[HPforGrownups] Dark Magic and Snape (was:Re: CHAPDISC: HBP24, Sectumsempra)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 161419

> BonniDune:
>
> I think Voldemort's Dark Knowledge is linked to power, not
> immortality. In one of the books he says something to the effect
> that "there is no good or bad, just power and the strength to use it."
>
> As someone who has been victimized, Snape would be drawn to this
> concept of personal power.
>
> For Voldemort himself, the ultimate power is immortality.  As a child
> he assumed that his mother could not have been a witch because she did
> not have the power to not die.

Magpie:
But that concept of power isn't just Voldemort's.  His followers are called 
"Death Eaters."  Power over death is the ultimate power.  And the impulse 
for this kind of genocide has been linked in the real world to a 
narcissistic fantasy of immortality through perfection.  The individual 
gains strength through the immortal group once it has been purified of the 
dirty/diseased element weakening it from within.

Quick_Silver:
But it isn't just a fanfic impulse I'd say, Bella charges Snape with 
slithering out of action during Spinner's End. So I get the impression from 
the books that we're supposed to view Snape and his relationship with the 
violence, racism, and destruction of the Death Eaters as being a strained 
relationship perhaps? However at the same time during the end of HBP the 
Death Eaters present, including Greyback, seemed to be cowed by Snape's mere 
presence.

Magpie:
But that wouldn't necessarily mean Snape joined for some different reason. 
Regulus and Draco both seemed to have problems with some things DEs did, yet 
they didn't join for reasons at odds with Voldemort.  As a young man Snape 
actually shows some impulses towards violence and destruction in creating 
Sectumsempra for his enemies, and he calls Lily a Mudblood.  So to me it 
seems like there's nothing in canon that suggests that Snape joined the DEs 
for some other reason while there is evidence that he was okay with those 
reasons.  It's just that evidence isn't enough for many people.

It's certainly been given as a distinct possibility that Snape had a change 
of heart, that he did have problems with the reality of being a DE, and that 
he may now no longer believe the same things.  But I see no reason to think 
it wasn't a real change of heart or a reality check a la the two Black 
cousins (though Snape actually seems to have done better than both of them 
at stomaching the DE life).

-m