ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey? (WAS: DDM!Snape the definition)

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 162679


> Sydney:

> > -- Practical!Snape, who realizes that the only way Draco will not be
> > killed by Voldemort is if Snape magically lashes the two of them
> > together. 

zgirnius:

> I love the concept, but it does not make that much sense to me at the 
> time Snape takes the Vow. Yes, Voldemort wants to kill Draco, but 
> there are less dangerous ways to prevent this, which I imagine are 
> familiar to Snape. The offer Dumbledore made to Draco on the Tower, 
> for one. I would think that Snape was aware of that as a theoretical 
> possibility for dealing with the Malfoys' problem, and it is more 
> effective than tying his fate to Draco's.


Sydney:

Yes, but then he would have had to out himself as being on the other
side, wouldn't he?  It's like they're in the mafia and one of the wise
guys sidles up and says he can put them under witness protection.
Neither Draco nor Narcissa could know that the DE protection program
was on the table, without Snape either telling them himself which is a
dead giveaway, or someone else telling them and thus revealing that
Snape revealed Voldemort's plans to Dumbledore so it's still a dead
giveaway.  I mean, if someone came to Draco's bedroom in the middle of
the night and said, "A mysterious spy has told us that you're trying
to kill Dumbledore, and we're here to help...", there's only two
people that mysterious spy could be, and the other one is Bellatrix. 

Dumbledore can only offer it when he has Draco alone and actively
trying to kill him, for the same reason he wasn't able to approach
Draco privately at all throughout the year.  Because then Voldemort
would find out and kill Draco ("Why didn't you stop me?"  "Because I
knew you would have been murdered if Lord Voldemort realized that I
suspected you"), and in the middle of killing Draco he would realize
that someone who knew the plan told Dumbledore.

I know it's not airtight, but then neither is Dumbledore's explanation
for why he didn't try stopping Draco to be honest.  I think it's more
important to JKR though that she puts the characters through the mill,
than that all other logical possiblities are exhausted
(*cough*triwizard cup portkey *cough*). 


> Sydney:
> > I really think it's necessary for it at least to have been discussed
> > as a possibilty for "Severus... please... " to make plain sense with
> > Snape immediately getting a handle on 'please, what'.
> 
> zgirnius:
> Alternatively, Snape's reaction to Dumbledore addressinghim on the 
> Tower is to approach him and make eye contact. 


Sydney:

First of all, I don't think Legilimency is a clear enough
communications medium to get that much information across.  It goes in
images, it's not like (AFAWK) hearing voices in your head.  I totally
agree there's Legilimency going on in that scene, but I really think
it makes more sense as a reminder, a farewell, and a comfort-- a
single image from their past perhaps-- than as this conversation that
suddenly happens from scratch.  It's not like they're staring at each
other for five minutes and anybody has time to think, "what's going
on?".  Snape only stared at Dumbledore for a *moment*.    

Plus, Dumbledore goes directly into the pleading.  Pleading just seems
like a really unusual tone for him, and I think he would only use it
if he was actually mostly sure that Snape would *not* do what he was
asking him to do. 

The whole scene makes so much more sense in terms of how quick and how
established and how transitionless both characters reactions are, if
this is a continuation of something they have both already discussed
before, and disagreed on before.  And we have a disagreement, a heated
disagreement already in the book, over something Snape 'promised' to
do that Dumbledore says he should do and Snape says he doesn't want
to.  I'm fairly sure JKR is going to give is this conversation (with
Hagrid and a Pensive, I guess), and that's when she can show
everything those characters were going through emotionally that she
can't show us now. 


zgirnius:

The emotional change in Snape could be a 
> reaction to an unspoken suggestion that is new (and unpleasant) to 
> him. Dumbledore sees the reaction and says 'please', and Snape kills 
> him. Works for me...


Sydney:

Actually, reading over this, I realize I have the exact same objection
to this scenario as to the "Dumbledore is suddenly betrayed" scenario.
 There's just no transition at all in either of them.  Snape's face
goes maybe from 'whu..' to 'hatred and revulsion', but we don't even
see it change onscreen (I think he was already dreading exactly what
D-dore was going to ask as he was pounding up those steps and had the
expression ready, as it were).  There's no 'take'.  He'd have to do a
'take' of some description-- an eye-widen, a start, a sudden tension,
spitting out a glass of water.. any kind of take, really.  Heck, even
a teeny little 'twitch of the hand'.  I'm not asking for huge cartoon
take.  Just any little authorial indication that there's anything
*new* here for these people.

zgirnius:

> Of course, this would mean there is no hard evidence of Dumbledore's 
> wishes (as a Pensieve memory of Hagrid, Snape, or Dumbledore of the 
> Forest argument would be, were it about killing Dumbledore.) It's 
> just the sort of thing the author like sto do to Snape, as you say.

Sydney:

A Pensive memory of Hagrid, of course, is exactly what I have in mind!
 JKR will let the question dangle for a *while*, but when she wraps
things up it's with a big bow, generally.  It's not like there's a
huge ambiguity about "Did Sirius betray the Potters to Voldemort".  If
we left it to some "so roughly here was my reasoning" explanation by
Snape about what was going through his head, how would the reader (or
Harry!) even believe him?   And I don't see how a Pensive memory lets
Snape off the hook in terms of juicy character torture, unless it's in
terms of maybe opening a possibility of him surving past the end of
the book.  Snape's hook isn't that he can't prance about in sunny
confidence that he'll be exhonorated, any more than Sirius' was really
that he hadn't cleared his name.  It's that he killed him mentor and
has to go make nice with Voldemort and crawl around in a pit of
despair.  I think that's enough to be going on with!  

-- Sydney