[HPforGrownups] Re: Prodigal Sons

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 140623

Mrsbeadsley wrote:

> The Order *could* protect James (although it failed before long)
> because James never went off and sold his soul to the bad guys! The
> Order protects Harry because its members have come to care for him and
> because he may be their last, best hope for victory, as well as
> because it's the right thing to do. Everything I remember says that
> Snape *volunteered* to turn spy in the wake of his sea change. There
> is no canon for anyone "throwing" him anywhere, and if that is how he
> feels, then he has yet one more symptom of lagging adolescence
> showing. IMO. Poor ickle Snape is never going to work for me any
> better than poor ickle Dudley or poor ickle Draco; I am not angelic
> enough to fight off the satisfaction I feel at seeing (at least
> literary constructs) bullies get some comeuppance. (And before anyone
> plunges fingers to keyboards in haste to remind me of MWPP, let me
> just add that there's never a second chance to make a first
> impression. And MWPP tormented a peer, not an inferior.)

SisterMagpie:

Actually, I can't resist pointing out not that MWPP bullied in one scene, 
but that in a post about the meaning of the Prodigal Son and how Snape could 
never be the Good Brother you're, uh, playing part of the Good Brother. 
That is, feeling satisfaction at the idea of Snape, Draco or Dudley getting 
their comeuppance--exactly what the Good Son was presumably counting on when 
his brother came home.  Instead he was welcomed back with a feast and a 
fatted calf for dinner. :-)

I remember pre-OotP actually describing Snape much the same way as Ceridwen 
is, actually.  Not as the Good Son, but by saying that I thought Snape 
probably resented the fact that he did lots of dirty work and all James (and 
later Sirius) did was die dramatically and was remembered as a great hero, 
especially when James seemed like he could be a real jerk to Snape.  At the 
time people thought that was ridiculous--how could James be a jerk?  But I 
thought the way MWPP treated Snape in the Pensieve was already laid out for 
us through the Map in PoA.  I guess within the scene it seems like they're 
sticking up for Harry against Snape the teacher, but I assumed that this was 
just the way they spoke to him all the time.

I wouldn't actually really see Snape as the Prodigal or the Good Son, 
exactly, because we don't know what kind of a relationship he had with 
Dumbledore.  Just as I wouldn't consider Draco a Prodigal Son in HBP--he and 
Snape might have only become potential "sons" at the moment of their 
potential conversions to the good side.

So while I don't know whether Snape would see himself as the one who 
followed the rules (he knows he was a DE), I think he does seem to have a 
feeling that's a bit like that, a feeling that James always got things he 
didn't.  He probably did, actually, being charming and handsome.  But, of 
course, that doesn't make it James' fault that Snape decided to be a DE.

-m