Did Snape kill DD? (WAS: Re: PoA - Snape knew?/)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 143633

Ch3ed:
> The morality of 'euthanasia' seems to get a lot of us heated, but
> we should remember that JKR prioritizes good intentions and doing
> the right things above doing things "right" in the HP series.
> Whether we like or agree with that or not doesn't have any say on
> JKR's writing. Harry had to break rules a lot to do much of the
> good he did (sneaking out to see distressed Hagrid, sneaking out
> to save the philosopher's stone, etc.), but he still shows time 
> and time again that he respects the rules (refused help from
> Bagman during the Triwizard Tournament, accepted his and Ron's
> punishment while asking McGonagal to not take points from the
> house in CoS, reminded Fudge that he warranted punishment for
> using magic in PoA, etc).


Jen: Wait, you mean prioritizes right things over "easy" things, 
right? ;) 

JKR did introduce a character into canon who appeared to be a person 
willing to sacrifice himself if he felt it was for the good of the 
community. Someone who believed rules are made by humans, are 
fallible and sometimes must be broken. Who asked so much of his 
friends that at times people probably preferred to be his enemy. And 
he happened to be on the tower. 

So I think it's safe to say Dumbledore would allow himself to be 
killed IF there was some reason that would be for the greater good 
and IF the person he had asked to do it was capable of carrying out 
the deed. 

But what Dumbledore may have been OK with and what society, even WW 
society is OK with, are two very different things. If Dumbledore did 
ask Snape either previously or with his pleading to kill him, he did 
make a choice to doom Snape. And the moment the words 'Avada 
Kedavra' passed Snape's lips, he doomed himself. He wasn't a minor 
feeling obligated to pour an unknown potion down his headmaster's 
mouth in an abandoned cave, he was a consenting adult casting an 
Unforgiveable in front of witnesses. Unless there are shadowy deeds 
left untold behind the scenes, he made a choice and it was the 
moment he took the Unbreakable Vow, not the moment on the tower.

JKR seems like a tough cookie, and her characters definitely make 
hard choices. She's the one who said she got where she is by hard 
work and luck. In a way, even though it hurts me to say this, I 
think both Dumbledore and Snape are culpable and she planned for it 
to be that way. (Hard for me to knock Dumbledore off my self-
inflicted pedastel is all, sniff). She planned for Harry to come out 
on top in the end and that he would not be helped across the finish 
line by the greatest wizard in the world, but by the least of his 
brothers and sisters--the disenfranchised, the enslaved, the half-
giant and the werewolf, the blood traitor and the Muggleborn. And 
yes, the former DE. 

The only way to get to that ending was to make it clear how human 
Dumbledore was, not in his trust of Snape, but in how much he asked 
and expected of others who couldn't deliver. Maybe the greatest 
lessons he taught Harry were from his own mistakes: Confide in your 
friends. Know other's limits. And biggest of all: Sometimes you 
don't know if the choice you make will doom the person in front of 
you or doom many lives in the future, but you still have to make it--
there's no wiggling out. It's not the ending I envisioned when I 
picked up HBP, but somehow the fairy tale went awry and it doesn't 
look or act like a fairy tale anymore, where the day is always saved 
and Dumbledore explains everything in the end.

It's a thought, anyway, right? Sigh. 


Ch3ed 
> I think if anything JKR is more mindful that rules and laws are set
> in the community's effort to protect its members. When a situation
> arises that the existing laws did not anticipate then it is right
> to break them if that is the only way to protect others. It doesn't
> seem right to judge the 'morality' of a novel (which is not trying
> to do anything more than simply telling a story) by a reader's own
> moral standard. 

Jen: I imagine JKR was astounded when the story in her head became 
not only a sensation, but a controversial sensation at that. 
Especially since in her own words she didn't intend to write a 
morality tale, didn't sit down thinking 'what will I teach today?' 
But once the phenomenon happened, once her story became part of the 
public domain, she did put herself into a position of being judged 
not only for the values in the story, but her own moral values as 
well. Human beings ascribe order to chaos, it's our blessing and 
curse.


Jen