Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 148935

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> 
wrote:
>
<SNIP>
> > 
> 
> Pippin:
> You think JKR meant  Dumbledore to be wrong when he said, "Youth 
> cannot know how age thinks and feels." (OOP ch37) ? 

I, for one, do not think she meant him to be wrong.  But I don't 
think she meant for that to be a statement of something Harry was 
supposed to learn, but rather an apology from Dumbledore about 
something Dumbledore should have remembered.  There is a big 
difference there.

> 
> 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. 
> 

Not infantilizing, necessarily, I don't think.  However, I DO think 
that such a statement, without an attempt to explain the facts as 
much as one can and to lay out one's reasons OTHER than sixteen 
years, etc. is profoundly condescending.  It amounts to, "I know 
better than you so shut up and do as you're told."  And I think the 
problem with Dumbledore here is that he IS being profoundly 
condescending in this particular instance.  I don't think he MEANS to 
be condescending, but that's beside the point.  And I grant there are 
other instances where he is very much NOT condescending to Harry. But 
in THIS particular instance, condescension is Dumbledore's downfall. 


<SNIP>
> 
> 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. 

Well, I think you are right.  The problem is, that means Dumbledore 
is kind of like an idiot savant.  He's an absolute genius at some 
things, but at other's he's so strangely blind and downright moronic 
that you have to wonder if he hasn't suffered a series of small 
strokes over the years.  Now, as I've stated on other threads I have 
no problem with that, as I think DD is a moron in many ways.  But it 
doesn't match the image of DD to which many people want to cling.


> 
> 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.
> 

The scene in the cave is very interesting, all right.  But I'm not 
sure what to make of it.  Was DD expressing his own emotions?  If so, 
emotions over what?  Was he expressing someone ELSE's emotions?  If 
so, whose and over what?  Could they be Snape's emotions?  Wormtail's?
Did DD make a mistake and lose someone he loved?  Could this, as you 
say, mean that Snape's remorse (genuine or not) resonates with him 
profoundly?  Could this help explain his willingness to sacrifice 
almost everything else to guard against possible threats to Harry?

The last possibility is an interesting one, and it resonates, 
perhaps, with DD's mindset both after Godric's Hollow and after the 
events of GoF.  To look just at the last example, if DD does indeed 
blame himself for what happened to someone he loved, the events of 
Harry's fourth year must of have shaken him very badly.  He would be 
fiercely determined, almost obsessed, with regard to keeping Harry 
out of danger.  So determined, in fact, that he put Harry IN danger.

JKR's last interview focused on her fear of losing people she loves.  
Maybe DD is meant to represent, in some instances, an unhealthy 
response to this fear.  If so, it would explain why she says there is 
more to come on DD and that she hesitates to speak about it because 
it's important to the overall theme.  DD could represent a person who 
lost someone he loves and therefore reacts with an unhealthy 
determination NEVER to let that happen again.  Therefore he goes to 
great lengths to insure this doesn't happen, taking extreme measures 
like foisting a child on someone who doesn't want it, methodically 
witholding information from said child, and perhaps taking other 
actions we don't yet know about (for instance, maybe requiring a 
certain supposedly repentant DE to make an Unbreakable Vow to keep 
said child alive?)

Lupinlore