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

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 175568

Lupinlore:
I go back to something Sydney said on this subject: everybody, or
rather a lot of people win to an extent. DDM!folks got what they
wanted, but with enough OFH! and Grey!Snape that those camps can feel
vindicated as well. Snape lovers got Snape as crucial to the fall of
Voldemort. Snape haters got a satisfying and karmic end for the
potions master. The LOLLIPOPS people were by and large pleased. I
guess the people left out would be the Ethical!Snape folks, who
wanted Snape to be motivated purely by his own choices concerning
right and wrong, the Living!Snape folks, who wanted Snape to live,
and the Repentant!Harry folks, who wanted some sort of reconciliation
between a living Snape and a living Harry.

Debbie:
Even the ethical Snape folks (I count myself among them) get some
vindication.  Granted, Snape did not have a moment whereby he came to
realize intellectually that Voldemort's agenda was evil and he could no
longer support it and therefore chose to work undercover to overthrow him.
L.O.L.L.I.P.O.P.S. can seem a bit trite, but it had a transforming
power.  Snape may have come to Dumbledore initially solely to save Lily,
without any disregard for James or his son, but he's not the same Snape any
more.  That Snape would not watch "only those whom I could not save" die,
nor would he chastise Phineas Black for using the word 'mudblood' to refer
to someone other than Lily, especially the friend of the hated Potter.
Something happened in those intervening years to make Snape understand why
Lily rejected him.

There is little consolation for those who needed a reconciliation scene.
However, a look may say more than a thousand words, and I read Snape's last
look at Harry as a realization, finally, through the power of Lily's eyes
that Harry is not James Potter reincarnated, and therefore he has no reason
to hate him.  Snape's redemption is finally complete at that moment.

Other Diana/Georgians might disagree, but that's how I've come to view it.

Debbie


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