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

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 147318

Carol:
> As for the supposed lack of canon support for my position, I have
> already given the evidence, but I'll repeat it in condensed
> form.   
> 1) Dumbledore says that Snape could not possibly have known how
> Voldemort would *interpret* the Prophecy, which implies that the
> meaning of the Prophecy, even the portion that Snape reports, is 
> *not* self-evident. 
> 2) DD also points out that Snape had no way of knowing
> who the unborn infant was even when he understood how LV 
> interpreted the Prophecy.
> And 3) even Harry thinks that the logical thing for
> Voldemort to do would be to wait and see which boy appeared to
> present a threat rather than going after a baby. 

Jen: The way Dumbledore presented his case in defense of Snape has 
been reordered in the list above and I think the order is 
significant:

1) Snape had no way of knowing which child or parents would be 
targeted. He didn't know the parents would be people he knew. 

2) Snape could not have known how Voldemort would interpret the 
prophecy. This fact comes **after** the first explanation, meaning 
what Snape could not forsee was that Voldemort would interpret the 
prophecy to refer to the Potters. Any other explanation discounts 
the first fact Dumbledore presented.

I seriously doubt JKR is being vague here or switching back and 
forth between explanations because it's so crucial to the story. She 
wants Harry to know, via Dumbledore, that Snape's remorse is over 
the *people* Voldemort chose when he interpreted the prophecy, not 
that Voldemort intepreted the prophecy to be about a child.

If JKR wanted Snape's remorse to be that an infant was targeted, or 
that he gave Voldemort the prophecy information without thinking 
what it meant, *she would have written those words into Dumbledore's 
mouth*. Interpreting the words in any other way requires speculation 
about young Snape we simply don't have. I'm all for speculation 
myself, love it and have engaged in it during this discussion. But 
if you take away all of our speculation about what Snape knew, or 
didn't know, or what kind of person he was at that age, or how 
quickly he got the info to Voldemort, or whether Dumbledore is 
misremembering the situation because he forgot what it was like to 
hear the prophecy for the first time, the ONLY thing left is his 
words, the order he put them in and the reason for Snape's remorse.

Jen R.