The Fundamental Message.../ Heroes...

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 176298

> >>LesAJa:
> > I favoured the idea, that there indeed was NO ironclad reason for
> > Dd to trust Snape, that the ultimate point would be that there can
> > never be such a proof, that you have to choose to trust someone. 
> > And I favoured the idea that JKR would write it in such a way that
> > would make the readers wonder if Dd's trust, given without a last 
> > ironclad proof, Dd's faith in the goodness of Snape, maybe was the
> > cause that Snape turned to or stayed on the good side. I hoped for
> > that.

> >>Jen:  I think you are saying that Snape loving Lily made the     
> story you wanted impossible, because that was a concrete reason     
> Dumbledore trusted Snape instead of trusting him on faith?  
> <snip>
> It's hard to imagine many leaders who are charged with the safety   
> and security of so many in a war-type situation would believe that 
> love alone was enough to make a person worthy of an offer to change 
> sides.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Anyone familiar with the current Battlestar Galactica (and if you're 
not you should be -- seriously one of the best shows on television) 
will see the relationship between the Cylon, Sharon, and Adm. Adama 
in that last sentence.  Sharon changed sides (in a war were it seems 
genocide is the only end game) because of her love for the human, 
Helo.

Adm. Adama eventually came to trust Sharon so much he sent her on a 
mission that if she were not trustworthy may well have ended with the 
actual annihilation of the human race.  Sharon actually asks 
Adama, "How do you know you can trust me?"  And Adama replies, "I 
don't.  That's what trust is."

The reason I bring this up is that this is how, pre-DH, I saw the 
relationship between Dumbledore and Snape.  That Dumbledore got to 
know Snape well enough (his driving principles, etc.), that he 
trusted him in the truest sense of the word.  Instead, it seems that 
Dumbledore trusted Snape's demons.  Which is not that same thing, IMO.

> >>LesAJa:
> > In the end, it seems, Dd was wiser than anyone, and because of
> > that, we may not understand why he does what he does...? Just 
> > follow the leader, be "his man", and whatever he wants you to do 
> > or to ignore is right, and therefore if you do what he wants     
> > you'll be good.  I don't like that, I prefer to follow moral     
> > rules and not persons.  It's easier to lose track of means and    
> > motives if you follow a person, especially if you are emotionally 
> > connected to this person. It hinders people thinking for         
> > themselves IMO.

> >>Jen:  Thinking about the real world for just a moment, it's       
> difficult to think of a moral system that exists without being     
> attached to a person or deity.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
The US Constitution, the Bill of Rights.  Those are two guiding 
principles set up without connection to a specific leader or a 
specific deity.  They were purposefully written that way because the 
Founding Fathers *knew* how easily corrupted a personal leader could 
be.   

The odd thing, IMO, is that JKR wrote a story that both encouraged a 
cult-of-personality, but *also* included what can be so ugly about 
such organizations.  She has children being forced to choose between 
loyalty to the designated personal leader and loyalty to their 
families.  She has a boy unthinkingly head off to his death because 
his leader told him to.  And she has both the "we can do *anything* 
because we're on the "right" side" attitude and the designated 
scapegoats. 

I know I've read stories with personal leaders that succeed in making 
that leader a stand-in for a certain principle.  (I suppose "The 
Return of the King" could be an example?  Maybe some King Arthur 
tales?)  But by having the principles of Dumbledore (and therefore 
the Order) be so malleable JKR really does make it person *rather 
than* principle.  Which is just... bizarre.

I mean, IMO the entirety of DH was us watching Harry sit around *not* 
thinking.  It was weird.  I still don't get what JKR was going for 
there.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176202
> >>Betsy Hp:
> > <snip>
> > At first I was pretty upset that Snape had let down the Malfoys
> > (especially Draco) and all of the Slytherin children placed under 
> > his care. Then I realized that I was expecting far too much of   
> > what was essentially a woefully abused and mishandled child who   
> > grew into a broken man. (A plant kept out of the sun, indeed.)   
> > <snip>

> >>Carol:
> Can you explain what you mean by this statement? I can't tell       
> whether you're talking about snape as HoH or headmaster. 
> <snip>
> Contrast the hotbed of budding DEs under Slughorn in Severus's own 
> school years.
> <snip>
> Snape's record as HoH is much better.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I was talking about Snape as Head of House, and Snape as friend of 
the Malfoys (especially Draco).  That none, *none* of the Slytherins 
stood to fight for the "right" side at the end of the year, that the 
Slytherin flag was not flying in the RoR told me that Snape had done 
nothing to instill some basic principles into his young charges.

I'm not saying that doing so would have been an easy task, but it's 
the least I'd expect of a man of principle who realized the mistakes 
*he* had made.  Snape was in charge of a group of exceptionally 
vulnerable children and he did not protect them.

He also failed to pull Draco out from under Voldemort's sway (a place 
we see Draco didn't like being from the 1st chapter of DH) despite 
the fact that his parents seemed unhappy as well.  Instead, despite 
all of Dumbledore's pretty words on the Tower, Draco was kept frozen 
in place.  Again, it was a failure for the man who'd earlier sworn an 
Unbreakable Vow to keep this boy safe.

*HOWEVER*... This is all predicated on HBP.  A book that honestly, 
I'm not sure why JKR wasted time writing.  Just about everything she 
set up in that book fell by the way-side in DH as far as I could 
see.  And one of the things HBP set up was an intelligent and 
principled man in Severus Snape.  So I was expecting Snape to come 
into his own in DH, to finally stand up and show us what he was 
*really* made of.  

Instead Snape remained under Dumbledore's boot, being dictated to by 
a portrait (much as Harry remained a loyal follower than a leader in 
his own right, thoughtlessly dependent on luck and unquestioningly 
following Dumbledore's orders), filled with a sense of self-loathing 
that I think reflected on his own house. 

I do agree Snape did some good.  But I was expecting more.  I didn't 
fully understand what a handicap being a Slytherin is in JKR's world.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176210
> >>houyhnhnm:
> <snip>
> I don't blame Snape. It was Dumbledore with all of his
> talk of "Love" who chose necromancy, blood rituals, and
> prophecies over simple human love. Dumbledore with his
> tragic flaw, his love of power.

Betsy Hp:
Yes, by taking on all the responsibility for the morality of his 
world, Dumbledore took on all the blame for what went wrong.  That's 
part of the problem with personal leaders.  No one is perfect enough 
to take on that role in RL.  And JKR didn't make Dumbledore perfect 
enough in her invented world.  Which is why the WW is still a brutal 
and dark place filled with bigotry and hate.  (IMO, of course. <g>)


Betsy Hp