[HPforGrownups] Re: ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey? Snape with Lifedebt

[Scarah]

No: HPFGUIDX 162488

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?'.

Sarah:
I think I phrased that wrong.  I think that DDM and ESE are both the
easy ways out, and a waste of years of build-up.  However,
practicality is an issue and we do have only 800 or so more pages of
story to go.  I can't see Flip-Flopper Snape for precisely the reasons
you have laid out.  How would this information be conveyed to Harry?
He finds a diary?  We've been there and done that.  Snape lies on a
couch and tells Harry about his childhood and dreams?  I can't see it.
 So, I think the best compromise and balance between too easy and too
hard is to explain it with a previously-hinted-at plot device.

Sydney:
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.

Sarah:
With the exception of Lily, this all still works with what I expect to
happen.  Maybe Snape didn't fear consequences of the Life Debt, maybe
it just suddenly became very important to him.  My point is that
either way, I think the Life Debt is important enough to be a motive,
which negates the need for Snape-loved-Lily which only serves to
accomplish the exact same goals as the Life Debt.

If Snape loved Lily, and the Life Debt is also important, what would
Snape-loved-Lily accomplish?  More reason for Harry to want to barf
when he thinks about Snape?  I think he has enough.

Sydney:
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.

Sarah:
Well, by his own words he was happy to stay out of Azkaban and be in a
cozy castle and have a job.  I don't know if he likes his job that
much, but it beats prison.  It also placed him well to prevent damage
to Harry Potter, if in fact the Life Debt has been transferred.  It
was proactive and intelligent to get the spy gig before the end of the
first war, and to hold onto it as long as he did.

Sarah