good and bad Slytherins/Disappointment and Responsibility/Sirius' choice

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 175231

Alla wrote:
<snip>
> > NO, I doubt that Sirius wanted to go to Gryffindor based on 
> > principle at that point as well. 
<snip>

Carol responds:
 
> Good. That was my main point. I'm glad we agree that principle 
> played no part in that childish conversation.
<snip>

Dana:
Has anybody ever thought about what the scene with Sirius and Snape 
and later the sorting also actually could mean and why Snape showed 
it to Harry? Instead of only looking for conformation that James and 
Sirius always made Snape's life hell? Which I seriously doubt not 
only because Lily asks Snape about why he is so obsessed with the 
marauders (and if you have forgotten she was in the scene as well and 
if years of bullying followed, I do not think Lily wouldn't have 
understood why Snape disliked the marauders so much to a point that 
it seemed obsessive to Lily) and secondly with Lucius there, I hardly 
think the marauders could get away with bullying a Slytherin and not 
get bullied in return. And of course their seems to be some denial 
going on about Snape having friends in Slytherin because we were not 
shown any interactions with Snape and them but then there is a 
selective acceptance of Lily's word to proof one thing and deny she 
could be a honest witness if it turns out negatively for Snape. 

Let me say this I respect and understand the love people have for 
Snape as a character but please do not ask me to swallow the 
unrealistic picture some of you have created in your minds to make 
him fluffier then he actually is portrayed in canon. Snape had the 
same amount of chances at Hogwarts as anybody else and nothing he did 
was just because he had a poor upbringing, been bullied or not enough 
backbone to stand up against negative influences. That is actually 
downgrading the person/ character that he is not upgrading him.  

But anyway let's go back to the scene. 

Snape says to Lily that she better be in Slytherin and when James and 
Sirius respond to this, Snape makes it known that to him (for what 
ever reason or conviction) Slytherin is the only right house.  Then 
they all get sorted and when Lily gets sorted into Gryffindor Snape 
groans for her not being sorted into Slytherin. Snape is sorted after 
Lily, not before and he doesn't make any objection for him being 
sorted into Slytherin but he made an objection for Lily being sorted 
into Gryffindor. We see that Sirius is already sorted when Lily 
arrives at the Gryffindor table but if my memory serves me right 
James is not yet sorted at this point so if he had been sorted into 
Ravenclaw then Sirius would have been out of luck following a friend 
as he was sorted first. 

Anyway, instead of arguing about what Sirius convictions where for 
being sorted into Gryffindor and if they are honorable or not, one 
might want to wonder about the real reasons for Snape showing these 
memories to Harry. 

I think it is because he wanted to show Harry that he regretted the 
fact that like Sirius he could have made a choice to go with his 
friend (or potential friend in Sirius case) instead of what the 
house, he clearly already was fascinated with, could offer him. Snape 
wanted Lily sorted into Slytherin and it never occurred to him that 
if she was sorted into a different house that he could do the same to 
stay with her. Snape saw Sirius break with a family tradition of 
being sorted into Slytherin and with Sirius being sorted before 
Snape, Snape (being smart enough even at age 11) could have known 
that it was possible to have yourself sorted into a different house 
if you really wanted it. But he didn't. He chose Slytherin over Lily 
and Snape showed Harry this memory because he regretted that choice. 
He could have done what Sirius did but he chose not to do it. 

Snape then shows memories that again emphasis that he made choices to 
follow his own convictions/ fascinations/ ambitions over his 
friendship with Lily and later losing her friendship over it and that 
all these choices together eventually led to the one biggest regret 
of his life -> bringing the prophecy to LV that let to Lily's death. 

Slytherin house is not the house of evil but it is the house that 
represents people choosing their own ambition over everything else. 
Snape had strong ambitions and is reluctance to part with them even 
for his friend and thus why the hat sorted him into Slytherin. 
Ambition doesn't have to be a negative trait but it can become so 
when the ambition becomes the only focus point you have to a point 
that you are willing to sacrifice everything for it. I do not know 
how many of you know Dickens's tale of Scrooge (A Christmas Carol) 
but that is what Slytherin house represents.  
If you let ambition blind you then you can even lose the one thing 
that is actually the only important thing in life -> Love.  

I think DD's remark about sorting to soon, hit Snape hard for this 
very reason. 

DD's remark also was not about focusing on Slytherin being evil but 
about Snape's change in focus and just like DD himself this change 
can come later in life. It is not Snape changing into a Gryffindor it 
is Snape letting go of his ambition as a life driven force and 
accepting other values of his being over that once strong ambition 
and why he is a better man then Karkaroff. 
 
