[HPforGrownups] Transitions etc. (Was Re: Will the Real Severus Snape please step forward?)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 167815

> Goddlefrood:
>
> Pity you lost the longer version, it would most probably have
> convinced me ;). The only difficulty I have with your fine
> response is that the entire scene atop the tower, at least the
> bit where Severus was present, only lasts half a page. Many of
> the other examples last a good deal longer than that :).

Magpie:
But the length of the scene is irrelevent. If the scene is shorter, then the 
reactions are quicker, but they still exist. My second post may have been 
shorter than the first, but you still had to read it and process it before 
you responded to it. Even if your reaction could probably be very fast 
because you already had an idea of the jist of what I was going to say.

Dumbledore's transitions don't have to take long, but they have to exist in 
some way, in life as well as fiction. If you came home one evening and found 
your grandmother holding a gun on you, even if you had as little time as 
Dumbledore has here (and of course, Dumbledore doesn't know he's only got a 
half a page), you still wouldn't be able to go straight from "Hi Grandma" to 
"Oh Grandma, please don't do this!" You'd have to pass through different 
things to get from one to the other. If she shot you before you finished, 
you'd probably die in confusion. For instance, in Dumbledore's case, he 
might have said, "Severus?" showing that there was something not quite 
right. Even if Dumbledore was already suspicious of Snape Snape would have 
to do something to show him his suspicions were correct and Dumbledore would 
have to take that in. (And I actually doubt he'd plead with him, personally. 
He'd, imo, sound more sorrowful that Snape was making this mistake.)

Goddlefrood
> Negative aversions are certainly evidence, but they remain
> negative aversions until further facts can be ascertained to
> fill in the gaps. The scene atop the tower does not, IMO,
> contain enough hard facts to support a reading of a pre-arranged
> plan, as has been speculated on by many. The turning point, as
> I see it from HBP, is the argument in the forest. A heated
> exchange from Hagrid's perspective, and Hagrid has not been one
> to exaggerate too much, although he is a blabbermouth :)

Magpie:
I agree we don't know what's going on on the Tower--I don't think we have 
the information we need yet, and when we do the Tower scene will fall into 
place and there will be no other way it will have worked. What we see on the 
Tower certainly doesn't give us enough facts to say there was definitely a 
prearranged plan, but that idea does, at least, follow the reactions that we 
have in the scene.

>
>> Magpie:
>
>> And here's the biggest transitional moment of all, because
> Dumbledore has just received the blow. Not quite as big as
> learning his trusted lieutenant is a traitor who's going to kill
> him, but a big blow nevertheless, because Harry learning this
> about Snape changes the whole emotional landscape Dumbledore's
> got to deal with.
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> Magpie:
>
>> Dumbledore has nothing to react off of from Snape to make him
> think of betrayal if he wasn't a moment ago. Snape has done
> exactly what he would be expected to do.
>
> <SNIP>
>
> Goddlefrood:
>
> Absolutely, it is a big transitional moment. It only lasts half
> a page so little else was thought necessary to add by JKR in that
> scene.

Magpie:
I don't understand. JKR didn't write this particular transition, so where is 
the transition? She wrote one in the earlier scene (and wrote others in this 
scene). Since this scene is taking place more quickly Dumbledore doesn't 
have time to not speak for a long moment before he adjusts himself (that is, 
he doesn't--I see no reason why Dumbledore couldn't have taken more time to 
compose himself without speaking; apparently he doesn't need to), but he 
still has to go through the steps from one to the other. In fiction, as in 
real life, you can't decide that since you don't have much time you can skip 
thought progression. The other scene may have been longer and offered more 
detailed descriptions of the transitions, but every scene in canon is 
working the same way, even the lightest, quickest exchange between the kids 
at the breakfast table.

Also remember nobody was arbitrarily confined to only half a page at the end 
of the Tower scene. It's half a page because JKR said all she needed to say 
in that amount of time. What's happening in the scene is what decides the 
length of it.

Goddlefrood:
> The other thing to bear in mind, which I do, is that in the
> several minutes atop the tower before the arrival of the Death
> Eaters and then Snape (another Death Eater) Dumbledore is clearly
> described as fading fast. Even the usually not so observant Harry
> notices this. Also we have to remember that the pleading was
> Harry's pov, it is not a pov I share.

Magpie:
Harry has often been known to get things wrong, but I would consider it a 
cheat OOC for JKR if Dumbledore wasn't really pleading--or at least doing 
something close to pleading--there. Harry doesn't understand what's going on 
and can't interpret it for us, but I think it's a bit much for Harry to have 
a shocked reaction to the pleading voice that he heard and then have it 
later turn out to have not happened. Dumbledore has been fading throughout 
the scene and not sounded as if he were pleading. I don't think we yet have 
enough information to know what's going on in that scene yet, but I do think 
that everything we've got we should take as solid clues. The Harry filter 
means Harry will misinterpret, but also tell us what's there. I know that 
"pleading" is an interpretation technically, but I think it's meant in this 
case to be a real physical descriptor, given Harry's instinctive reaction to 
it (and how utterly strange it strikes him as being). Harry might get wrong 
why Dumbledore is pleading or who he's pleading too or what he's pleading 
for, but taking away the pleading seems like JKR seriously cheating, as if 
she can't write this scene as one of her classic misdirections without 
writing in an artificial misdirection into it. Especially in HBP, where the 
major plot things are happening amongst people outside of Harry's 
understanding, we get our hints about what's going on from what emotion 
shows on the outside. (Sometimes Harry won't be able to identify the emotion 
and tells us so.)

As an aside, Snape's had a whole hit parade of odd expressions throughout 
the books that Harry reports but can't interpret, and if there's one I want 
explained more than any other, it's the way he looks at the petrified Mrs. 
Norris as if he's trying not to laugh in CoS.

>> Magpie:
>
>> That's why to so many people it looks like whatever is going
> on between Snape and Dumbledore has been gone through somewhere
> else, because there's no sign the two of them are surprising each
> other at all.
>
> <SNIP>
>
> Goddlefrood:
>
> Back to the forest, as I have stated. There was a beginning of a
> build up of tension back then and despite Dumbledore's persuasion
> of Snape at that time, Severus simply does not come across as
> someone who accepts defeat, whether in an argument or otherwise,
> very well. IMO of course.

Magpie:
So one possibility is that Dumbledore knows that Snape is a traitor--only 
that requires an explanation about why he was just saying how much he 
trusted him completely to Harry and why he wanted Snape alone to help him on 
this night.

Or else Dumbledore just already knows it's a possibility--that would work, 
except Snape doesn't show him that he has gone to the other side as 
Dumbledore feared he might (which Dumbledore would then have to take in and 
process before responding to) before Dumbledore starts pleading.

The Tower scene being short does not make it different than any other scene. 
The actions and responses are still as clear as they are anywhere else. We 
can all follow them. I'm not saying that the Tower proves that Snape is DDM, 
of course. But I don't see how it can be a scene where Dumbledore realizes 
Snape is going to betray him without Snape showing Dumbledore he's going to 
betray him followed by Dumbledore's realization and reaction to that.

-m