[HPforGrownups] Did Snape kil DD? WAS: Re: PoA - Snape knew?/

[Tammy Rizzo]

No: HPFGUIDX 143654

 


   _____  

From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com [mailto:HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Bart Lidofsky
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 10:02 PM
To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [HPforGrownups] Did Snape kil DD? WAS: Re: PoA - Snape knew?/


h2so3f wrote:
> 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. 

Bart:
It is not unheard of in war for a soldier to kill another soldier on the 
same side. For example, if the alternative is capture, and the soldier 
who will otherwise be captured has information which, in the hands of 
the other side, will cause many deaths on the side of the soldiers.

Remember, there's a war going on right now.

      Bart


[Now Tammy says:] When I was a young girl, my father, who was in Army
Intelligence, was constantly accompanied while at work by an armed guard who
had orders to SHOOT MY FATHER DEAD in the case of an enemy attack on their
base, to prevent his information from falling into enemy hands.  This was
during a war-time, and an enemy infiltration of the base (in Germany) was
not inconceivable.  The armed guard, whoever he was, would NOT have been
charged with any crime for killing my father in this very specific
situation, but would probably have been decorated for saving countless lives
by preventing highly sensitive intelligence falling to the enemy.  In part
because of this very fact, I've always been able to accept the idea of
sacrifice for the greater good.  In the case of the Astronomy Tower, I
believe that, no matter what side Snape may be on, his actions *did* in fact
preserve the greater good for the school -- it was far, far better for one
person to die, even if that one person had to be Dumbledore, than for
Dumbledore, Snape, Draco, Harry, and who knows how many other students and
faculty to die because Snape (dying either by the UV or by one of the DEs
killing him for being a traitor to LV) was not able to rein in the DEs and
get them out of the castle and off the grounds.
 
My father understood this about that time he had a sure death hovering
around with him all the time, and accepted its possibility, and kept working
in that very sensitive, dangerous job because what he did served the greater
good for our soldiers and our nation.  If the situation had ever come up (an
enemy infiltration of the base, requiring my father's death), I'm sure my
family would have been forgiving of the guard who actually pulled the
trigger, and proud of our father's sacrifice, though it would have been a
horrible price for us to have to pay for the lives of uncounted strangers
we'd never meet.  How difficult is it to believe, then, that Dumbledore,
too, understood this concept and accepted that his own death, in certain
situations, might be the price his school must pay for the lives of its
students?
 
I can not deny that Snape killed Dumbledore on the Tower.  He may have been
acting on pre-planned orders ("If it comes down to it, Severus, you'll HAVE
to kill me -- if I'm captured, it's the end of us all") or on his own
recognizance on the spur of the moment ("Oh crap, it's all going to the
dogs, and there's no way to save myself or Dumbledore from these Death
Eaters, but if *I* kill him before they can, then maybe they'll follow me
out of the castle without killing anyone else"), but the fact is that he was
able to get the DEs out of the castle and off Hogwarts grounds without any
students being seriously harmed.
 
Hogwarts and Harry have paid a terrible price with Dumbledore's loss, and
Snape did physically kill Dumbledore, but in actuality, the Death Eaters and
Lord Voldemort are directly responsible for Dumbledore's death, just as an
enemy action would have been directly responsible for my father's death, had
his guard been required to kill him.  I cannot hate Snape for what he did on
the Tower, though I do pity him for the burden he now has to carry
(Dumbledore's death).
 
Tammy Rizzo
ms-tamany at rcn.com


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