Nope, no consensus on Snape / Snape a decent person, a hero, or somebody else?

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 142803

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Joe Goodwin 
<joegoodwin1067 at y...> wrote:
>
> > Alla:
> > > But defying casual evil does not mean that you were an evil 
> > > person in the first place, IMO. It seems to me that it is 
> > > not that casual if you turned to Grand evil first. 
> 
> Montavilla:
> > But you said "after such person realized" which implied to me 
> > that he (or any hypothetical person) might not have realized 
> > how truly evil the Death Eaters were when joining.  
> >
> > Joining it in the first place is a separate thing. <snip> 
> >
> > Why Snape joined the Death Eaters is ultimately less important 
> > than his conversion back to the side of Good.  If he did that, 
> > then he acted heroically.  
> 
> 
> Hi,
>  
> I'm new here but I have had this discussion with several people 
> and I think what is important is what Snape did while he was a 
> Death Eater. If he helped torture people then he is evil no 
> matter what side he tries to help in the end.
>  
> Remember we are defined by our actions and there are actions that 
> don't go away because you say you are sorry. Some actions can 
> only be done by an evil person. Until we get a glimpse of that I 
> don't think we can say either way.
>  
> Joe
>

What we know is that Snape is "no more a Death Eater" than 
Dumbledore is, and he has a propensity for "slithering out of action" 
according to a highly-placed Death Eater.  This indicates to me that 
if Snape had been physically torturing people or participating in 
other evil Death Eater activities, we would have heard of it by now.  
I can't see new evil being introduced in the 7th book.  He has enough 
helpings of questionable behavior and/or motivation on his plate as 
it is.

lealess