ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey? Snape with Lifedebt

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 162459


Sarah:

 It just doesn't seem likely to me
> that we'll get to see Snape's epic internal battle for good vs. evil,
> since the story is told from Harry's point of view.  So the shortest
> road is OFH.


Sydney:

I have to disagree with this.  The shortest road is either DDM! or
ESE!-- for precisely that reason, that it's both difficult and weak to
have a non-POV character making all sorts of off-screen choices with
complicated and conflicting motivations.  It would be like having a
plot where Sirius is going back and forth on whether to revenge
himself on Peter throughout PoA, or a plot where Barty Crouch Jr.
isn't totally committed to Voldemort in GoF.  The revelation of the
'true motivation' at the end should account for everything, without
leaving a window for, 'oh, in that bit where Barty takes Neville off,
what's that really about?'.  

I think Debbie nails the reason why OFH!Snape also feels out of
character-- he's given scenes where he's passionate, emotional,
self-destructive, vindictive, childish, and dutiful.  He's given a
couple of scenes where he goes into danger without showing any sign of
hesitation.  JKR's gone out her way to show a guy who is unusually
decisive, from taking a split second to head Quirrel off at the pass
in PS, to immediately saying he's ready to spy at the end of GoF.  I
mean, surely if she was painting a portrait of a guy who was weighing
the odds, JKR would have used this opportunity, or indeed *any*
opportunity, to lay in a hint of that colour here?   He certainly
doesn't get a single scene where we can say, 'ah, JKR's trying to show
us that this character is about self-preservation', which would be
easy enough to do and essential if that's how we were supposed to
understand the character.  

He also doesn't get any scene that would establish a goal or motive
that he's be out for himself *for*.  There are only a few things we
see him wanting in canon.  The DADA job, which is famous being so
cursed it's almost impossible for Dumbledore to find someone who'll
take it.  Vengeance on Sirius-- so long as he thought he was a Death
Eater.  And for his students to pass their exams!  There's a whiff of
his being pleased to be offered the Order of Merlin, but that's not
exactly consistent with him simply being interested in which side will
win.  

Don't get me wrong, I love OFH characters in fiction- Long John Silver
for example is one of my favorites!  But he's an example of exactly
how one *would* present an amoral, self-centered character.  He's
plausible and charming, playing up to everyone in case they might be
helpful, as nearly all intelligent amoral people are in my experience.
 It's clear what his vision of what he's out for is-- a big freakin'
pile of gold-- and he's moving consistently toward that goal
throughout the story.  Steerpike in Gormenghast is another fun OFH
character-- also plausible and manipulative, also clear what his goal
is, and all his actions further that goal until he gets there.  I
mean, if Snape is Out For Himself, what the heck's he been *doing* for
the last sixteen years?  He gets himself a job teaching grade school
and then he grinds to a halt.  If Voldemort hadn't been resurrected
there's no indication that he wouldn't be there still, teaching the
first years how to cure boils.  That's a mighty modest goal for a
charcter painted otherwise as being proactive and intelligent.

So, IMHO, OFH!Snape isn't in the book, ESE!Snape isn't narratively
possible, and grey!Snape is DDM!Snape with added water where I like my
characters neat (still not clear on the difference between grey! and
OFH!Snape, except that Grey Snape seems to reserve some mind-changing
for the final book where at least we can see it, but where it wouldn't
have been set up by all the books before).  



A note about the Lifedebt:  I've beaten this subject to death a few
months ago and have no wish to get back in that caucus race, but for
interest here's my life-debt theory:

I think the Life Debt magic operates like the DADA curse magic or
(possibly) the Prophecy magic.  It's 'cooincidence' magic, or what you
might call 'plot-magic'.  It doesn't actually *do* anything.  We
haven't seen a single effect we can pin directly on the operation of
the DADA curse.  It just seems to take on an authorial role, arranging
cooincidences of circumstance that interact with the afflicted
character's personality to producer a certain effect.  So, the DADA
curse wants a person out of Hogwarts in a year, and it just so happens
that Lockhart winds up casting a memory-charm with a wand he doesn't
know is broken.  Did it CAUSE him to act that way?  I don't think so--
he would have tried to memory-wipe the kids curse or no curse.  Ditto
Umbridge with the centaurs, she acted perfectly in character.  Lupin
just happens to miss taking his potion because he has to run off and
see if a guy he thought was dead twelve years ago turns up on the very
worst possible hour. The curse acts exactly like someone writing a
story-- how curses often act in our muggle world and what we mean by
being 'cursed'.

My theory is the "deep and mysterious" Life Debt magic works the same
way.  A person saves another person's life, and somewhere, somehow,
the savee is going to be invested in saving the saver's life back. 
Not through an electric shock or a magical compulsion or even a
theoretical debt, but by the magic of storytelling.  In Snape's case,
I would say the Life Debt got called in when James was endangered, by
endangering along with him the only thing Snape cared about--- Lily. 
So saving a guy Snape couldn't give a rat's ass about suddenly becomes
the most important thing in the world.  Sort of a finely-targeted
brotherhood-of-man thing.

With Pettigrew, he doesn't seem to give a, uh, rat's ass about
anything but his own little rat's ass!  So I assume in the last book
he'll act like a proper OFH! character and save Harry's life simply
because it might increase his own chances of survival, and not because
he suddenly gets a personality transplant.  Rather like Gollum
destroying the Ring.  I think this is what Dumbledore meant by Harry
possibly being glad someday that he'd save Pettigrew's life... doesn't
Gandalf say exactly the same thing to Frodo?  Not that Peter's now
under some kind of magical enslavement, but that what goes around
comes around.

-- Sydney, always remembering to control-C her message before hitting
send...