DD's sacrifice and Snape sacrifice WAS: Love was Re: Lily's protection

[kchuplis]

No: HPFGUIDX 143680

Lupinlore:
> That would be fascinating and moving -- if Snape were the hero of 
> the series.  But he's not, and making the Tower Scene about Snape's 
> terrible decision and (implied) strength and nobility of character 
> essentially, IMO, tries to change that fact.  This is "Harry Potter 
> and ...." not "Severus Snape and his Redemption" or "Severus Snape 
> and the Kobayashi Maru."  
> 
> JKR has made great emphasis that the reason she killed by 
> Dumbledore and Sirius was because Harry had to face his 
> destiny "alone" (i.e. helped and supported only be his peers).  
> Making Snape a "superspy" or a "tragic hero" not only severely 
> undercuts Harry as the hero of the series, it also makes JKR 
> herself into a liar -- which I don't think she is (even if she does 
> sometimes get her details mixed up).


I don't think that makes Snape the hero of the piece, myself. 
Afterall, it isn't as though they need fall into each others arms at 
the end of book VII. It's possible for both Harry and Snape to be 
loyal to DD for different reasons. I truly believe Snape detests 
Harry, but there is *something* we don't know about why DD trusted 
Snape so much. Nor does it preclude Harry having to go on alone. 
Harry is the only one who can kill LV (I think that is quite well 
established now). It simply means that I can certainly see DD 
extracting this kind of promise from Snape. I can see Snape really 
*wanting* to protect Draco and *having* to protect Harry because of 
whatever binds him to DD. 

There was also the nasty little complication of him (Snape) dying if 
he did not protect Draco to his fullest extent. My guess on the 
unbreakable vow is that "protection" may be defined to trigger death 
by whatever the true belief of the parties involved were. We have no 
real proof (or maybe I missed something) that Narcissa really would 
like Draco to be a full blown DE. It was, perhaps, as much an act of 
self preservation as anything else. It was still a no win situation, 
I believe, and could still support DD trusting Snape rather than it 
being some underscoring of "Evil Snape". It seems to me, if Snape is 
really LV the second, that was a lot of overkill at the beginning of 
HBP with the whole Unbreakable Vow scenario. 

kchuplis