Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[festuco]

No: HPFGUIDX 148951

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nrenka" <nrenka at ...> wrote:
> 
> If he now understands how Harry thinks, why is he trying to rub his 
> face further in it?  Is he equating Harry's actions towards Draco 
> (which he doesn't seem to even plumb in depth) with James and Sirius' 
> pranking during school?  That seems way off the mark to me, and it's 
> certainly not a constructive result.  No, this strikes me more 
> as "the cat is out of the bag--so now I feel free to point it out to 
> you at any opportunity possible".
> 
To me this makes clear that he does not understand Harry at all. I'm
sure Snape could never imagine that Harry would -not- find the scene
at the lake amusing. After all, Harry is just like his father. So what
he does here is make sure Harry sees James did this to lots of people,
in the hope that will make Harry see that James was a rotten bully. 


> I suspect there's been some kind of harm done to the cause by the 
> profound disarray which the white hats are in at the end of HBP.  And 
> they really are shocked there, aren't they?  I myself was a little 
> surprised at the depth of their dependency; I suppose that post-OotP 
> I had wanted to see the Order as a more engaged and equitable body 
> than that.
> 
Yes, I agree. I was especially shocked about how much out of her depth
McGonnagal was and how her first idea was that now the school would
close. No fighting spirit, no leadership there. I can't see her
convincing the gouvernors that the school needs to be open. She hardly
believes it herself. 

> I know many listies may vary on this, but I myself will be very 
> disappointed if it boils down to "See, Dumbledore was right all 
> along, and all you have to do (and what you should have done all 
> along, foolish child who thinks he knows more than he does) is just 
> trust in where he's leading you." 

Yes, that would be very disappointing. But it should not be about DD,
but about Snape. Apparently we have a bunch of people who did not
bother enough about their collegue and order member to form their own
opinion about him. He has his past, so they wondered and DD's trust
made them stop wondering. What kind of world is that, where mistakes
of the past haunt someone forever, only being stopped because someone
else says so? Not because people want to get their own opinion? To me
it would be equally disappointing if the outcome was "once a DE always
a DE" and everybody was right in assuming that without getting an
opinion about the man themselves.

Gerry