High Noon for OFH!Snape

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 149427

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sophierom" <sophierom at ...> 
wrote:

> 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. 

I'd agree, but I don't recall ever having argued for Snape's most 
immediate goal being offing Dumbledore--I don't think he was waking 
up in the morning going "Wow, I'd really like to kill my boss 
today".  Then again, that is the American Dream...

I see the killing of Dumbledore as the outcome of the Vow, 
naturally.  What I can't discount is that Snape had his own reasons 
for taking the Vow which may seem suicidal or foolish to us, but 
beneficial enough to him for him to swing it.  Hence 
incommensurability.

> 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.

Opportunity...Draco will do something eventually, I guess.  But what 
he does get is *necessity*, and that's pretty uncomfortable for most 
theories of sweetness and light.

And because he gets something out of it, I suspect.  There's nothing 
to rule out that there's something more in it for him than just 
protecting Draco, which does seem to be an operative principle.  But 
it may well be something where he realizes that the two things go 
together, and offing Dumbledore is not a horrific thing to be avoided 
at all cost.  Snape plays it out as long as he can, but the Moment of 
Choice has finally caught up at the end.

> 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.

What I do wonder about, though, are the changes in situation 
throughout the book.  I see Snape as playing a dangerous game all 
through OotP and HBP, balancing two masters as well as his own 
desires.  Well, it's canonical that he can feel pretty strongly about 
what he himself wants, and the kind of game that he's playing is one 
which is hard to keep up for too long.

That's a long winded way of saying that the situation at the 
beginning of the book is not that of the middle or the end; or, if 
you prefer, people can change both their minds and what they want and 
intend to do. :)  (Literature would be very boring, I think, if 
patterns were always expected to hold perfectly.)

Now this is idle speculation, and I'll label it as such: does anyone 
think there was some sort of internal calculus going on here, where 
Snape was weighing Draco's life against Dumbledore's, but also in 
terms of what he gets out of each?  After all, by taking the Vow, as 
you said, Snape has committed himself to being involved in the death 
of either Draco or Dumbledore (or himself).  Someone's got to give.  
And this could fit with an OFH! who gets some benefit out of saving 
Draco, but also gets his freedom from Dumbledore.  That's 
speculation, of course, but there's some thematic legs behind the 
idea that Snape chafes at the bit.

-Nora knows that none of the competing theories can be remotely 
killed off by the others at this point in time, and thinks it was 
beautifully written to enable that