Dumbledore Disgusted (was: Snape's Request gave Harry a second chance?)

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 175857

Before I get to my main post, let me say Thank You, Sherry Gomes for 
your post (Message #175778) responding to my question about why 
people feel as they do about Snape. Wow, that teacher you had sounds 
awful! I'm glad that you found a better teacher later. 

OK, now on to my main topic -- Dumbledore saying that he is disgusted 
with Snape when Snape asks him to protect Lily. 

Alla quoted from DH:

"If she means so much to you," said Dumbledore, "surely Lord
Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the
mother, in exchange for the son?

"I have - I have asked him" 

"You disgust me," said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much
contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. "You do not
care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? "They can
die, as long as you have what you want?"

Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.

"Hide them all, then," he croaked. "Keep her - them - safe. Please" -
p.677 - 678

Alla said:
> I read it as Snape indeed **wanting** Harry dead in exchange for
> Lily.

Ok, so it seems one reading of the above exchange is the following:

Dumbledore says, "Snape, if you love Lily so much, couldn't you say 
to Voldemort that it's fine with you if he kills Harry, you'll let 
him kill Harry, if in exchange he'll let Lily live?"

Snape says, "Yep, that's exactly what I told His Voldieness."

Dumbledore responds,  "That's disgusting."

If that's really what's going on, then I agree, what Snape wants is 
disgusting, and it's OK for Dumbledore to say so.

The thing is, though, I don't think such a reading fits at all. Snape 
did not bargain with Voldemort, he did not OFFER Harry to Voldemort 
in exchange for Lily. It's not like Snape will let Voldemort kill 
Harry if Lily is spared. Snape isn't in a position to bargain with 
Voldemort or to LET Voldemort do anything. Voldemort is far, far more 
powerful than Snape; he doesn't need Snape's permission to kill 
Harry, or anyone else for that matter. And, since Voldemort believes 
Harry is a threat, of course he's going to want him dead, and there's 
nothing at all Snape can do to stop that. (As Mim said, "Snape cannot 
ask for the son to be spared. He cannot because that's the whole 
point of the prophesy.") 

So, my interpretation of the phrase, "mercy for the mother, in 
exchange for the son" is that since Snape has ALREADY given Voldemort 
the prophecy (therefore telling him of the boy who may be able to 
defeat him), Snape could ask for Lily's life as his reward.  

So, I read the exchange between Snape and Dumbledore as:

Dumbledore says, "Snape, if you love Lily so much, couldn't you 
remind Voldemort that you did him a great service by informing him of 
the risk that Harry poses, and ask him to let Harry's mother live as 
your reward?"

Snape says, "Yep, that's exactly what I asked His Voldieness."

Dumbledore responds, "That's disgusting."

To me, there's a world of difference between these two readings. In 
the first reading, Snape will LET Voldemort kill Harry, if he gets 
what he wants. In the second reading, Snape CAN'T do anything to stop 
Voldemort from trying to kill Harry, all he can do is try to prevent 
the additional, senseless murder of Harry's mother. In the first 
reading, Dumbledore's disgust seems reasonable to me; in the second 
reading it doesn't.  

And,as I've said, I think reading this exchange as Snape LETTING 
Voldemort kill Harry doesn't fit, because Snape can't stop Voldemort 
from trying to kill Harry. Therefore, I don't think Dumbledore's 
disgust is justified. 


Next topic -- Dumbledore's demand that Snape *give him something* to 
save Lily, which strikes me as even more unreasonable. 

Mim said:
> And then he manipulated Snape to
> get him to promise to do anything. Snape didn't have to do anything
> and whether Snape did anything for Dumbledore or not, Dumbledore 
> would have to help the Potters. He's supposed to be a good guy.

Alla replied to Mim:
> Snape did not have to do anything? Well of course not. He after all
> already **did** something - he delivered prophecy to Voldemort. He
> did not have to come to Dumbledore.

I read Mim as saying, "Snape shouldn't have to do anything in order 
for Dumbledore to try to save the Potters. The Potters are on 
Dumbledore's side, therefore Dumbledore already has the 
responsibility to try to help them, regardless of whether Snape does 
what Dumbledore wants or not." 

I agree with Mim here. Suppose Snape had refused to do what 
Dumbledore wanted. Would Dumbledore have therefore done nothing to 
save the Potters?  If so, YIKES! If Dumbledore would have tried to 
save them anyway, then he's definitely just manipulating Snape here. 

Anyway, Alla, at this point Snape HAS done something very important 
besides his evil act of telling Voldemort the Prophecy. He has 
performed the *good* act of giving Dumbledore vital information about 
how Voldemort has interpreted the Prophecy and what Voldemort plans 
to do. Don't you think that Voldemort would kill Snape if he found 
out that Snape had gone to Dumbledore with this information? Doesn't 
Snape's risking his life to give Dumbledore information count for 
*something* here? 

