What turned Snape (Was: JKR site update SPOILERS)

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 158942


> > > Neri:
> > > Are you saying you don't think Snape owed a life debt to James 
at all?
> > > Or that he did, but that this wasn't the reason he "turned"?
> > > 
> > 
> > Hickengruendler:
> > 
> > The later.
> 
> Neri:
> In this case Snape would have *two* motivations to "turn" – Lily and
> his life debt to James. So even assuming we will find in Book 7 that
> he was in love with Lily, how can we ever know for sure what was the
> relative importance of each of these two motivations in his 
decision? 
> 
> LOLLIPOPS+Life Debt seems to be a good option for JKR if she wants 
to
> leave us with an ambiguous Snape even *after* the end of the series.
> It's possible, of course, that this is what she means to do. But if,
> as she once promised, after Book 7 we will know everything we need 
to
> know and won't have any need for prequels, then shouldn't she give
> Snape a single motivation to "turn"?

zgirnius:
We have very little canon on how a life debt works. If LOLLIPOPS is 
presented in Book 7 as the answer, it will BE the answer. Because 
we'll never get any details on how the life-debt made Snape do it, 
and we will therefore have no reason to suppose that it did, even if 
at the present time such a speculation seems a reasonable extension 
of things we arleady know.

If all we ever get, Snape's life-debt to James-wise is the 
explanation Dumbledore gave Harry in PS/SS, I don't see how this will 
make Snape ambiguous.