Evil Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154234

Sherry wrote:
> 
> I disagree.  It is time for Harry to take on his true role as hero,
and it's time for his judgment to be correct.  The torch has passed
from Dumbledore to Harry, and I think it diminishes him if his
judgment is wrong again.  It would be ironic, if after all these years
of everyone telling him he was wrong about Snape, and now he is proven
right.  It's about time.

Carol responds:
Hi, Sherry. I understand your feelings, but I think it's important for
Harry to grow and learn throughout the books, including the last one,
in which he will have barely reached what the WW optimistically
considers adulthood. He's learning to take the true measure of people
(notably Luna and Neville, based on their actions in the MoM) and
increasingly able to empathize with others (again, notably Luna and
Neville, and, all too briefly, Snape in the Pensieve scene). The book
is (IMO) as much a Bildungsroman as a heroic quest, and Harry,
starting out like all protagonists of the genre at Innocence, has yet
to finish his journey through Experience to reach Wisdom (which DD, at
approximately 150 years old, has long since reached). Wisdom is not
omniscience--the wise can make mistakes. But they're less quick to
judge others than young people are (including some adults who have not
finished their journey and may never do so, for example Sirius Black
and Severus Snape, both of whom seem stuck in adolescence), and they
have learned many lessons from long experience (as most older people
have done in real life, and which teenagers too seldom appreciate in
Western culture, IMO). 

Yes, it would be ironic (deliciously so, from my perspective) if Harry
is wrong about Snape, but it wouldn't diminish him, IMO. Learning that
Snape has been helping him all along, that Snape had no choice but to
kill DD and by doing so was following DD's wishes (exactly as Harry
himself did in the cave), would be one last posthumous lesson from
Dumbledore, the lesson that prepares Harry for the final confrontation
with Voldemort, his true antagonist.

If, however, Harry turns out to be right, Dumbledore will be revealed
as not only fallible but foolish, an utter failure as guide and
teacher and mentor, nothing but, in Draco Malfoy's words, "a foolish
old man." So much for "the next great adventure" and "what is right
not what is easy" and choices and second chances and all the other
lessons he has attempted to teach Harry. I, for one, will be very sad
if Dumbledore turns out to be a false guide who died for nothing (and
Snape turns out to be a cardboard villain and plot device correctly
interpreted by Harry from their first encounter in SS/PS). I'd much
rather have Snape be the means of teaching Harry a lesson in love and
forgiveness and redemption, not through his own goodness or for his
own sake but as proof that Dumbledore was right to "trust Severus
Snape completely." Harry can't continue hating Snape and seeking
revenge, falling into Snape's own trap, if he's going to defeat
Voldemort. And I can't see Harry forgiving Snape for revealing the
Prophecy to Voldemort (and being snide and sarcastic) if Snape isn't
on Dumbledore's side.

Carol, sincerely hoping that Dumbledore's judgment will be validated
and that Harry will have reached Wisdom, or something close to it, by
the end of Book 7