At any rate, even if I find a way to justify Dumbledore's treatment 
of Snape during the scene where Snape begs Dumbledore to help Lily, I 
still have a real problem with how cruel Dumbledore is to Snape when 
Snape learns of Lily's death. The most positive reading I can come up 
with is that Dumbledore is acting here; he is pretending to be cruel 
in order to manipulate Snape into helping save Harry. 

A while ago, Jen reponded to my disappointment with Dumbledore. 
Jen Reese said:
> After a second reading and cutting Dumbledore back down to human 
> size from the almost Aslan-like creation I'd made of him in my
> head - the
> noble heir of Gryffindor, the tireless fighter of evil, the word of
> Truth, sacrificing himself for the WW - once again his words seem
> congruent with the ideals he holds, even after the discovery
[snip new interpretation of Dumbledore]

Jen, you made many good points in your post. Still, I felt the only 
way I could be even somewhat comfortable with Dumbledore's behaviors 
in Book 7 was by coming up with reevaluations for his actions. (For 
example, when he seems cruel to grief-stricken Snape, perhaps 
Dumbledore's real goal is to manipulate Snape into helping Harry.)   
This is the sort of thing that I meant when I said that I really had 
to dig to get even a slightly uplifting message from the books. 



Leah said:
> On a somewhat related topic, I remain puzzled by the fact that DD 
> let Snape loose with the prophecy.  Before HBP, my opinion was that 
> DD could not have known he was overheard on the night in question, 
> that the eavesdropper had been thrown out purely as an undesirable 
> by someone who didn't query further and that DD was only informed 
> of the overhearing later by, most likely, Snape.  
> That went by the board after HBP.  
> So why let Snape out into the night with a 
> prophecy that DD had had no chance to mull over. Would DD really 
> want to let a DE go with a piece of information that was 
> interesting to put it at its mildest?
> And what responsibiliy does DD bear as a 
> consequence for the deaths of James and Lily.

I was just thinking about this yesterday, and I believe it is yet 
another of JKR's inconsistencies.

In OoP, Dumbledore says the Prophecy was overheard, but the 
eavesdropper was detected partway into the Prophecy and thrown from 
the building. The way I pictured it, Aberforth threw Snape out 
halfway through the Prophecy, and Snape went straightaway to 
Voldemort. Aberforth then told Albus about the eavesdropping after 
the Prophecy had been completed, either naming Snape as the 
eavesdropper, or describing him so that Albus knew who it was. (Which 
would have been easy, since  Albus was expecting Snape to be there 
for a job interview.) Reviewing his memories in the Pensieve could 
have told Albus exactly how much had been overheard, since he might 
have been able to hear Aberforth confronting Snape. 

In HBP, though, we learn that Trelawney was aware of Snape's 
eavesdropping, and that she knew Albus was aware of it as well. Since 
she was in a trance during the Prophecy itself, that seems to imply a 
confrontation between Albus and Snape, in Trelawney's presence, 
immediately after the Prophecy had been told. In that case, why 
doesn't Albus wipe Snape's memories? 

The only answer I can think of here is the one Potioncat suggested, 
that Dumbledore deliberately let Snape go, presumably so that 
Voldemort would go after the Potters and cause the Prophecy to take 
effect. Still, even if Dumbledore were cold and calculating enough 
that he would want Voldemort to target the Potters, how would 
Dumbledore know that Voldemort would end up with his own curse 
rebounding on him? The whole thing about Trelawney *knowing* that 
Snape heard the Prophecy seems like a plothole to me. 


Ok, let me append a few comments about Lily here.
I said:
> Lily, who is presented as practically a saint, isn't much better 
[than Dumbledore].
> I've wondered ever since Book 5 whether Snape ever apologized for
> calling her a Mudblood. I never would have dreamed that he did
> apologize and in response Lily slammed the door in his face, but
> that's pretty much how it happened.

Pippin replied:
> It wasn't just about her. It was about him using Mudblood to others
> of her blood. He didn't apologize for that or for lending his
> support to others who did. His tragedy was that he 
> didn't yet see why he should.

I agree completely that Snape's infraction here was not just calling 
*Lily* a mudblood, it was using the term at all. However, after Lily 
points that out to Snape, she turns her back and leaves, with 
Snape "struggling on the verge of speech." It seems to me that Snape 
might have acknowledged how wrong he had been to use "mudblood" at 
all, if Lily had let him. Lily missed an opportunity to get Snape to 
realize that it was wrong to use that term for anyone, for him to 
grow and see the error of his ways.  Yes, it is asking a lot of the 
character of Lily, who is only 16, to get over her anger at Snape, 
who has offended her. But, I think it is reasonable to ask this of 
Lily, because we are supposed to see Lily as being far superior, 
morally, to Snape. (When asked in an interview if Lily had ever been 
a Death Eater -- as Snape had been -- JKR said, "How  dare you!") 
Refusing to forgive, walking away as Snape tries to apologize, 
strikes me as mean and vindictive, which adds to my impression of the 
books as not promoting forgiveness.



-- JudySerenity, whose husband suggested that when Dumbledore said to 
Snape, "You disgust me," Dumbledore was actually refering to Snape's 
*hair*.