Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 148880

> > Pippin:
> > 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.

Nora: 
> If he now understands how Harry thinks, why is he trying to rub his 
> face further in it?  Is he equating Harry's actions towards Draco 
> (which he doesn't seem to even plumb in depth) with James and Sirius' 
> pranking during school?  That seems way off the mark to me, and it's 
> certainly not a constructive result.  No, this strikes me more 
> as "the cat is out of the bag--so now I feel free to point it out to 
> you at any opportunity possible".

Pippin:
Are you saying Harry didn't need to be punished? I thought his punishment
was very much an object lesson on what Dumbledore told Riddle -- he 
wasn't the first or the last young wizard to let his powers run away with him,
some magic is neither taught nor tolerated at Hogwarts, and those who
enter the wizarding world agree to abide by its rules or face punishment.
That was true for Harry, as it was true for Sirius and James, and it would
have been better for Riddle if had been true for him.

Actually I see Harry's actions very much parallel with James' and Sirius' pranking.
Harry may have used the curse in self-defense but he learned it because
he thought it would be fun to try -- he was planning to use it on McClaggen,
remember? And he hid the book hoping he would be able to use it again.

The damage he did was inadvertent but the carelessness definitely was
not. Harry did let his powers (or the Prince's) run away with him. 

Snape *didn't* tell Harry how much he was like his father when he was
scolding him for the fiasco on the train, he's no longer constantly on
Harry's case in class, and as I've said, the punishment of copying the
detention cards only works if Snape is sure that Harry will be ashamed of
his father's actions. Definitely not the attitude Snape had in OOP.
 
> 
> > 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.  


Pippin:
I think Dumbledore was being kind when he said that if Harry had
been told more, he would have known not to go to the Ministry. Voldemort
thought Harry had been told everything, and he still expected Harry to
fall for his ruse. But Dumbledore has many valid reasons not to share
all his thoughts and deep reasons with other members of the Order.


Dumbledore should have realized that Harry was ready to hear about
the prophecy, yes. But that was a tactical error, IMO, not a strategic one.
There *is* information that Harry simply doesn't have the critical faculties
to grasp.

For example, suppose Dumbledore trusted Snape for the simplest and 
most obvious reason there could be: because Snape served him
bravely and faithfully for sixteen years. Harry wouldn't accept it because
he has no experience of a commitment like that.  He might believe it if 
Fawkes backed it up, but put the cart before the horse like that and
Harry might never learn to recognize true loyalty.

Anyway, it was not only Dumbledore who cleared Snape of being a Death 
Eater, it was a ministry tribunal. To let Harry  to review the evidence and 
come to his own conclusion is in effect to put Snape on trial again -- why 
should Dumbledore allow it?

Similarly, Snape might have respected  Harry  more if he'd known 
the last part of the prophecy.  But to Dumbledore, it's Harry's power 
of love that  validates the prophecy, not the other way around. How could
Snape be expected to grasp that, when all he seems to know of
love is that fools wear it on their sleeves?

Finally, one of the reasons that Dumbledore is trusted so deeply is
that he respects the secrets he's entrusted with.

To put the blame for Dumbledore's failures on his need-to-know
strategy rather than on the emotional weakness Snape and others
highlight -- his desire to see only the best in people and his tendency
to underestimate their weaknesses -- is to take the story on a tangent,
IMO. 


Nora:
> I suspect there's been some kind of harm done to the cause by the 
> profound disarray which the white hats are in at the end of HBP.  And 
> they really are shocked there, aren't they?  I myself was a little 
> surprised at the depth of their dependency; I suppose that post-OotP 
> I had wanted to see the Order as a more engaged and equitable body 
> than that.

Pippin:
I didn't see disarray. The situation reminded me of  when President Kennedy
was assassinated. People were stricken and horrified, just as they are in
HBP,  but the world didn't come to an end. In the books, it doesn't either.
Dumbledore's funeral was organized and McGonagall met with her staff,
dealt with the Ministry and planned to consult the board of governors. 
Scrimgeour was his opportunistic self, but  still far better equipped to do 
his job without Dumbledore's advice than Fudge was. Harry hasn't got a 
very clear idea of how he's going to finish his tasks, but then he never has, 
and he's not panicked.

We don't know who (if anyone) has taken over as Head of the Order, but 
then Harry's not *in* the Order,  so why should it be anyone's business to
tell him? 

Pippin