Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 148729

> Dungrollin:
> :: mind boggles :: You think sticking his fingers in his ears and
> singing loudly is typically Dumbledorean?! You don't think he would
> have tried to give Snape a little direction, perhaps some sympathy,
> somewhere? Are you really telling me that you think once Snape has
> told DD about clause 3, Dumbledore ignores him, sticks his head in
> the sand, and *never mentions it again*?

Nora:
As much sympathy as he gives Snape at the denoument of PoA?  (Sorry,
couldn't resist there...)

Dung:
Snape had not just signed his own death warrant at the end of PoA. 
He was being stubborn, and he was *wrong* about Sirius. He didn't 
deserve sympathy. In HBP everything that got him into the UV 
situation Snape did for DD and the anti-Voldy cause. He took the UV 
(in my scenario – which is what we're talking about, right?) in 
order to get information on Draco's plot – in order to help save 
DD's life. Do you not think it would be deeply ungrateful of DD to 
not even say "sorry I got you into this, mate?" You don't think he 
might feel just the teensiest bit guilty?

Nora:
Well, it's canonical that he's done some form of what one might
unkindly call denial in the past--unless you want to argue for Super
Overseer Dumbledore, who keeps a benign watch over everything, always
ready to intervene for the better.

After all, Dumbledore has let things to get to the point where they
are in any number of interpersonal relationships in Hogwarts.  He
leaves Hagrid to stew on his own, he leaves Sirius in the house
because he thinks it's the best option, he keeps Harry in the dark
because he's concerned about the poor woobie having to deal with
knowledge.  

Dung:
Again, in none of those situations was a character facing *death*. 
Except possibly Sirius, which is *why* DD kept him cooped up.

Nora:
I think Dumbledore *does* have a certain faith in letting
things work themselves out without stirring himself to apply overt
pressure: after all, he continues to let Draco go free when he could
have snapped down on him, precisely in the gamble to get the outcome
that he wants, the confrontation.  (One might include the end of
PS/SS in here too, letting the kids deal with it on their own.)

Dung:
Yeah, and at the end of PoA, he threw up his hands and said "Well, 
there's nothing I can do, Sirius is going to be kissed, I know he's 
innocent, but the alternative is making two under-age students break 
one of the most important wizarding laws by changing time, and I've 
only got a couple of minutes..."

In other words, I agree that he does, sometimes take a hands-off 
approach; but *never* when someone's life/soul is on the line. In 
PS/SS the second he knew what was going on he turned back to 
Hogwarts to save Harry. In OotP he questions Kreacher and hot-tails 
it to the MoM. 

Nora:
We're all playing with so many assumptions here, because your reading
of Spinner's End is just as vulnerable as Alla's: both of you need
Snape to be lying and maneuvering at some point or another, right?

Dung:
And you don't? *Any* interpretation of Spinner's End involves that, 
not just mine and Alla's, because canon *is not consistent*. And I'm 
not happy with saying "we just *can't* know for sure, so let's not 
bother thinking about it." I'm firmly of the conviction that JKR 
very very carefully weighed up all the evidence pointing to traitor!
Snape and DDM!Snape (I wonder what she calls them in her head?), and 
made sure that at the end of HBP they were as near equal as makes no 
odds.

I've never denied that I have to make assumptions – in fact I made 
it explicit. Perhaps you missed the bit of my post where I said that 
I was trying to prove my assumptions were more firmly rooted in 
canon than Alla's. You seem to be dismissing them as equally valid 
(or not) as any other assumptions, simply because they're 
assumptions, without even looking at the evidence I presented. 


Nora:
Or else he's got blood on his hands and he's not being good at being
dodgy.  Once we enter into that realm, there don't seem (to me) to be
good criteria for saying "He's *obviously* being skeezy here to fool
Bella, but he's actually not lying here."

Dung:
There's a good way of testing it. It even uses a modified version of 
the scientific method (minus replicability, of course, since we only 
have one lot of canon). You come up with a hypothesis of what is 
driving Snape's behaviour, and you try to predict what he should do 
under a given set of circumstances. If your prediction tallys with 
canon, then you're onto something. You can still be *wrong*, of 
course, but you can hold your head up high, and say "My theory is 
consistent."

Of course, nobody actually theorises like that (though they often 
seem more amenable to the method when attacking someone else's 
theory – or is that just me?), with the possible exception of Neri 
<waves at fellow sciencey types> but in principle it should work. It 
won't get you to the ultimate truth, of course, because, as I said, 
JKR deliberately made the evidence equal on both sides, so there are 
a number of interpretations/predictions which are internally 
consistent. I'm not *saying* there aren't other interpretations, I'm 
just defending mine.

Nora:
Umm, that's a tangent.  But I can see, as it seems some cannot,
Dumbledore making huge jumps and leaps which other people in the
series wouldn't make, and which other listies don't think of
Dumbledore as making.  For instance, I think things are going to tend
to come down more to this deep sense of trust with him, rather than
the hard-core solid proof many people think he must have had, of
Snape's conversion and remorse.  That's a guess, but I don't think it
can be ruled out at this moment.  It even has some very attractive
thematic features to it.

Dung:
Thematic it might be, but it's lousy as far as a good story goes. 
After six books of Harry wondering repeatedly *why* DD trusted 
Snape, you think the answer's going to be "well, he just ... *did*."

My mileage varies colossally, as you might have guessed... 

Dungrollin