Of Sorting and Snape

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 175744

 
> lizzyben:
> 
> Dumbledore too, for the most part. My biggest problem isn't how Harry
> treats the live LV, but how DD & Harry treat the baby in King's Cross
> chapter. It showed a total lack of compassion on DD's part - and he
> eventually convinces Harry to ignore & suppress any sense of empathy
> as well. I have always considered DD to be one of the most heartless,
> cold characters in the series - and even after death he still seems
> the same. DD didn't really have to learn or change either.

Pippin:
The funny thing is, when I read King's Cross I thought of a LeGuin character
too, but it was the burned child Theru in Tehanu, "trying to breathe, 
and trying again to breathe" (quoting from memory.) In that story there is
no magic that can be used to heal her, and no witch or wizard will dare
to try. They're pretty cold about saying so. They have no power to reverse 
such evil and it seems that it would be a sort of arrogance, a misuse 
of their powers, to make the attempt. 

The awful truth is that people do more harm than they can mend. I was in 
tears with Kings Cross that mankind's power to injure is so great and our 
power to heal so pitifully small.  That point would be lost if there had
been something Dumbledore or Harry could do. If they wept it would be
for their own helplessness, and what good would that do?

There was, maybe, a time when compassion could have helped Tom
Riddle but it was when he was a real child; I am sure this reflects
 JKR's own experiences. I have never talked to a teacher who didn't 
bewail the fact that the system so often neglects children in need 
until they are school age. Often enough they are irreversibly damaged
before anyone finds out they need help.

If we're meant to think of Snape in connection with the ruined child, I
think it's only that it's what Snape and even Dumbledore might have
become  if they had not been given second chances.  

 When Dumbledore says, "Sometimes I think we Sort too soon" I don't think 
he's only talking about Snape growing to be someone who could have
been  a Gryffindor. I think it's about Dumbledore wondering
whether he himself hadn't grown closer to Salazar Slytherin's idea of a
great wizard than Godric Gryffindor's. 

I think many Snape fans (and I am definitely including me) invested
so much in a Snape who wasn't about vengeance. But he is, he
really is. "Vengeance is sweet" he breathes. Much as I would have
hoped he was acting, he wasn't.  Snape wanted retaliation for each 
and every injury, real or imagined. 

Ironically, he got more revenge than he wanted. 

 Between relaying the prophecy and his interference in the Shrieking Shack 
which led to Pettigrew's escape, those whom Snape hated ended up
dead, just as Harry said: all the Marauders and Harry himself. 

But Snape was allowed to finish the task which Dumbledore set him, even if he
did not live to see victory, so I would like to think he died redeemed.  After
all Dumbledore made it to the next world, if in a more damaged state than
Harry. 



LizzybenL
 It just goes totally wrong w/Slytherin
> water, which just becomes the depository for everything evil instead.
> And maybe this has something to with the way the wizarding world in
> general seems to lack the positive "water" qualities - kindness,
> empathy, healing. If Slytherin House were redeemed, that'd go a long
> way towards healing this world, which is why that redemption seemed so
> necessary for a final resolution of the conflict. Oh, well.

Pippin:
How can there be a final resolution to the problem of evil? What kind of
resolution is tricking the bad guy into using the wrong wand? Well, what
kind is throwing  a magic ring into a volcano or killing a dragon or blowing 
up a space station?  Ursula LeGuin said the  people who dislike the unreal 
resolutions to evil in fantasy are the ones who think there is a solution to evil 
in real life. :)

We do see Snape and Fleur as healers, and on the rare occasions when we
see Slytherins and water types without the Harry filter, they *are* gracious 
and compassionate. 

I am thinking of Snape welcoming Narcissa and Bella into his home, Draco
sickened for Charity Burbage, the peacocks at Malfoy manor, Snape gripping
his chair when he learns Ginny has been taken, Grimmauld Place cheerful
and welcoming once it has been restored and above all to Draco
saving Goyle. You could even argue that Pansy is thinking of saving
her classmates when she fingers Harry. After all, Harry ends up doing 
exactly what she wanted him to do: give himself up. 

 She'd have to be pretty dumb  to believe that Voldemort would keep his 
promises, but she'd hardly be the the only witch who ever trusted the wrong 
person. 

Pippin