What turned Snape (Was: JKR site update SPOILERS)

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 158946

> 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.
>

Neri:
I'll have to disagree. Unless the life-debt issue is clarified, and
clarified also in regard Snape and James specifically, the readers
will continue to wonder about it. JKR has to be consistent. If
Dumbledore says in SS/PS that Snape tried to save Harry because of his
"debt" to James, and in PoA he says that the life-debt is the deepest
magic, then the obvious implication is that his life-debt to James
must have played a part in Snape's motivation to "turn". Especially
since both the event of James saving Snape's life and Snape's hate for
James are brought up throughout the series in such dramatic ways.

Readers continued to wonder, years after CoS, even about Ginny owing a
life-debt to Harry:

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http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-3.htm

MA: Does she have a life debt to Harry from book two?

JKR: No, not really. Wormtail is different. You know, part of me would
just love to explain the whole thing to you, plot of book seven, you
know, I honestly would.
****************************************************************

Readers rightly wonder about it, and JKR seems to acknowledge in her
answer that the issue of the life-debt has to be explained in Book 7.
If for some reason Snape *didn't* have a life-debt to James then JKR
has to be clarify it, preferably in a way that doesn't contradict
Dumbledore's words in SS/PS. But simply not mentioning the life-debt
at all would leave a big hole in the plot and a big hole in our
understanding of Snape's motivations. 

Neri