High Noon for OFH!Snape

[sophierom]

No: HPFGUIDX 149424

Sydney wrote: 
> > The taking of the Vow makes one thing very clear-- Snape is willing 
> > to die.

Nrenka responded:

> Really?  It could also imply that he's willing to do everything to 
> fulfill the Vow so that he himself doesn't die.  You do have a gap 
> there in terms of necessity.

Sophierom:

Really? ;-D  But if Snape was willing to do anything to avoid death,
wouldn't he avoid the vow in the first place?  He's under no
compulsion to make the vow. Indeed, if Snape's real goal is to kill
Dumbledore (for whatever reason - Voldie's love, revenge, etc.), all
he has to do is kill Dumbledore.  He doesn't have to take the Vow
(which includes the possibility of his own death) to perform the AK. 

Sydney wrote:
> > [Snape is] Not necessarily suicidal, but definitely not holding
his life at
> > a particularly high value.  Anyone who sees a way around this, be my
> > guest.

Nrenka responded:
> Sure.  He doesn't think that he could possibly fail in his task, so 
> the whole death thing is more of an idle threat.  After all, he's 
> been doing so well for so long, and has an eminently high concept of 
> his own abilities (and a fairly low evaluation of most other 
> people's.  Hubris is a dangerous thing, Severus...)

Sophierom:

Again, I ask: Why does he have to take the vow to kill Dumbledore? Why
does he have to take the Vow at all? Idle threat or not, Hubris or
not, Snape gains no new opportunity regarding Dumbledore's death by
taking the Vow.

Nrenka wrote:
 
> OFH!Snape may well *get* something out of this action with the Vow; 
> this is not an option which can be automatically dismissed, because 
> frankly, none of us have a clearer window than anyone else into his 
> psyche, because he's such a sketchily drawn character.  That's 
> deliberate.

Sophierom: 
I agree; we can't dismiss self-interest as a motivation for Snape
taking the Vow.  But I think it is sound to argue that his interest is
NOT in killing Dumbledore because he could do that without taking the
Vow. As others have pointed out, he could have let Dumbledore die when
 after the headmaster's encounter with the Horcrux/ring. As Dumbledore
tells Harry, "Had it not been for ... my own prodigious skill, and for
Professor Snape's timely action when I returned to Hogwarts, I might
not have lived to tell the tale" (HBP Am. ed., 503). 

Furthermore, everything in the book could still have led up to
Dumbledore's death without Snape taking the Vow. The Vow does two
things: it binds Snape's fate to Draco Malfoy, and it ensures that
either Dumbledore or Snape must die.  So, this leads me to conclude
that, if Snape is acting out of self-interest, his interests are
either: to protect Draco Malfoy (as Syndey has suggested) or to die
(as Sydney has also suggested). If Dumbledore's death was the only
motivating factor, Snape need not have taken the Vow in the first
place.