"Bad Snapers," Karma, and the End of Snape (was Re: Of Sorting and Snape)

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 175499

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lanval1015" <lanval1015 at ...> wrote:
>
>> lizzyben:
> As someone who mostly pitied him, it seems a 
> > little cruel to me, but that's how justice seems to be dispelled 
> in 
> > these novels.
> 
> Lanval:
> Er, Sirius, dead by drapery, because he chose to taunt and 
> underestimate his opponent? 
> 
> James, dead in part because he trusted Peter, whom he he probably 
> never considered very smart or creative, or ambitious?
> 
> Snape got bit by a snake, James got blasted by a spell, the 
> Longbottoms got far, far worse than anyone, they didn't even get to 
> die. Nothing heroic there either; LV was already gone at that point.
> 
> Lupin? Killed unceremoniously in battle, just a short time after he 
> has overcome (at least partially) one of his worst flaws, his 
> weakness and shying away from any sort of responsibility. He choses 
> to do the right thing and -- bang. Dead. Did not live to see his son 
> grow up, the son he never wanted, but fell in love with the moment 
> he was born. Is that not irony at its cruelest?

Renee:

Now that you mention Lupin, I wonder what to make of Tonks in this
respect? Getting killed for relentlessly pursuing Lupin, even onto the
battlefield, regardless of the fact that she had a baby at home who
needed her more than her husband? Would that be her particular variety
of karmic justice?

I have to say hers is the only death in the book that really doesn't
sit well with me; instead of making me sad in a cathartic way, it
irritates me. Not that I can't see the other side of it: Tonks wanting
to fight because in a Voldemort-dominated world her son would have no
future. But what's the purpose of it, beyond JKR's decision that she
wanted to show a happy orphan in the epilogue (and let me add, for
those who know what I'm talking about, beyond any alchemical
considerations).  

Renee