Did Snape owe DD a life debt? Was Re: Suicidal!Snape and the Curse of DADA

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 141965

 Hi Sarquel!  Thanks for playing..

Saraquel:
> There are parts of Sydney's post that I really like, but I do 
agree 
> with Colebiancardi's point that Snape has not been suicidal for 
the 
> past 16 years. 

Me:
I confess that I wouldn't have thought of automatically thought of 
him as suicidal (or rather, deathwishy) without my theory's need for 
it.  But I must say OFH!Snape instinctively strikes me as far more 
dischordant with the character we've met so far, who seems more the 
opposite-- a cut-off-his-nose-to-spite-his-face type.  I'll have to 
put together a bigger post for that though!

Sarquel:
>But no-one seems to have taken up the possibility 
> that if, as Sydney suggests and I can really buy, Snape was 
suicidal 
> after the prophecy-death of Potters scenario (add into the mix 
> someone's credible suggestion that Voldemort messed with Snape's 
> family and it makes it even more probable) then would DD saving 
his 
> life mean that Snape had a life debt to DD? 
> Snape would then be bound by two life debts to people in the Order.

That certainly seems plausible-- it could be even more poetic than 
you think, because in my wilder moments I expand suicidal!Snape back 
to the werewolf incident.  After all, Dumbledore says that Snape 
never forgave James for SAVING HIS LIFE.  If you say that a few 
times slowly an intersting meaning can emerge..  

JKR's promised more about life debts and the circumstances that lead 
to them, so this could work.  

Saraquel:
> Those 16 years which Snape has spent at Hogwarts, have been spent 
> unwillingly, IMO. 

Here we agree...

Saraquel:
 >Not knowing the terms of a life debt, it is hard 
> to know why Snape stayed at Hogwarts – whether it was, as he said 
in 
> Spinner's End, to escape Azkaban, or whether it was because he was 
> bound in some way to DD which allowed DD to dictate terms.  

Me:
Life-debts can't be that straightforward though- Pettigrew certainly 
seems to be successfully ignoring his.

Saraquel:
>what 
> he really wants (IMO – see my previous post) would probably be a 
> research wizard's post in the Dept of Mysteries – 

Me:
You know, I thought that too, until I was listening to OoP on tape 
the other day and there was the bit at St. Mungos.  And I was struck 
by two things:  first, the portraits of Healers are described as 
BRUTAL-LOOKING;  and second, they are prominently credited not with 
cures, but with INVENTING CURSES.  JKR suddenly has Snape healing 
people left and right in HBP, the same book as he shows up as a 
curse inventor.  I don't know if she wants to tie him in to St. 
Mungos past, present, or future, but it is food for thought.

Saraquel:
> In my mind, there is definitely a reason why Snape resents DD, 
which 
> pushes him to kill him at the end of HBP.  

Me:
But that's redundant under any OFH!Snape scenario-- Snape would DIE 
if he didn't kill Dumbledore.  Not a huge objection, but it's not 
very tidy.

Saraquel:
> Now we could consider the possibility that Snape knows that the 
> curse will get him as soon as he takes the job, but doesn't care, 
> because if it brings out the worst in him, that's what he has been 
> wanting to come out for 16 years.  All that bitter and burning 
> resentment being offered an opportunity to express itself. 

Me:
And that leaves us back with idiot!Dumbledore, who has this nakedly 
resentful, bitter, and OFH!dude, free of the life debt, and yet 
somehow he's still CERTAIN, he TRUSTS SNAPE ABSOLUTELY.  I know 
people shake their heads and say, oh, that Dumbledore just wants to 
believe the best in everybody, but there's a huge gaping difference 
between WANTING to believe the best in someone, and TRUSTING THEM 
ABSOLUTELY.  If Dumbledore's reason for trusting Snape was the life-
debt, why does he still trust him two hours before the tower scene-- 
Snape's winning personality(sorry for the all-caps, how do you 
italics around here?)?

Saraquel:
> OK, Spinner's End.  That OFH!Snape, having just escaped one debt, 
> would immediately tie himself into another, is a problem.  
However, 
> the one he is tying himself in debt to is the wife of the person 
he 
> really wants to see in the top job, in this theory.  The family he 
> is pledging himself to protect is the Malfoy family.  Maybe he is 
> not as much interested in what Draco has to do, as interested in 
> helping his friends survive. 

Me:
But why take a VOW?  He could just do his thing without it.  If he 
saved Draco, Lucius would be in debt to him, and he wouldn't have 
the whole dropping-dead thing if he failed.

-- Sydney, who likes her theories overambitious, melodramatic, and 
DDM!Snapey