Snape, honorable? (was Re: What would a successful AK mean?)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 143015

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, juli17 at a... wrote:
<SNIP>
>  
> This is also a reason I can't see OFH!Snape at all. His best 
> interest is served by dying a hero, not by living as a pariah.
> (Again I'm assuming with no contrary evidence that Snape  
> has no fear of death, nor desire to remain alive at any cost).


Well, you're making some BIG, and I think mainly unwarranted, 
assumptions.  No fear of death?  He would be a truly extraordinary 
person, then, and I think it's always a bad idea to assume the 
extraordinary.  Indeed, the burden of proof would be to show evidence 
that he IS extraordinary, and does not have the healthy fear of death 
that motivates all normal people, including Harry.  He certainly 
seems to have been pretty shook up by the prank, and that shows a 
very strong, and perfectly normal, desire to stay alive.  No desire 
to remain alive at any cost?  That would be more ordinary.  But what 
cost would be too high?  We don't know anywhere near enough about 
Snape to make that determination.

Why would his best interest be served by dying a hero?  I think one 
could argue, given a particular set of values and a particular 
understanding of the story's themes, that such would be in his best 
interest.  But are those Snape's values?  Maybe they are, but I'm not 
at all convinced.  Of course he wants to prove himself better than 
Sirius and James - but better in what sense?  Morally better?  I 
don't know that we've been shown that's his intention at all, at 
least not clearly.  Better in the sense of more successful?  Dying 
wouldn't help that at all.  And besides, Snape -- as many even of his 
supporters point out -- likes to enjoy his triumphs.  A dead man 
can't gloat, and I don't see Snape as the type, quite frankly, who 
would be very worried about what people say about him if he isn't 
around to enjoy it.

Also, Snape doesn't know he's in a story that possibly features 
themes of honor and sacrifice.  If he did, I'm sure he would 
recognize the tropes and act to bring himself into line with them.  
Being an oblivious literary character, however, he unfortunately may 
not act in his "best interest" as readers, with their quasi-godlike 
perspective, understand it.


> If he's ESE it could make some sense if he wants the power 
> Voldemort's rule supposedly promises (and if he's stupid 
> enough to think Voldemort will give it to him).

Well, if he's ESE then almost by definition his loyalty to 
Voldemort's cause is less than unconditional.  He admitted as much to 
Bellatrix, didn't he?  But more to the point, an ESE!Snape knows that 
dead men gather no power at all.  Evil knows no honor, and a heroic 
death would be the emptiest of victories.

 If he's DDM
> it makes sense that he made the sacrifice for Dumbledore,
> and as part of his continuing atonement for past crimes (and
> for his serious miscalculation in taking the UV at all). But 
> OFH, no sense.

It makes no sense only if you discount self-preservation as an 
important goal of Snape's.  OFH!Snape, as much as ESE!Snape, knows 
that a live villain has more chance than no chance at all, which is 
what a dead hero has.  OFH!Snape may well prefer a victory by 
Dumbledore.  He might, for instance, understand that Voldemort is 
insane and will eventually drag everyone down to destruction, 
including one Severus Snape.  But if the goal, or one of them, 
anyway, is to avoid destruction, then committing suicide by defying 
the imperative of a UV ain't gonna get it done.


 (And I do like GreyDDM!Snape, though I
> see him not as conflicted by his loyalties--which are squarely
> with DD--but by his own destructive tendencies, which prod
> him to act vengefully. 
>  

It does seem to provide very nice explanations for all sorts of 
things, doesn't it?  Of course, that doesn't mean it will be what is 
revealed in the end, but it does fit the available evidence nicely.  
Indeed, of all the Snape theories, it is the only one that really 
addresses the question of why Snape took the UV in the first place 
(and if Snape thought Draco's mission had something to do with Harry, 
rather than DD, then Grey!Snape makes for an almost totally 
convincing explanation).


Lupinlore