Voldemort/Harry Showdown

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 175424

va32h:
> I have to admit, I'm stunned that Harry glossed over the whole "you 
> thought I was dead but I'm not" issue to talk about Snape, but I 
> suppose that we needed to know that Voldemort knew Snape wasn't his? 
> For Snape's sake? So that Snape's memory could be exonerated, as 
> Sirius' had been?
> 
> Personally I would have liked Snape to be the one to reveal that 
> tidbit, even if he did die for it. But that's another topic. 
> 
> While I dislike the cliche of the hero-villain duelling monologues, I 
> am not sure an alternative would have worked. 

Ceridwen:
Heh.  I'm glad I'm not the only one to go off on tangents.

The talk seemed like some off-the-wall splicing of the Villain's 
Monologue and Dumbledore Explains It All, and Snape had to be a huge 
part of it.  LV could see that Harry was alive, and I think Harry 
explained enough of the wand that LV understood that something was 
screwy.  Segue to Snape, the big payoff of the discussion.  It serves 
to make LV nervous, I think, since he was so positive that killing 
Snape gave him the mastery of the wand, and it also exonerated (sp?) 
Snape to all and sundry, something Sirius lacked until somewhere off-
page after his death.

Of course, Snape's dead too, so being vindicated doesn't affect him 
either.  I think this may have been a "correction", that is, 
Harry "doing it right" where for Sirius it was done wrong.

I would love for Snape to have been the one to drop that bomb on 
LV: "You *thought* I was yours, but you killed Lily!  I've been working 
against you ever since!"  It would have been satisfying on the same 
level as Neville offing Bellatrix would have been satisfying, too.  The 
character would have gotten his own back.

I don't think an alternative would have worked.  I would never suggest 
Harry and LV duelling in private, or in some out-of-the-way spot like 
the Little Hangleton graveyard, as they had done previously.  LV was 
going to die, and the WW had to see it happen, not just to see Harry 
victorious, but to see that he's really gone this time: assurance.

And the monologue has to be part of it.  There's a reason why villains 
do all that expounding in Bond and other stories/movies - it gets the 
point across in a short time.  At the same time, I think it's supposed 
to be like the taunting done before a joust or a match of heroic 
representatives for two sides.  It carries on a tradition that's older 
than the printing press.  My opinion only, of course.

It just seemed surreal to me on subsequent reading that this was the 
topic of discussion.  "Snape loved my mom."  "He was just hot for 
her."  Oy, they're going to try and kill one another - so, let's talk 
Snape/Lily?

Now it's making me laugh.

Ceridwen.