Depth? Things to take on their face value (Was: Sirius' loyalty)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 139860

Responding to several posters here: vmonte, Pippin and Marianne.

Jen previously:
> And the chain is just beginning, the ramifications of Dumbledore's
> huge mistake would mount in Book 7 if Snape truly is working at
> Voldemort's side. If this one is true, the real redemption will be
> Harry righting Dumbledore's wrong. 

Vmonte:
> Isn't real life like this though? There is alway s someone else ready
> to come up through the ranks and take the place of the last bad guy. 
> Snape even talks about the Dark Arts as a many headed monster. Each 
> time a neck is severed, a new head sprouts even fiecer and cleverer 
> than before. Evil never ends. 
> 
> So, even if Snape dies in the end do you honestly believe that there 
> won't be someone waiting in the wings to take his place? 

Jen: Oh, I don't have a problem with the idea someone could turn on 
Dumbledore, be lured by the power of evil, etc. I meant more that in 
the case of Dumbledore making a mistake about Snape's loyalty, it 
would mean he put his students, his professors, Order members, the 
creatures and beasts in the Forest, & Harry in danger from the get-go. 
Dumbledore's life work to me was building Hogwarts into a santuary for 
everyone who crossed through there, whether pure-blood or Muggleborn, 
House elf or half-giant, able professor or prophecy-channeller. As 
Harry said, he was the great Protector. 

Scoff if you will, but I believe Dumbledore's tests for loyalty would 
prove harder to pass than Voldemort's. Voldemort has a simple strategy-
-"if I suspect you of disloyalty, and I probably will, I will keep you 
in line with pain and the threat of death."  Dumbledore would employ a 
much different strategy, something impossible for a truly unrepentant 
person to pass year after year. Look how quickly he discovered Harry's 
true loyalty! One year into Hogwarts and already Harry has proven 
himself when he looks in the mirror and wants the stone, but not to 
use it. Then in COS he calls Fawkes to him. I'm not saying DD set 
these up as tests, but he certainly noticed the outcomes. Snape could 
not be on-guard every minute of every day, walking around Hogwarts and 
never betraying his true nature. Meaning if his nature is evil, not 
that he is a horrible person, which he clearly didn't try to hide ;).

> Marianne:
> And the problem with this would be???  So, DD would prove himself 
> wrong and Harry will find a way to right this.  I don't see a 
> problem in the overall arc of the story.  Snape turns out to be an 
> evil bastard, or a man who is not evil, but ultimately falls to his 
> darker instincts/passions, and Harry, (the hero, right?) turns 
> Snape's mistakes, transgressions, sins, whatever, into a force for 
> good.

Jen: I actually agreed with your thoughts in a later paragraph not 
quoted--Harry is the hero and will save the day, no harm done. No, it 
doesn't have to ruin the hero story arc for Dumbledore to be wrong 
about Snape. Harry will still do what he needs to do, defy the odds 
and everything will be OK in Potterland. Why don't I feel comforted by 
that? 

Marianne: 
> I don't see this as a negation of DD's life work.  He's someone who 
> has valued people as individuals and recognized that society's 
> tendency to lump people into stereotypical groups is wrong.  He's 
> recognized that people may strive their utmost to achieve the best 
> that they can, and thay they may still fall short. He shows that to 
> forgive can be a lifeline to people trying to turn their lives 
> around. 

Jen: This is all true, too. I tried to address some of the reasons why 
I felt his life's work was something a little bit different in my 
paragraph to vmonte. Dumbledore's ability to value people as 
individuals and offer forgiveness and second chances was something 
that sprung out of his work at Hogwarts, it wasn't the work itself. 
Some people save others one at a time, but Dumbledore attempted to 
save the community by bringing together a disparate group of the WW 
elite and the WW outcasts and offering a place to live together safely 
and work out their differences. A betrayl by someone like Crouch!Moody 
or Umbridge, who came in for one year, is one thing. Betrayl by Snape, 
who lived and worked there for 16 years and was someone Dumbledore 
depended on to take the high road, not for him but for all the people 
and creatures protected by him, is quite another. The idea he rolled 
the dice on Snape for 16 long years and never once felt a hint of who 
Snape truly was is mind-boggling. Unless, as you say, Snape simply 
finally gave in to his darker side and it wasn't apparent until the 
moment on the tower. Which would be even more baffling.

Marianne: 
> None of this should be denigrated just because some of DD's projects 
> show themselves not up to the task. If some of the people he gave 
> second chances to proved themselves unworthy, the fault is with 
> them, not Dumbledore.

Jen: Oh no, I'm not blaming DD even if this scenario is true. At all. 
I'm saying what he worked for can now be dismantled if Voldemort truly 
has Snape at his side. Having the DE's infiltrate Hogwarts and put 
everyone in danger was merely the first step in a long process of 
tearing down what DD stood for, literally and figuratively. 

> Pippin:
> I think it will make things very complicated in the end to have
> Dumbledore be wrong about Snape. There will have to
> be a lot of  shoring up not to undermine the idea that people 
> are worth a second chance at trust. Is there any indication that 
> this teaching, among all the fatherly guff that Dumbledore hands
> out, is misguided? Well, Moody thinks it is, but his paranoia
> is not presented as something to admire.

Jen: The more I think about it, the more complicated it gets. And not 
just from shoring up the belief in people being worth second chances, 
but also from a plot standpoint. Think of all the information Snape 
would take back to Voldemort about Dumbledore, the Order, Harry, the 
Horcruxes.....and the list goes on. Unless Snape is not completely on 
Voldemort's side, and plans to use his superb Occlumency skills, he 
will be delivering every plan Dumbledore devised to Voldemort. 

I thought HBP did a good job of negating our previous glimpses of 
Voldemort as the supreme bungler. We see some pretty fearsome details 
about how Voldemort and his followers plan to coerce and destroy their 
opposition. To be in possession of Snape's information, with 
Dumbledore dead, and Voldemort *still* not be able to defeat Harry 
might look something like this:

"My Lord, I deliver to you a list of people who are currently defying 
you, knowledge that Dumbledore and now Potter are aware of and are 
attemtping to destroy your Horcruxes, blah, blah...." 

"AHA! I feel an evil plan coming on, one where I wait until Potter is 
about to destroy my last Horcrux, then I will surely trap him THIS 
time. Bwahahaha.....!" 

Actually, it could happen. JKR set up Voldemort's obsessional nature 
with the logical conclusion being he will defeat himself. 


Jen