Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 148822

 
> > Pippin:
> > I'm just asking how you think it would be more dramatically powerful
> > for the reader to see Snape to gloat over his betrayal when the
> > shock of his betrayal has had a chance to wear off rather than at 
> > the moment when it took place. I'm just failing to think of an 
> > example from literature or film where we see the betrayal in one 
> > installment and get the gloating in the next installment, two years 
> > later. 

Nora:
> There's always the BANG of JKR finally slamming the door on the 
> question of guilt. ;)  (Not the BANG you wanted?)

Pippin:
But the door's already nailed shut, as far as Harry's concerned. If
Snape is in fact guilty, all that's left of DDM!Snape is the pfffft of 
deflating expectations and the fizzle of extinguished hopes. 
Not much of a bang there.

Nora:
  What connects it thematically for me is that Snape 
> certainly does like to sit on some things, and pull them out at times 
> which he thinks they're going to do some damage.  That's how I read 
> the whole "See what a bastard your father and friends were" scene 
> which he gives as punishment for the bathroom.  It certainly does 
> nothing to help Harry realize 'what he's done wrong', but does smack 
> of attempted gloating after the fact. 

Pippin:
But how can it?  It won't be a painful experience for Harry unless he's
ashamed of what James and Sirius were up to -- one imagines that
Fred and George would be delighted to discover that their old Dad
had been in one scrape after another. What it bespeaks is that
Snape no longer assumes Harry would think his father was an "amusing
man." In fact, Snape's attitude towards Harry must have changed 
significantly since OOP.


Pippin:
> 
> > I suppose you could see that as twisted, but the thing is, he could
> > have used sectum sempra on Dumbledore, and if he's been longing
> > to come out as a dark wizard, why not? 

Nora:
> Because he wants to kill him dead? 

Pippin:
We're reminded in HBP that cutting someone, even with a blunt axe, will
kill even a wizard quite dead. Or do you think Snape doesn't know how
to cut a throat?


 > > Pippin:
> > But the whole "Snape isn't really remorseful, or he got remorse and
> > changed his mind later" set of theories is an argument from absence.
> > Beware  -- that  way lies vampires :)

Nora: 
> Eh, one dead Headmaster isn't quite absence. :) 

> If you admit the simple principle that there is now support for the 
> proposition, trusting wholeheartedly in Dumbledore is a little 
> dangerous and maybe even skeezy, almost everything else follows. 

Pippin:
Trusting Dumbledore is dangerous and skeezy?? Where do you get
that? Who in canon has come to harm by trusting Dumbledore?

Pippin