Snape and Umbridge and abuse again/ Ending for Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162955

Potioncat quoted JKR:
<snip> 
> > MA: <snip> Has Snape ever been loved by anyone?
> > 
> > JKR: Yes, he has, which in some ways makes him more culpable even 
> > than Voldemort, who never has. 

Alla responded:
><snip>
> 
> Back to the quote, you know what indeed amases me is how this quote 
> gets discounted as IMO very strong evidence that Snape is not 
> necessarily loyal to Dumbledore.
> 
> If one does not pay attention to interviews at all, that is one 
> story, but since I do.... He is more culpable than Voldemort.... 
> rather chilling to me.

Carol responds to both:

Yes, but let's look at the entire quotation. You're overlooking "in
some ways" (not all) and the idea that having been loved causes the
culpability.

Now does JKR mean that poor ickle Tom Riddle wasn't culpable for
torturing smaller children at the orphanage because his father
deserted him and his mother died within an hour of his birth? That the
older Voldemort isn't culpable for murder and Horcruxes and
Unforgiveable Curses and recruiting Death Eaters to kill, torture, and
rob others of their free will? Surely not. Being unloved doesn't make
a person into a sociopath and murderer and sadist or Harry would be on
his way to becoming a second Dark Lord. Granted, Harry was loved for
his first fifteen months, but he doesn't remember that time, and the
Dursleys have treated him worse than Mrs. Cole and her employees
treated Tom. And granted, Harry isn't perfect, having attempted Dark
curses and not yet learned the lesson that Love, not revenge, will
defeat Voldemort, but he isn't seeking immortality through murder or
domination of the WW through terror and manipulation, and he has
prevented two people from committing murder rather than teaching and
encouraging and ordering accomplices to kill. But surely, that little
bit of love Harry experienced isn't the reason he's different from
Voldemort. It's his choices that make him different.

What about Snape, then? He was loved, at least until he was as old as
he is in the childhood memory of his mother and the shouting man who
is either his father or grandfather. But he was also neglected, as his
appearance as a teenager resembling a plant left in the dark
indicates. Did his mother, too, die, to leaving him to be raised by
unloving pureblood relatives? We don't know, but that would be a nice
Harry/Voldemort/Snape parallel. Still, however he was raised, it
doesn't excuse his wrong choices (mistakes, as Dumbledore calls them)
any more than it excuses Voldemort's (or Harry's).

What about "in some ways"? What does that mean? Clearly, Snape is not
"more culpable" in every way than Voldemort. And, of course, JKR is
trying not to give away too much about Snape. She can't say that he
isn't culpable at all, which would be contrary to canon, and she wants
us to think he's the murdering traitor that he appears to be at the
end of HBP--or at least, she wants us to have our doubts about him and
think that he *might* be as evil as Harry thinks he is. And, of
course, if he's done nothing wrong, he can't be a candidate for
redemption, whether he's been expiating his sins all along or will do
so in the end by some heroic sacrifice.

So what, exactly, has Snape done that makes him culpable, and how does
his culpability compare to Voldemort's?

Tom Riddle at eleven was torturing smaller children, stealing their
small treasures as mementoes of his deeds, and hanging rabbits from
the rafters. Severus Snape at eleven knew more hexes and jinxes than
most seventh years. (I'm assuming that Child!Severus wasn't using Dark
curses or he'd have been expelled.)

Tom Riddle at sixteen had opened the Chamber of Secrets to release the
Basilisk and killed a little girl using that Dark creature, murdered
his father and grandparents using an Unforgiveable Curse, and was
inquiring about Horcruxes with the intention of making more than one.
Severus Snape at sixteen was improving the potions instructions in his
textbook and inventing hexes and other spells, including one Dark
curse for which he later found or invented a countercurse.

Riddle/Voldemort recruited many Death Eaters, whom he ordered or
encouraged to do various evil deeds. Severus Snape became a Death
Eater but later switched sides and spied for Dumbledore "at great
personal risk."

Voldemort committed at least ten murders (Myrtle, the riddles,
Hepzibah Smith, the Potters, Frank Bryce, a female member of the
original Order, and Madam Bones) in person and ordered many more
(including Cedric Diggory and Bertha Jorkins, if he didn't kill her
himself). Snape murdered Albus Dumbledore in unusual circumstances
resulting in part from the Unbreakable Vow.

Voldemort tortured many people using the illegal Cruciatus Curse,
including Harry and his own Death Eaters. Snape spoke sarcastically to
his students, gave unfair detentions, and favored the Slytherins. He
also rescued Harry from a Crucio. We have not seen him cast, or
attempt to cast, the Cruciatus Curse.

Voldemort interpreted the Prophecy as meaning that he had to kill the
infant Harry Potter. Snape revealed the (partial) Prophecy to
Voldemort and went to Dumbledore when he realized what Voldemort
intended to do.

Voldemort has made at least five Horcruxes, possibly six. Snape has
made none.

Somehow, Snape's culpability, even counting the UV among his bad deeds
(and I'm not sure it belongs there), doesn't equal Voldemort's by any
stretch of the imagination. There is no question that Voldemort is
evil, probably irredeemably evil. Snape remains ambiguous, and even if
he is loyal to Voldemort (a remote possibility), he is not nearly as
evil as Voldemort, and he is almost certainly redeemable. 

What, then, does JKR mean by saying that because Snape was loved, he
is "in some ways more culpable" than Voldemort? I think it can only
mean that he knew what love was but rejected it by joining the Death
Eaters and revealing the Prophecy, whereas Voldemort committed all his
evil deeds without understanding that love was real and powerful.
Voldemort reallly believes that "there is no good and evil, only power
and those too weak to use it." Snape knows better--and evidently knew
better when he joined the DEs as a young man and revealed the Prophecy
to a man he must have known was a murdering tyrant. 

But Snape also knows the power of Love magic, both as it relates to
Dumbledore ("Oh, yes, he has been a great wizard") and in the Healing
magic he uses himself (the countercurses to Sectumsempra, the opal
necklace, and the ring Horcrux); Voldemort doesn't know or acknowledge
this power and holds Love magic in contempt.

What about the UV and the killing of Dumbledore? Are they more bad
choices for which Snape is "culpable" or are they the fruits of
earlier bad choices? It can even be argued that the UV is the *result*
of love, agape love for Draco and his mother, and the killing of
Dumbledore an act of sacrificial love and loyalty more painful to
Snape than the choice to die would have been. It all depends, of
course, on whether Snape is DDM.

All this is to say that I don't know what JKR means by her culpability
quote, but I seriously doubt that it means what Alla thinks it means.  

Carol, who feels more chills down her spine from Tucson's unseasonably
cold weather than from that quotation