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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 175508

lizzyben:
> 
> Yes, I agree about the "karmic arcs" inherent in Snape's death. 
Which is why I've earlier stated that he got a "villian's death", not
a hero's death. The "good guys" do die quite often, but they 
> don't get that ironic end that the bad guys get - essentially 
> hoisted on their own petard. Just as crucioing Carrow is crucioed, 
> cursing Crabbe is killed by his own curse, etc. Tragic irony or 
> poetic justice? You be the judge. It's the way Snape died, more than 
> anything else, that convinced me that JKR truly does loathe this 
> character. And I can see why that would satisfy people who really 
> disliked him too. 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.
>
Carol responds:
But it isn't a villain's death. He's killed by Voldemort (technically
by Nagini, on LV's orders) like so many good or innocent characters.
Cedric is murdered on LV's orders just for being in the way. Charity
Burbage is murdered by LV and then fed to Nagini for daring to state
that Muggles are people just like wizards. It's ironic--and shocking
to both Harry and the reader--that Voldemort would ruthlessly murder a
man he thinks both loyal and extremely useful to him simply because of
a wand (which, again ironically, he knows nothing about and is not
master of).

Snape dies accomplishing an extremely important task, at the same time
making possible Harry's understanding of him in a way that no other
death would allow. Harry even honors his dying wish to look into his eyes.

I would much rather that Snape had lived, of course, or had turned on
the DEs and Voldemort in the midst of battle, revealing both his
powers and which side he was on, but this is Harry's book, not
Snape's, and if Snape is an epic hero, he's Odyssus, not Achilles. His
death is tragic, unbearably painful for those of us who care for him,
ironic, and yet by no means ignoble. He strives in his death throes to
give Harry not only the message he needs to defeat Voldemort but the
other memories that will show that Snape is telling the truth.

We know from other evidence in the books that the soul is eternal,
that a wizard can choose to become a ghost or "go on," that "going on"
(unless you're Voldemort) is less terrible than life on earth, which
can be excruciatingly painful.

Even Grindelwald, it seems, has a choice to repent at the end. Dead!DD
says, "they say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell in
Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel
the horror and shame of what he had done" (DH Am. ed. 719). If we
combine these words with Hermione's comments on remorse having the
power to destroy a Horcrux and piece a damaged soul back together and
the soul being immortal (102-103), it seems likely that even a mass
murderer and torturer like Grindelwald, the Hitler of the WW, can be
saved from a fate like Voldemort's.

And given Snape's seventeen years or so of anguished expiation for
sins and crimes of much lesser magnitude and his final action, without
which Harry would have died without destroying the soul bit, it seems
highly likely that he died unredeemed or suffered a fate remotely
resembling Voldemort's. Even his "murder" of Dumbledore, performed at
DD's request as an act of mercy, would not have harmed his soul as I
read that scene.

Side note:
Not all the deaths in JKR's books are karmic. Dobby dies as the result
of a silver knife hurled by Bellatrix Lestrange. Dumbledore dies in
part as the result of his own folly and in fault as the result of his
own plan. There is nothing karmic in Colin Creevey's death as far as I
can see. Wormtail, admittedly, dies ignominiously, the "gift" that
Voldemort gave him punishing him for his small, unconscious impulse of
mercy. Unlike Snape, he accomplishes nothing except to inadvertently
aid in the escape of Harry and his friends through his inability to
thwart them. Bellatrix, the woman warrior, goes out fighting,
mirroring the death of her cousin, Sirius. Lupin and Tonks die
off-page. Mad-Eye Moody is AKd by Voldemort in pursuit of the wrong
Harry. Regulus dies both heroically and horribly.

Death in these books as in life is ever-present and unpredictable. But
death is worse for the survivors than it is for the dead, judging from
DD and Harry's loved ones and Lupin, the last Marauder. Unless, of
course, you're Voldemort, who feared death and tried to prevent it by
murderous and unnatural means.

Carol, thinking that if Snape had died in despair unheeded or unheard
by Harry, his death would have been meaningless, but his own actions
combined with Harry's response give it significance and scarcely
bearable poignancy