LID!Snape rides again (was: High Noon for OFH!Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 150026

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Neri" <nkafkafi at ...> wrote:
> 
> > Pippin:.
> > Dumbledore, AKA the epitome of goodness, sends Harry to the 
> > Dursleys and locks Sirius up at  GP.   James, the progenitor of 
> > this famous life debt, makes Snape's life hell for years on end, 
> > rushes into danger to save his skin, then goes right back to 
> > hexing Snape whenever he gets the opportunity. Are you going 
> > to say that they're arbitrarily schizoid too? 
> > 
> 
> Neri:
> I'm certainly not saying that JKR doesn't have some complex characters
> with sometimes conflicting feelings and actions, but none of them gets
> even close to the paradoxes of DDM!Snape. 

Pippin:
But LID!Snape isn't conflicted at all! All he wants to do is get rid of his
ankle monitor. Now, if he was conflicted about that, if he wanted his
freedom but was afraid of what he might do with it, that would be
interesting. But I don't see that as a problem that interaction with
Harry would resolve, and it's Harry's book.

Neri:
> Moreover, none of your above examples was introduced as a solution to
> a major mystery. An author is certainly allowed to introduce some
> conflicts in her characters now and then, but when she springs on us
> an arbitrarily conflicted character as the solution for a major
> mystery, this is when I say "deus ex machina!" and put the book down
> in disgust. Of, course, I don't expect *you* to agree with that <g>,
> but until now JKR has never stooped to such means. 

Pippin:
I don't understand this...surely we are meant to wonder why Harry was
abandoned for ten years by a man who is supposedly doing everything
possible to protect him, and surely we are meant to wonder why
it occured to James, with his  hobby of  causing lifelong emotional wounds
to Snape, that Snape's life would be worth the risk of exposing himself
to a werewolf. IMO, we are supposed to wonder what philosophy of life
is behind those choices and whether it could explain Snape's 
behavior too.


> 
> > Pippin:
> > Why should it be so hard to understand that for JKR's characters,
> > and maybe even for JKR herself, lives are a much bigger deal than
> > feelings? There's nothing artificial or inconsistent about that, it's
> > just a different set of values.
> 
> Neri:
> But if so, how do you explain Snape stopping the Occlumency lessons
> because of, as Dumbledore himself admits, his feelings about James?
> How do you explain Snape refusing even to hear Sirius' story before he
> turns both him and Lupin in to the dementors for a fate worse than
> death? The view of Snape as a person who does not care about feelings,
> only about saving lives, simply doesn't work with the canon. 

 
Pippin: 

I should have said that lives are a bigger deal than hostile feelings.
I don't deny that Snape is hostile. But hostility doesn't seem to be
the point.

If we draw the  bright line in the story between people who are 
generally hostile and people who aren't, then Dumbledore's 
choice of alllies seems to disregard it, leading to the assumption
that he sees only the good in people.

But if we distinguish between people who regard
hostility as a reason to kill and people who don't, then we 
find, mirabile dictu, that Dumbledore's allies all fall to 
one side of it, even DDM!Snape and the Dursleys-- except for the 
moment when Sirius (and Lupin if you believe that Lupin is DDM)
lost control in the Shrieking Shack and wanted to kill Peter.

Snape did *not* turn Sirius over to the dementors before
giving him a chance to tell his story. He said he would, but
he didn't, just as Lupin and Sirius said they would kill Peter
but didn't. They reconsidered after Harry stood in the way,
and apparently so did Snape.

 Even though Snape is a bubbling cauldron of hostility, 
his choice shows his hostility was not worth killing for. 
I think in the end that will show him to be  a better person than, say, 
a hypothetical character who is nice to almost everyone
but would calmly kill an enemy because enemies deserve to die. :)

Neri:
> It's James who is the consistent example of valuing lives over
> feelings. Even when he bullies Snape he uses harmless jinxes in
> response to Snape's potentially lethal curse. He saves Snape's life
> despite (or maybe because) the feelings between them. And Dumbledore,
> who knew James well, ensures Harry that James would have spared
> Peter's life too.

Pippin:

If you think sexual harrassment is harmless...well, that's a debate for
another list, but them's fightin' words in  California.
Both of them were playing with fire if you ask me. 

But my theory is perfectly consistent with Dumbledore's praise of
Harry. Despite having every reason to hate Pettigrew himself, 
Harry did not want  his father's friends to be killers just for the
sake of hatred. James didn't want that either.

Snape clings to the past, which is why he equally can't get over 
his sense of indebtedness to James, can't get over his remorse 
for the manner of his death, and can't get over his hatred of
him either. Instead he's transferred all those feelings to Harry. 
Voila, conflict. 

 I doubt that magic is involved. If  James's action cast a spell of
indebtedness on Snape, would it not dissolve with the death of
the caster?

But why shouldn't Snape hate James and yet feel remorse about 
what he did as a result of that hatred? And yet still feel that it was
James's fault?  Like, to paraphrase Golda Meir, he could forgive
James for trying to kill him, but he could never forgive James
for making him  kill in return.


Pippin