Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 148915

 
> > Pippin:
> > Are you saying Harry didn't need to be punished?
> 
> No.  It would have been nice to see a punishment which would have 
> actually made an impression on Harry as to what *he* did, rather than 
> setting the tone with statements such as:
> 
> "It must be such a comfort to think that, though they are gone, a 
> record of their great achievements remains..."
> 
> That's just snide. :) 

Pippin:
Of course it's snide, this is Snape we're talking about. :) But it might
occur to Harry at least subconsciously that a legacy of hexing people 
in the corridors is not a great thing to leave behind. He stops, no? 

> 
> > Pippin:
> >
> > There *is* information that Harry simply doesn't have the critical 
> > faculties to grasp.

Nora:
> It's profoundly infantilizing to do that, though, and that's part of 
> what I think one of Dumbledore's most negative aspects is--and why 
> it's appropriate if it helped bring him down, for it's an object 
> lesson in what not to do and a way in which the young hero can avoid 
> a mistake of his mentor.
> 

Pippin:
You think JKR meant  Dumbledore to be wrong when he said, "Youth 
cannot know how age thinks and feels." (OOP ch37) ? It's maddening,
of course, to be told that one is too young to understand something,
and it's wretchedly unfair when that's the case, but it is, from my
perspective, reality, and I understand that it's Dumbledore's reality too.


The most obvious reason for me, as a middle-aged person, to trust 
someone with whom I've had a working relationship for sixteen years, 
would be because I've had a working relationship with them for sixteen years. 
Harry's never had a working relationship with *anyone* for that long. 
I'm not infantilizing him (I don't think) when I say I wouldn't expect 
him to understand what it means to me. 

> <snip>
> 
> > 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?

Nora:
> Because there was never an allocution for Harry, one of the wronged 
> parties, to hear.  Dumbledore has been protecting Snape for years, 
> and refusing to allow anyone else to examine the evidence.
> 
> There's one parallel which strikes me as potentially meaningful.  We 
> see Dumbledore omit information, but very rarely do we actually see 
> him lie.  One place where we do is in the scene in his office in 
> OotP, where he outright lies to protect the students.  Could he have 
> done some of the same for Snape, because he thought Snape's remorse 
> and conversion were genuine, and he wanted to protect him?  Again, 
> I'm nervous with Dumbledore's position as sole judge, here.
> 

Pippin:
::looks up 'allocution':: Harry heard this in the pensieve:

Crouch: Severus Snape has been cleared by this council. He has 
been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore: I have given evidence already on this matter. Severus 
Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side
before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us at great
personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am.

First, Dumbledore was not the sole judge.
Crouch cleared Snape. Maybe Dumbledore hoodwinked him 
(though that doesn't seem to have been an easy thing to do) 
but if the evidence was not made part of the public record, then 
Harry has no more right to review it than anyone else.

If Dumbledore's real reasons for trusting Snape are an old man's
reasons, then to give Harry reasons that would convince him but
aren't the truth (in the sense that they're what Dumbledore and
Crouch found decisive) would be misleading.

Pippin:
> > How could Snape be expected to grasp that, when all he seems to 
> > know of love is that fools wear it on their sleeves?

Nora:
> I've never quite understood your poor damaged Snape.  He's been 
> around Dumbledore all of these years, is deeply loyal to him and 
> respects him and has this close working relationship, but he's still 
> this angry and stunted and none of Dumbledore's philosophy has gotten 
> through to him?  None of it has worn off, because the damage is too 
> deep?  That seems odd at best.

Pippin:
::grins:: We're even, then, because I've never quite understood your
poor damaged Harry. He's resilient enough to survive ten years of
the Dursley's bullying with no emotional caregiving to speak of,
he faces down Voldemort and his Death Eaters on their own 
ground, he laps up Dumbledore's private seminar on abnormal
psychology, cooly admiring Voldemort's technique instead of 
throwing up, but he's so fragile he can't deal with mean, nasty 
Snape 'cause Snape *hurts* him.  Geez, I hope the poor kid never 
gets arthritis...:)

As for my Snape, I think he's damaged in a different way than 
Harry. Because Harry is damaged, according to JKR, Harry is always 
aware of his feelings (to the very grave detriment of his attempts 
to learn occlumency.) The thinking and feeling parts of his brain
are mixed up. But he is starting to be able think about how he feels --
he seems aware, if dimly,  that he's using his anger at Snape to
push his guilt over Sirius aside.

Snape, IMO, is the opposite -- the thinking, reasoning
part of his brain and the feeling, hurting part don't communicate
well at all. Snape has a very hard time articulating, to himself or other
people, why he feels the way he does -- in OOP he can't seem to tell
Harry why he doesn't want to say "Voldemort"  yet he appears
frightened.  The best he can manage is that he's not a great wizard
like Dumbledore.

IMO, it's hard for Snape to reason his way to a change of heart, 
as you seem to think he should, because he can't manage to feel 
and think at the same time. Most of the time the thinking Snape is 
in charge, but when the feelings take over he seems "demented" 
(HBP) and "beyond reason" (PoA). He knows he's very vulnerable
in that state ("fools who wear their hearts on their sleeves") but he
can't get at his feelings to integrate them with what the rational 
part of him knows -- it'd be like trying to bite yourself on the elbow.

So, the rational reasoning part of his mind is redeemed and solidly
behind Dumbledore, (IMO) but the hurting feeling part still wants its
revenge for the bullying he suffered so long ago, and he can't get
at those feelings to process them. It might help if there were someone
who could mirror those feelings for him. I think that's a role
Dumbledore hoped Harry could play in Snape's healing. 

Dumbledore couldn't really help Snape there,  I think, because 
he was someone who's hard to bully. He couldn't know "how it
felt to be humiliated in a circle of onlookers."

He did know remorse, though, if what we saw in the cave is true. 
Knowing how it feels to feel so guilty that  you want to 
die,  he could both judge the depths of Snape's remorse and mirror it
back so that Snape could understand it.

That's something Dumbledore wouldn't expect  Harry to do, 
because Harry, with his pure soul, can't ever have felt that way.
Does that make sense?

Pippin