The hat is never wrong because every human being has something of all 
four houses in them and therefore the hat could never be wrong 
because it choses that facet of the person that he or she's focusses 
on predominatly over the other espects these houses represent. It is 
not the hat that defines the person but the person him or herself. 
Therefore Harry could have done well in Slytherin if he had any 
ambitions for it just like anybody else. Draco wanted nothing more 
then to follow the ambitions his family had set out for him and it 
was so obvious to the hat that it didn't need more then to barely 
touch Draco's head to see it. Not because Draco was defined evil but 
because Draco chose to follow in his family's footsteps without ever 
thinking there was any other possibility. Draco was not defined by 
the hat but by his own lack of wanting to be anything else then his 
family wanted him to be. It is not the hat that made Draco turn into 
the person that he is and neither did it mean that being in that 
house meant he could never be anything else or do anything good with 
the ambitions he chose to follow. 

Peter did not get sorted into Slytherin because he did not have any 
ambitions, was not loyal enough to be sorted into Hufflepuff and was 
not intelligent enough or to lazy to be sorted into Ravenclaw. He was 
sorted into Gryffindor by default. Peter and Snape are each others 
opposite later in life, where Peter made the choice to ambition 
staying alive over anything else he might have valued once when faced 
with the dangers of war or death to be more precise, Snape made the 
choice to stop following his own ambitions when the truth of war 
claimed the life of the only person that had ever meant something to 
him on a deeper level.  
Narcissa and in the end also Lucius where not prepared to sacrifice 
Draco for their ambitions, even if they truly believed in it. 

LV did not have anyone that was important enough to stop following 
his goals in life because there wasn't anyone to change his mind for 
and that is the true evil in life. Ambition in life can be truly evil 
if there is nothing that balances the length you are willing to go 
for that ambition. Without this balance you would even be willing to 
sacrifice another person's life if it furthers your goal or at least 
turn a blind eye.

Snape's ambition was being the best in the Dark Arts because he was 
truly fascinated with its potentials but instead of realizing (and no 
I do not think he truly understood this or ever realized it) that 
this knowledge could be used in a good way instead of believing that 
he could only utilize it by following LV's ways. LV wanted to be 
somebody and used the Dark Arts to further his goals and I believe 
that Snape wanted to be like LV, to be someone people looked up to. 
That he had admiration for LV because of this and why he wanted to 
join to such a point he adopted the Slytherin view of blood 
supremacy.  As many have already noticed that Snape could use this 
knowledge to safe people's life but he never realized that part of 
the ambition he had, not even when he was forced to use his knowledge 
in that way. It is not the fascination with the Dark Arts that is 
evil by definition; it is the way you chose to use it that defines 
the evilness. (Hence the curcio debate)
 
Unlike DD who realized that his knowledge could be put to better use 
when he lost a person close to his heart, Snape had to be forces into 
using his potentials for the good cause and was bitter and grudging 
about it all the way through and only started to realize some of it 
when it was pretty much to late to have any meaning/ effect on his 
own life. Snape could have enjoyed his stay at Hogwarts as a teacher 
and make a life for himself. He could have been a good example for 
his house that ambition is nice as long as you do not let it control 
every choice you make in life but he CHOSE not do to so. 

Snape showing Harry these specific memories is Snape's way of saying 
that he regretted not having made different choices and that he 
acknowledges that Harry is the bigger man for choosing to love and 
fights for what he believes in even if he doesn't gain anything from 
it personally, that he now understands that Harry is indeed Lily's 
son. To not have chosen love over his own ambitions was wrong and 
that love should actually have been the one thing he should have 
ambitioned. And with JKR stating that Lily would have loved him back 
it makes Snape's choices not to go for it that more ironic that he 
only started to realize what he had when he lost it as do most people 
in life. 

Just my two cents. 

Dana, Who thinks that people should not hate other characters in the 
novel because they love Snape, which would make it possible for them 
to see the true story of Severus Snape in the novel instead of making 
one up to fit what they want him to represent instead. Snape could 
have been James if he had made different choices.  He hated that 
everybody looked up to James without, in Snape's mind, James doing 
anything for it and in the end it was James that ended up with the 
one thing that Snape lost over the ambitions he had -> Lily. Snape 
blamed everybody for the choices he himself made and if he had 
realized this sooner then he could have been everything he ever 
wanted and more.