[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry IS Snape.

[Kathryn Jones]

No: HPFGUIDX 141351



> Lupinlore:
>  > No, I don't think it would excuse Snape in any way.  The end does
> not justify the means, and there are some things you just don't do.
> Killing a defenseless man, your mentor no less, in cold blood (or hot
> blood or lukewarm blood) is one of them. If Snape did indeed kill
> Dumbledore, and I have yet to see one single shred of evidence saying
> he did not, then I say his action is inexcusable.
> 
> Carol responds:
> Then you're saying that Snape should have let Draco and Harry die,
> along with Dumbledore and himself, letting the DEs (among them Fenrir
> Grayback) run loose in the school? How is that better than limiting
> the deaths to one? Not to mention that if Harry dies, the WW is doomed.

   KJ Writes:
      To me, this whole argument points out the difference quite 
strongly between "what is easy and what is right." In real life it is 
always going to be other people who determine whether or not the choice 
was correct. For some people, it is right to say that, for anyone faced 
with the choice that Snape was perhaps faced with, the only choice to 
make would have been to let things play out as they would have if 
Dumbledore had not been killed. What then occurred could be blamed on 
fate or mischance, but the person making the choice would be full of 
moral self-congratulation for choosing not to kill. He would even become 
a hero for choosing to give his life to protect his dying mentor.

      Snape could have stalled a bit, but to what purpose? No one was 
able to get up there to help. Snape could have attacked the DE's but 
probably would have died, as the UV had come to the moment of choice. If 
the Vow worked as we are meant to believe, Snape would have died, 
Dumbledore would have been killed immediately, Harry would have been 
freed from the spell and would have been killed or kidnapped. More 
fighting would have taken place downstairs, because the only reason that 
the defenders held back was because Snape was there. If things had gone 
poorly enough, Voldemort could also have ended up there, as he did at 
the MoM and the whole WW would have been over.

     As a result of Snape's choice, whether on Dumbledore's instructions 
or his own interpretation of the scene, Harry was protected and safe, 
there were minimal injuries, only one death that apparently would have 
taken place anyway, the DEs were immediately removed from the castle, 
Snape's position as a spy was protected and enhanced, the mission to 
destroy the horcruxes remains a secret, which it would not if Harry had 
been captured, and Draco was partially successful, which might allow him 
to survive his next meeting with Voldemort.

      So, if one looks at the results of the decision made, appalling as 
it  is, it is easy to see which was the correct decision, if not the 
easy one. If Snape was "evil" he would have let the DEs kill Dumbledore. 
He chose to do it himself and presumably make it quick and painless.

      These kinds of decisions are made every day in the medical field. 
If you have two candidates for a liver transplant and both are going to 
die without the surgery, it will be given to the person with the best 
chance of success. The older person, or the sicker person will not 
receive it. If one of the recipients is an alcoholic, his chance of a 
transplant drops to nil. The person who does not receive the transplant 
is condemned to death, but no one calls the doctor, who has to choose, 
evil, or murderer. Neither do doctors stall both patients in the hope 
that another organ might become available. This kind of delay, in the 
faint hope of not having to make the choice, would result in the deaths 
of both candidates.

      This is, perhaps, the reason that JKR wrote Snape as she did. I 
can think of no other character in the books who would be capable of 
making this kind of moral decision. The enormous contrast between Snape 
and Harry is Harry's inability to sacrifice anyone for the good of the 
cause. Harry already refused to allow the death of Peter Pettigrew, who 
became the one responsible for the return of Voldemort. This might make 
Harry "good" and a hero in the eyes of many, but his decision was 
obviously the wrong one in lives cost as a result.
KJ