CHAPDISC: HBP 2, Spinner's End

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 142066

> 
> Meri: Reading this chapter the first time, my thoughts were: "Snape, 
> you bonehead! An unbreakable vow? My god he really is evil!" But 
> reading it twice there are so many double entendres of sorts. It is 
> almost like reading GoF knowing that Moody is really Barty Crouch, 
> Jr. You can see so many multiple meanings in everything, and since 
> we don't know Snape's motivations yet we can have all this fun 
> trying to sort them out. My second read through I was sure that 
> Snape was lying about knowing about "the plan" but he just 
> improvised to make it seem like he was more knowledgeable than he 
> was. 


Alla:

The funny thing is that I was incredibly annoyed with Snape at my 
first reading NOT necessarily because he took UV ( I mean for that too 
of course), but for some reason " spinned him a tale of deepest 
remorse" hurt my ears and eyes SO badly. I think I just felt so bad 
for Dumbledore, I suppose and I always imagined " remorse" to be 
essential part of Snape's character and mocking remorse just did not 
go well with me. I mean, it is possible of course that he was lying, 
but I am not so sure.

I think I agree with Nora now even more than I used to - there is SO 
little than we knew about Snape and everyone of us filled the blanks 
differently and when we did not as author imagined, when we learn more 
about how JKR intends to fill in those blanks, we get dissapointed.

I mean, while I am certainly NOT a fan  of the " man behind Snape's 
character" so to speak, I AM a huge fan of the character and I 
certainly filled many blanks incorrectly, I am of course not saying 
that I am correct in final predictions about Snape, I am only talking 
about what we know about Snape so far, but even this knowledge was 
enough to change my perception about Snape ( not as a teacher of 
course,that will never change, but as Order member).


Oh, and actually on my first reading I thought that Snape did not know 
about the task, because of him saying that he knows  the plan before 
Nrcissa has a chance of actually say anything, but these days I don't 
think so anymore 




> Marianne:
<SNIP>

> On a discussion of Snape on "The Sugar Quill" someone commented on a 
> potential parallel. Snape swears to protect Draco in a ceremony 
> sealed with fire.  Years ago, Sirius swore to protect Harry as 
> godparent in a ceremony which, I'm assuming, was sealed with water.  
> Is there some significance to those two elements? 

Alla:

Hmm, I don't know. Are there any potential penalties involved in 
Godparent's oath, if such exists? I mean, I understand that if 
Godparent fails to protect the godchild, he /she is not going to drop 
dead, but maybe some symbolic words are spoken at christening like " 
if I don't do it, I will be punished or something like that? I am not 
a Christian, so I have no idea.

As to fire and water , according to JKR fire is Gryffindor's element 
and water is Slytherin's element, so IF there is any kind of 
parallelism here, I am inclined to see contrasting parallelism ( 
Ceremony based on Love and Ceremony based on... something ( I mean, 
love could be a factor too, I suppose), because JKR switched elements, 
or maybe she did not have anything like that in mind at all, I don't 
know.

JMO,

Alla