Trusting Snape/Life debt again

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 149170

PJ wrote:
> Dumbledore says "Professor Snape could not bear being in your father's 
> debt... I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year
because *he 
> felt* that would make him and your father even.  Then he could go
back to 
> hating your father's memory in peace..." (SS pg 300 US - and
emphasis mine)
> 
> So, as I read this there is really nothing concrete to this debt
since the 
> man he owed it to is dead. We're told "he FELT" rather than he
owed... This 
> was one man's decision to rid himself of his Potter curse and not a 
> magically enforceable thing at all.   Dumbledore's "I do believe"
tells us 
> that much since if it were a magical reality he'd have told Harry so
just as 
> he did with Pettigrew.
> 
<snip>

> We are told that Snape had a life debt to *James* due to the prank
but we're 
> also being told that Snape *chose* to unofficially transfer this
debt from 
> father to son as a matter of honor... of sorts. (yes, I think Snape has 
> honor within his own personal moral confines)  So he actually owes
Harry 
> nothing.

Neri:
This objection depends on a distinction between a moral debt and
magical Debt. But we can't be sure what exactly this distinction is,
or even if JKR wants to make this distinction at all. In SS/PS we had
no reason to think that Snape's debt to *James* was anything more than
a point of honor. Did you think, when first reading it, that
Dumbledore was meaning anything magical by "he couldn't bear being in
your father's debt"? I didn't. Even the way Dumbledore speaks about
Pettigrew's debt in PoA can be interpreted as mainly a moral issue.
Potterverse magic in "its deepest, most impenetrable" is always linked
very closely with moral (or immoral) issues: the protection of love,
the protection of blood, Fidelius, the Unforgivables, the Horcruxes.
Do you see Snape taking a part (even inadvertently) in the death of a
person he has a Life Debt to and still getting off the hook in regard
to his orphan? What kind of lousy magic would that be??? 

Actually, I'd stake considerably more on this simple moral argument
than on some very convincing "clues". If Snape indeed had some kind of
a Debt to James, then he got to have a similar kind of Debt towards
Harry. In fact, this moral/thematic content is one of the main
advantages of LID!Snape over OFH!Snape. But if you want "a clue" –
here is one: Dumbledore had trusted Snape completely for 15 years
after James had died. He staked his life on this trust. If you don't
believe in LOLLIPOPS, how do you explain it? 

But I concede that strictly speaking it isn't completely
straightforward from Dumbledore's words that Snape owes a *magical*
Life Debt to Harry. Which is actually a nice thing, since at this
point the strongest objection against LID would probably be that it's
*too much* straightforward <g>.

PJ:
> Naturally I agree but why accepting "almost" everything?  What
exactly do 
> you think he lied about?
> 

Neri:
Oh, I was just exercising standard caution with my assertions <g>. Of
the top of my head I can't think of anything I believe Snape lied
about in Spinner's End, but I'm too lazy to read the whole chapter
again just to make sure.  

PJ: 
> I believe this to be the most critical question for OFH!Snape but
see no 
> reason for LID!Snape to worry about it since there is no debt owed in 
> the legal sense of the word.
> 

Neri:
Erm
 are you absolutely sure there isn't? I can understand a claim
that this debt isn't straightforward reading, but how can you be sure
it doesn't exist? Because Dumbledore didn't tell us outright that it
does? 

PJ:
> But he has to find a way to do it that won't alienate Dumbledore
either.  
> Engineering a way to make Harry at fault was brilliant but then I've
never 
> heard anyone say Snape was stupid. :-)  He played Harry like a
violin and 
> got Snape off the hook with both Dumbledore and Voldermort.
> 

Neri:
Personally I tend to think that leaving Harry alone with the memories
in the pensieve wasn't actually engineered (because it saves me an
argument with Faith) but it certainly came very handy as an excuse for
Dumbledore. In any case it isn't critical for the theory if it was
engineered or not.

PJ:
> So far I can't see any canon for a life-indebted Snape (other than the 
> UNofficial debt Snape takes  on himself) at all.  What I see is a
real good, 
> first class explanation of OFH!Snape's motivations.  ;-)
> 

Neri:
Thanks, glad to be of service.

I don't know if you'd call it canon, but LID explains several big
mysteries that OFH doesn't explain very well, like (as I wrote above)
why did Dumbledore trust Snape and why did Snape saved Harry from
being crucio'ed after Dumbledore was already dead.

> Alla:
> 
> But LID!Snape and OFH!Snape can coexist rather peacefully. Right, 
> Neri? I was so sure of it, but I don't want to misinterpret you.
>

Neri:
Well, I guess you can view LID as OFH + Life Debt, but I think this
would be a bit superficial. LID generally posits that the Life Debt is
the main key to almost all the Snape mysteries. In addition, the
predictions of these two theories for Book 7 are very different. LID
assumes that the whole Snape subplot has been a build-up for Snape
finally managing to save Harry's life and repaying his Debt in a
critical moment in Book 7. 

Neri