Another Snape thread

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 151984

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...> 
wrote:

> 
> With apologies to Geoff and to anyone else who's tired of discussing
> Snape, I can't get the man out of my mind. I know perfectly well 
> that he's a fictional character, but I worry and wonder about him 
> as if he were real and feel thwarted because I can't do anything 
> about the predicament he has landed himself in. (I'm not worried 
> about Harry; he'll suffer, but he'll triumph in the end. Maybe even 
> grow up emotionally as well as legally, since the book is IMO as 
> much a bildungsroman as a heroic quest. But Snape's fate, like his 
> loyalties, is much less cut and dried.)

Oh, I don't know that Snape's ultimate fate is in much doubt.  I, at 
least, don't see any way he can still be alive at the end, no matter 
what his loyalties are.  What would be the point?  Snape's entire 
character is oriented toward the past and the questions arising from 
the past.  Once those questions are answered, and those issues 
settled, he will have no purpose.  He will in effect be in a world 
where there is no place for him.

>  
> Carol, knowing that it's silly to worry about a fictional character
> whose fate and redemption are outside her control but concerned for
> Snape's soul nonetheless


Oh, it isn't silly.  Worrying about Snape is a lot more worthwile 
than any number of things -- running for Congress, for instance.  But 
Snape's soul has a lot of cleansing to run through.  There is his tie 
with Voldemort, the situation atop the tower, his betrayal of the 
Potters, and of course his reprehensible abuse of Harry and Neville, 
which must, IMO, be very specifically addressed (and for which Snape 
must be very specifically and severely punished, and for which an 
explanation of Dumbledore's reprehensible failure to intervene must 
be provided) if JKR is not to reveal herself as a very poor writer 
indeed and guilty of authoring a series that speaks approvingly of 
the abuse of children.

Lupinlore