DDM!Snape & the UV

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 149941

Carol earlier:
> > Carol, noting that the plot requires Snape to be trapped into
killing his mentor, setting up a future confrontation with Harry, not
to heroically save the day and steal Harry's glory
> 
Lupinlore responded:
> Lupinlore, noting that the PLOT requires no such thing, but rather a
solution that pleases Snape lovers would require such
>
Carol again:
Sorry, Lupinlore. I worded that badly. It should have been "Carol,
*firmly believing* that the plot requires Snape to be trapped into
killing his mentor, setting up a future confrontation with Harry, not
to heroically save the day and steal Harry's glory." 

Although the evidence, IMO, points to that interpretation and suggests
that Snape is more than a mere plot device to kill off Dumbledore,
it's entirely possible that JKR will prove me wrong in Book 7. So the
statement (aside from the fact that Harry, not Snape, is the hero of
the series) is just my opinion, not a fact (as I knew when I wrote it
and should have acknowledged in the wording).

Or how about "Carol, noting that the plot requires Snape to kill his
mentor, setting up a future confrontation with Harry, not to
heroically save the day and steal Harry's glory"? 

The future confrontation with Harry is hinted at in HBP and in a JKR
interview but can be eliminated from the sentence if you find it
objectionable. As for the rest of the sentence, we don't know Snape's
motives for killing DD, but we have JKR's own statement that she
needed to kill him off so that Harry can go on without him, which
requires that something (the poison?) or someone (Snape? Draco? A DE?)
kill him. The UV subplot narrows that someone down to Snape, who has
to kill Dumbledore or die. JKR could not let Snape save the day
because the plot required Dumbledore's death, and besides, the UV
would have magically prevented Snape from saving the man he was bound
by Dark magic to kill. It is, after all, an *Unbreakable* Vow, as
those snakelike ropes of fire binding his wrist to Narcissa's so
dramatically symbolize. 

That leaves us with the plot requiring Snape to kill DD (regardless of
motive) rather than to play Harry's role as hero, a statement that I
think and hope we can agree on. 

Of course, that statement (if you accept it) also raises the question
of what would have happened if Snape had died from the breaking the
vow and some other Death Eater had killed Dumbledore or DD had died
from the poison (the plot requires DD to die in some way). I think
that Harry (and Draco) would have died as well, with Hogwarts open to
the ravages of the Death Eaters and the WW doomed because the Chosen
One was dead. 

I'm curious as to what you think would have happened if both Snape and
DD had died on the tower and Harry was released from his freezing
spell. Surely it would be in character for him to rush out to fight
the DEs who had just killed his beloved mentor. Could Harry have taken
on four DEs, one of them a werewolf who had just expressed a desire to
eat DD for "afters," even if his enemy Draco Malfoy decided to join
him in fighting the DEs rather than joining the fight against him or
watching but doing nothing? (Yes, Harry is the Chosen One, but as I
understand it, the powers he acquired at Godric's Hollow--Parseltongue
and perhaps the power of possession or some sort of
Legilimency--qualify him as Voldemort's nemesis but won't help him
against anyone else. They certainly didn't help him against Snape.)

Carol, acting on her own advice regarding concessions and apologizing
for presenting her opinion as if it were a fact