[HPforGrownups] Re: Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 148837

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

Nora:
>
> Trusting in Dumbledore because 'he's Dumbledore!' and not using your
> own critical faculty is dangerous.  It's the kind of obedience,
> because Dumbledore just *must* know best (because he knows the most),
> which generated a good portion of Harry's misery in OotP.  Dumbledore
> flat-out admits how badly he's mishandled things at the end of the
> book there.  And of course, Dumbledore himself has come to harm by
> trusting in himself enough not to share his thoughts or deep reasons
> with other members of the Order.

Magpie:
I lean towards wanting people to think for themselves too, but I don't see 
Harry's troubles in OotP as coming from trusting Dumbledore. Had he done 
that he would have not made the mistakes he made-he's not trusting DD 
throughout the book. In fact, he's so angry at him he's keeping things from 
him.  I seem to recall thinking Harry sometimes acted like a neglected 
girlfriend in OotP.:-)  The lesson to me seemed more that it was 
unreasonable for Dumbledore to expect Harry would do that.

One of the things that drives me crazy about DD's ending speech in OotP, in 
fact, is that while he starts off saying he's made all these mistakes what 
he then goes on to explain is how other people screwed up.  His mistake was 
in expecting too much of them. He knew about Snape's issues with Harry and 
Sirius' hating to be cooped up with Kreacher, but he thought they'd overcome 
those things if he let them try.

So in a sense I'd say a lot of the tragedy in OotP, unfortunately, comes 
from people not trusting Dumbledore and trying to go on their own instints 
when they themselves aren't making clear decisions either.  Molly agrees 
with DD to not tell Harry the truth--but I think that's in a large part 
because Molly herself doesn't want Harry to know the truth. The problems 
seem to come almost from people being in between: they don't completely 
trust Dumbledore so feel they have to act on their own, but they don't have 
the information they need so they do the wrong things.  Had they all just 
docily followed Dumbledore's orders thngs wouldn't have turned out the way 
they did in that book.  Would things have worked differently if Hermione 
hadn't just felt the boys should trust Snape because Dumbledore did?  I 
don't know.  It just seems like the lack of trust of Snape caused more 
problems in OotP.

The one time I can think of where the book makes a point of showing that 
Dumbledore doesn't know all is, imo, in the Draco story.  That, I think, was 
a situation where Dumbledore was ready to make the same mistake he had made 
in the past, where he knew everything about the situation but underestimated 
its affect on the person involved and so thought he could control everything 
in his hands-off way.  Harry did not know what Draco was up to the way DD 
did, but he instinctively knew to not underestimate him because he was the 
person who'd been put in the most similar type situations in the past, so 
luckily he had some backup ready when the DEs arrived.  It wasn't that Harry 
was right and DD was wrong, but that they both had blindspots in their pov 
that the other one covered.  I think before DD's death he and Harry both 
acknowledged the other was "right" as well as wrong.

With Snape, I don't know.  We've got, imo, evidence that DD makes his usual 
mistake with Snape in that he knows the story but can't really relate to the 
emotions.  Harry instinctively feels Snape is more of a threat, however 
Harry's instincts about Snape are the opposite of his instincts about Draco 
in that he just sees Snape as the enemy and doesn't really have an idea of 
what Snape's situation is like from his own pov.  He doesn't like 
empathizing with Snape, yet that's the insight Dumbledore lacks that Harry 
might have.

So...I don't know where it's going, exactly, of course.  I guess based on 
what I've seen I'd say Dumbledore is correct in his ideas of where Snape's 
heart lies, but has underestimated the emotions Snape is dealing with.  That 
seems Dumbledore's MO thusfar.  I don't see much coming from the idea that 
Dumbledore just fell for an act.  It seems like Rowling is more interested 
in this other kind of thing, where Dumbledore is right about Snape but still 
can't predict everything Snape will do.  Which means yeah, Snape could have 
changed sides at some point, but I have to agree with those who think that 
if this was Snape's big reveal as a betrayer of DD, it was pretty undermined 
and confused. Both sides think Snape is their guy, so there's going to be 
that deflating of expectations somewhere.  That we got this first makes me 
assume it's the second possibility that's the more interesting and the 
truth.  That is, if Snape's true loyalties are really a central question in 
the books, which they have seemed to me to be.

-m