[HPforGrownups] Re: Who recruited Peter Pettigrew for the Dark Lord?/DD trust in Snape

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 154821

>> Magpie:
> <SNIP>
> A convuluted explanation
>> after the fact that Snape only acted to protect Harry because
> maybe somebody
>> might have been suspicious if he hadn't to me is like the author
> admitting
>> that she came up with fake scenes to create ambiguity when there
> was none.
>> He's acting not in response to stuff in the book but stuff that
> wasn't
>> written.
>
> Alla:
>
> Why? To me it makes sense that what author had in mind is for us to
> look back when we discover more and more information about character
> and reread it in the new light? Sure, maybe those holes will be
> filled NOT like we expected, but I completely disagree that it would
> be a cheat.

Magpie:
Yes, definitely re-evaulate with new information, but I think this goes 
beyond that.  If we had scenes showing that Snape was always being watched, 
that he was under suspicion generally, then I think it would be something 
we'd be right to consider.  Instead we have a scene where Snape looks like 
he's hurting Harry, and then it turns out he's saving him--great, that's a 
reversal that we re-evaluate.  Snape now has a reason to hate Harry (he 
hated your father and you remind him of him) and also a reason to save him 
(he hated you, but he never wanted you dead, he's anti-Voldemort).

Only then it reverses again seven books later adding a third thing that 
replaces a personal motivation (he's anti-Voldemort, he's pro-Dumbledore, 
he's indebted to James, he's guilty about the Prophecy, whatever) with an 
impersonal one (he's saving Harry just in case some unknown person mistakes 
him for the killer).

> Alla:
>
> YES, if one believes that Snape  does both things sincerely - hates
> Harry and protects him and he very well may be, but if one believes
> that those two things are not showings of conflicting qualities in
> Snape, but one main quality - his self preservation, then we have
> different picture IMO.

Magpie:
I think they're definitely conflicting things in Snape.  The problem with 
self-preservation, for me, is that this kind of self-preservation hasn't 
been shown the way the other two have.  Snape just isn't shown to be 
pressured in that particular way.  Snape's never under suspicion by anyone 
except Harry.  Not saving Harry in the Quidditch Match isn't even suspicious 
since nobody else does it.  If there's some reason that we learn for Snape 
saving Harry at the Quidditch match for an evil reason I think it has to be 
something where we can look back and see it happening in front of us if we 
re-read.  There should be something going on explained only by that.

-m