should be put up here as I think
this is where Rowling got her plotline.

"Considering now, in contrast, the characteristics of Commodus, 
SEVERUS, Antoninus Caracalla, and Maximinus, you will find them 
extremely cruel and greedy; in order to satisfy their troops, they did not hesitate to inflict all kinds of injuries upon the people; and all except Severus came to a sorry end. For in Severus there was so much ability that, keeping the soldiers as his friends even though the people were oppressed by him, he was always able to rule happily; for those qualities of his made him so esteemed in the eyes of both the soldiers and the common people that the former were awestruck and stupefied and the latter were respectful and satisfied."

Tori:  I would say that cruel and greedy does describe Severus Snape.
Also he did inflict a lot of cruelty upon his students which seemed
to be overlooked by his fellow staff.  He is also a wizard with
great ability, could his intelligence and potion making abilities have kept his colleagues from acting against him?

"And since the actions of this man were great and noteworthy for a
new prince, I wish to demonstrate briefly how well he knew how to use the masks of the fox and the lion, whose natures, as I say above, a prince must imitate."

Tori:  In Spinner's End Bellatrix kills a fox.  Is this a metaphor?

"As soon as Severus learned of the indecisiveness of the emperor 
Julian Julian, he convinced the army of which he was in command in 
Slavonia that it would be a good idea to march to Rome to avenge the 
death of Pertinax, who had been murdered by the Praetorian Guards.  And under this pretext, without showing his desire to rule the empire, he moved his army to Rome, and he was in Italy before his departure was known.  When he arrived in Rome, the senate, out of fear, elected him emperor, and Julian was killed."

Tori:  It's hard to say if Julian was Cornelius Fudge or Voldemort.  
Or if the command in Slavonia could be something about Karkaroff or
something he did while he was a DE.  The truly important part of the passage is as follows.

"After this beginning, there remained two obstacles for Severus if he wanted to make himself master of the whole state: the first in Asia, where Pescennius NIGER (Sirius Black), commander of the Asiatic armies, had himself named emperor; and the other in the West, where ALBINUS was, who also aspired to the empire.  And since he judged it dangerous to reveal himself as an enemy to both of them, he decided to attack Niger AND TO DECEIVE ALBINUS.  He wrote to the latter that, having been elected emperor by the senate, he wanted to share the honor with him; and he sent him the title of Caesar and, by decree of the senate, he made him his coequal: THESE THINGS WERE ACCEPTED BY ALBINUS AS THE TRUTH."

Tori: Or in Snape's case feeding Dumbledore a line of bull about
being reformed.

"But after Severus had conquered and executed Niger and had pacified 
affairs in the East, upon returning to Rome, he complained to the 
senate that Albinus, ungrateful for the benefits received from him,.."


Tori:  Shades of the argument between Dumbledore and Snape in HBP
about Dumbledore taking things for granted.

"..,had treacherously sought to kill him, and for this he was obliged to go and punish his ingratitude.  Then he went to find him in France and took both his state and his life."

Tori:  So if we all had paid a little more attention to Machiavelli
we would have seen this coming. Or at least more attention to the
uknown fan who first predicted this using "The Prince."

I find it now more believable that Snape is for Snape and not
a good guy working for the order.  Nor is he really working for
Voldemort.  The question is will Snape try to get Voldemort out of
the way in order to gain power for himself.  That could be the real
reason he didn't kill Harry or allowed him to be killed.  He is aware of the prophesy(to an extent) he would need Harry to kill Voldemort for him then.  

This brings up another question, will the final show down really be
between the Half Blood PRINCE and Harry?


Tori