VA/H=Mx13+RP? Snape's Culpability?

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 147148

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> Of course for DE Snape it would be a natural impulse to pass the   
> information to Voldemort. I am just not getting how it makes him   
> less culpable. Yes, he did passed the Prophecy to his boss, but   
> the boss is the bad guy, REALLY bad guy, so if the argument is    
> something along the lines that Snape did not know  that the       
> murderous evil maniac will act upon the information that  the 
> child would be born who can defeat him, as murderous evil maniac 
> would act? I just don't see at all how Snape could not have known 
> that. I am NOT buying stupid Snape and I am also not sure how 
> Carol's argument fits into the picture at all.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Ah, but you are buying the mustache twirling bad guy, I think.  The 
thing is, the bad guys don't think they're the bad guys.  Remember, 
Snape was working for Voldemort while Regulus was working for 
Voldemort.  This was when Voldemort's popularity was at its zenith 
(per Lupin, IIRC) so this is when Voldemort was at his most 
charismatic and charming.

So Snape wouldn't have had to be full on stupid to not see Voldemort 
as a "murderous, evil maniac".  He just had to be a touch naive, and 
perhaps, a touch vulnerable.  Voldemort wasn't running around 
killing babies and eating puppies, he was fighting a "righteous war" 
to bring the WW back into its "glory days" or some such thing. (Per 
Lucius.)

Snape had bought the party line, as Regulus had.  It was only when 
you got so far into the inner-circle that the killing babies and 
eating puppies part of the equation became clear.  (I'm not sure how 
far "in" is, but Regulus was a Death Eater for a certain period of 
time before he learned of methodologies that turned him and his 
folks off Voldemort.)

And, as I believe Steve and Brady have pointed out, there was 
nothing in the part of the Prophecy Snape heard to suggest that an 
actual baby was involved.  It kind of sounded like a champion was 
being called forth, two equals meeting on a field of battle.  
Nothing shameful in that, nor in giving your side a heads-up that 
the other side already had.

Snape *was* culpable in falling for the "glory days" stuff.  I think 
he should have known better.  Especially as the son of a muggle and, 
as I suspect, a former friend of a muggle-born.  I also wouldn't be 
surprised if Snape didn't have twinges of suspicion that something 
was rotten in the state of Voldemort.  Hence his deep remorse (as I 
suspect).

*But*, this culpability *pales* in comparison to Peter turning his 
friends over to the butcher and helping bring their baby in for the 
feast.  Peter *knew* this was about baby killing.  And he knew he 
was setting his best friend up to die.  The only mitigating factor 
would be if he was tortured and broken.  And that's a slight bit of 
mitigation there, IMO.  Because Peter had to actively campaign and 
manipulate, I believe, to gain the role of Secret Keeper.

Betsy Hp