[HPforGrownups] Re: High Noon for OFH!Snape

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 149449

Carol:
I'm not sure what she has to gain from it
> unless, as has been suggested, she wanted to protect her son from
> becoming a murderer at Snape's expense. (I don't see her as being a
> murderer by proxy since she didn't order the murder in the first
> place, but she's certainly an accessory to the crime.)

Magpie:

Just wanted to agree with this.  I didn't mean I thought Narcissa would be a 
murderer, just that she is attempting to take care of this for Draco 
herself.  The chance of her killing DD, she knows, are probably not much 
better than her son's, but she goes to someone she thinks has the ability 
and opportunity.  Plus Narcissa trying to kill Dumbledore isn't half as 
juicy.  Though I wouldn't put it past her if it came down to it.

Sydney:
You're fine with him taking Vows that he's not even sure what they're going 
to contain, that he dies
automatically if he fails them, because he's 'arrogant'.  Wouldn't an 
arrogant person say, "I don't have to take a Vow, I'll just do it, and I 
don't care if you need that extra assurance because I sure don't"?  Writers 
have to get into the heads of both nice and nasty people, and to date JKR 
has done an admirable job of both.  I'll bring up Bagman again, because I 
like him <g>-- he was arrogant to think that making a huge bet with the 
goblins was a good idea when he didn't have the
money to pay them back.  But we all know people who do this;  and, getting 
into his head a bit, I can even see why-- it was worth the risk to pay the 
debts he had already; if he lost he could put the goblins off until his ship 
really came in, etc. etc.  You can pretty
easily see how he could rationalized himself into it.  The version of 
arrogant Snape who takes Unbreakable Vows because he just assumes he
can do absolutely any old thing he's going to swear to, and he just ignores 
the 'dropping dead automatically' bit.. I'm sorry, that may ring true to 
you, but it doesn't to me.  But I don't have any real way to argue this to 
your satisfaction, so you may continue on your merry
way on that one.

Magpie:
Reading the different theories, I admit I find myself a little wary of 
arrogant!Snape.  Certainly the guy has arrogance in him, but when I think of 
him being brought down by arrogance it really falls flat.  He's always 
yelling about other people being arrogant--especially James and Harry.  Not 
that seeing a fault in others doesn't mean you can't be guilty of it 
yourself at all, but the thing is, James seems far more defined by arrogance 
in JKR's style.

James is so very arrogant in the Pensieve scene (and it's great--I loved 
James after that scene) and he's brought down by by Peter, his fanboy, the 
guy he underestimated.  Iirc, Snape yells about James not taking his advice 
abot Sirius as well--and Snape is wrong about Sirius there but may not have 
been wrong about James being arrogant or dismissive of him.  James' tragic 
ending, while not "deserved," is still a fitting ending to him.  He's a 
stag, after all--proud, flashy antlers, stately, beautiful...but at the 
bottom of it all, he's prey, a sacrifice.

Snape?  I just don't see that being his tragic flaw.  If he's made a big 
mistake here it seems far more dramatically correct and more Rowling to have 
it turn on his bitterness and resentment, not arrogance.  The type of 
arrogant Snape is is just so different than James', and the way it's 
described in this scene (I'll just take the vow because it's a challenge and 
I'm sure I'll succeed because I always do) reads to me more like classic 
James--the threat of death just makes it more thrilling (as opposed to 
Severus 'I COULD HAVE DIED IN THE PRANK!' Snape).  Snape more has the 
arrogance of the resentful geek, imo.  He knows he's smarter than others a 
lot of the time, but resents feeling he's overlooked in favor of the stars. 
I'm remembering him getting so wound up by Crouch!Moody suggesting 
Dumbledore didn't trust him.  It seems like Snape's always in that position. 
Doing something stupid to "show them all" I can see much more than taking 
this kind of risk since he already is insecure about how people think of 
him.

So yeah, it just seems like "his arrogance did him in" misses the heart of 
Snape, who so far has had to be so careful about how he behaves in order to 
survive.

He doesn't need to take the vow on any level, after all.  Not to find out 
what the task is (Narcissa is about to tell him and he cuts her off 
pre-Vow), not to show he's loyal to Voldemort (he's vowing to do something 
Voldemort expressly wants done by someone else, and it's not Voldemort who's 
telling him to do it), not to prove he's not loyal to Dumbledore for the 
same reason.  His hand twitched at the third provision, but he still doesn't 
have to take it.  He could just as easily say, "The Dark Lord has ordered 
that Draco do it.  I will not disobey him.  Nix on that third vow.  Moving 
on."  He's not trapped there, imo.  To me the twitch indicates him making 
the choice to stick with the vow, even though he doesn't want to do it.

-m