Could I be wrong about Snape being evil?

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 156595

Eggplant wrote:


> The fact that a man like Salman Rushdie does not think the idea of a
good
> Snape is ridiculous also makes me rethink my position.
<snip>
> I'm just thinking out loud here but what if not Harry but Dumbledore
> had inadvertently become a Horcrux, perhaps when he got that withered
> arm? That would mean Voldemort could never die as long as Dumbledore
> lived. I'm guessing, and it's only a guess, that suicide (self murder)
> would only strengthen a Horcrux, he must be killed by someone in a
> completely selfless act. 

Sydney:

Eggplant, you are not only a bigger man than most in your ability to
change your mind, you are also a GENIUS.  Maybe coming with a fresh
eye to the DDM!Snape point of view gave you an unusual insight, but I
think the D-dore-as-Horcrux idea not only clears a lot of stuff up,
it's also supported by the text.

First, D-dore does not say that the soul-bit is destroyed; he says,
rather oddly, "the ring is no longer a Horcrux". So maybe HE now is!
Second, if I remember correctly, it's the withered hand he uses to
inspect the protective spells around the cave-- perhaps because of the
greater sensitivty to Voldemort's magic in that particular hand?

This could lead, by the way, to an interesting twist on the
Horcrux-quest, where Harry has to internalize more and more of
Voldemort until the final battle is some sort of crazy
goodKirk/badKirk psychodrama, which I confess I would find awesomely
cool. 

Anyways, in this scenario Snape and Dumbledore, at the start of the
book, would have a pretty clear Ole Yeller sort of crisis, where
eventually someone is going to have to destroy the soul-bit by killing
Dumbledore.  That makes the MOST sense of Snape's behaviour in
Spinner's End. He knows at this point that someone is going to have to
kill Dumbledore; he knows this is probably going to be him. Making the
Vow is not then either an emotional mistake or a flirtation with
suicide (sigh... bye suicidal!Snape!), but an acknowledgement of the
inevitable. Strangely, this jives with some anti-Snapeists opinion
that the obvious reason he took the Vow was because he intended on
doing it anyways!  This interpretation though has the advantage of
actually making sense, in that taking a Vow to kill a Dumbledore who
is ready to be sacrificied is not completely insane.

As the year wore on he evidently started to back out (the argument in
the forest, where Snape says he didn't want to do it anymore), which
is why D-dore had to plead with him when he arrived on the Tower.  But
the extreme set of circumstances on the tower resulted in him having
to go through with it after all to save Harry and Draco.

The only thing I don't like about this is that abandoning
suicidal!Snape sends me back to the ol' drawing board on the
why-did-Snape-want-the-DADA-job mystery...

Eggplant again:

>Snape had nothing to gain personally by
> killing Dumbledore, he did it because Dumbledore asked him to and
> because he knew it was the right thing to do. Snape knew that killing
> Dumbledore would eventually bring about his own death and he didn't
> even have posthumous glory to look forward to. Snape did a good and
> heroic thing, but NOBODY would ever know about it, not even Harry; a
> thousand years from now people would still use the word "snape" as a
> synonym for "traitor". Snape understood all this, he knew the price he
> must pay for doing the right thing but he did it anyway.  

Sydney:

*hugs Eggplant*  Oh my god, you GET it!  That's what makes the Tower
scene so gorgeous to lovers of Angst, who naturally overlap heavily
with lovers of Snape.


Eggplant:

> I won't pretend this theory has no holes in it; for one thing it's not
> very compatible with the hatred etched into the harsh lines of Snape's
> face when he killed Dumbledore. 

Sydney:

I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but the expression on
Snape's face is described as "hatred and revulsion", which is word for
word how Harry's emotions are described when he is force-feeding
Dumbledore the potion in the cave: "hating himself, repulsed by what
he was doing".  It's a deliberate echo.

Eggplant: 

>And for another it's very hard to
> understand why Dumbledore didn't tell Harry what was going on, if not
> before the killing then immediately after in a letter or something.

Sydney: 

Well, not telling people really important things seems to be
Dumbledore's fatal flaw... but in this case I don't think it's totally
mad.  Snape's cover as a spy is still extremely important if they are
to find the rest of the Horcruxes, and Harry can't know all until he
masters Occlumency, or he would risk blowing everything.


Eggplant:

> it is Harry's titanic hatred of Snape is going to distract him from
> his primary duty of killing Voldemort, and poor Snape will have enough
> problems without Harry swearing a lifetime vendetta against him. 

Sydney:

I know, isn't it COOL?  That's what makes the whole Snape/Harry
dynamic with DDM!Snape a STORY, that has movement, that has an ARC or
a change of direction.  I think this is why Rushdie sees good!Snape; 
IMO it's just the way a writer would think.  

Regarding the transcript and its various interpretations-- I think it
would be extraordinary if JKR let slip anything that would confirm
good!Snape, but actually I think that's just what she did.  I mean,
it's even more extraordinary that she accidentally revealed that all
three kids would live through the series, with her reply to who she
would have for dinner, according to the Leaky Cauldron:

"She was also asked which of her characters she would like to take to
dinner, and at first immediately named Harry, Ron and Hermione - then
when naming a fourth, paused and groaned, and said that the problem
with doing such was that she already knew who died (presumably in book
six). She went on to name Dumbledore and Hagrid, the latter seeming
like an "of course" answer that relieved her from giving something
away with the other answers"

This gives a huge boost to the theory that JKR's site's "Happy
Birthday" list is also a list of who survives, because she does seem
to like imagining everyone 'alive' now in the present day, as opposed
to a timeless fictional limbo.

Jet lag?  Personally I think she must be quite near finishing the last
book-- maybe she's already going through closure, which is taking the
edge of her secrecy.

-- Sydney