Snape and Dumbledore on the Tower: A Defense of Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165367

Carol earlier:
> 
> > I'm assuming that Dumbledore knows all about the UV based on his
comment to Harry after Harry tells him about the overheard
conversation between Snape and Draco. 
> 
Eggplant:
> You're half right. Dumbledore did indeed believe that Snape told
Draco that he had taken an unbreakable vow, but it's clear he didn't
really think Snape had done it. I can't think of any other
interpretation given the dialogue below:
> 
> Draco said to Dumbledore "He [Snape] hasn't been doing your orders,
he promised my  mother_"
> Dumbledore replied "Of course that is what he would tell you Draco, 
> but_" 
> 
> Unlike Dumbledore we readers know Snape didn't just say he'd made
the vow, he really had. And there is no "but" about it.

Carol responds:
Oh, yes. That favorite JKR tactic, the unfinished remark. Your
interpretation makes sense, but it isn't the only possible
interpretation. To begin with, if DD didn't know about the Unbreakable
Vow already, why would Snape report that he had told Draco that story?
He'd have to come up with a very quick and convincing explanation for
telling such a whopping lie to Draco.

It's possible that DD didn't know about the third provision of the
vow, but I see absolutely no reason why he wouldn't tell DD about the
first two (to protect and watch over Draco, which is exactly what
Snape is doing when he finds Draco bleeding from Harry's Sectumsempra).

And the first part of Dumbledore's sentence is perfectly true: Of
course, that's what Snape would tell Draco. He's not going to tell him
that he's also watching over him and protecting him on Dumbledore's
orders! As for the "but," it can easily be filled in this way: "Of
course that's what he would tell you, Draco, but he was also acting on
my orders."

I see no problem whatever with Snape, the double agent, working with
Narcissa and for Dumbledore at the same time. But, of course, he's in
the role of DE!Snape when he talks to Draco, and he's not going to say
anything that would give away his true loyalties if they're to
Dumbledore, or to lead Draco to suspect that he might be loyal to
Dumbledore rather than LV even if he isn't. It's the situation with
Bellatrix all over again: Regardless of where Snape's loyalties really
lie, when he's with the DEs and their associates, he has to *seem*
loyal to Voldemort.

And Snape has certainly promised Dumbledore to do *something,* which
Hagrid thinks is making investigations into his house (which would be
his duty in any case).

Carol earlier: 
> > As for Snape's reasons for taking the UV [
] he'd gone to great
pains to protect his cover and provide explanations for the breaches
in his loyalty to Voldemort that a fanatical DE like Bellatrix would
understand 
> 
Eggplant:
> As I said before if JKR wants a good Snape she's going to have to
find a HUGE reason for him making that vow, an your reason is way way
too puny. Bellatrix is not Snape's boss, if Voldemort didn't demand
that he make that vow she certainly can't. 

Carol:
Now you're taking my remarks out of context. The comment about
Bellatrix is only one item in my list. As I said, he took the vow in
the first place to protect Draco. It's only when we get to the third
provision that we have to examine the possibilities. And Bellatrix
standing over him with a wand when his own wand hand is bound with
rings of fire seems like a reasonable thing for him to have been
thinking about under the circumstances. I never said that it was his
primary reason.

Eggplant:
The only way I can think of to make it work is that Snape was only
vowing to do what he had every intention of doing anyway, to help
Draco and kill Dumbledore if Draco failed to do so. But that is
incompatible with a good Snape. If JKR wants a good Snape she's going
to have to work very hard for it, harder than any of us has.

Carol:
But helping Draco can be interpreted in two different ways, and it's
clear from the first two provisions and from Snape's subsequent
actions (which inclued putting Draco's two cronies in detention) that
he's not trying to help him kill Dumbledore or get DEs into Hogwarts.
He doesn't even know about the Vanishing Cabinet plan, and he
discourages Draco from using "amateurish" methods like cursed
necklaces that can kill or injure innocent people (or, more to the
point from Draco's perspective, get him caught). The only life that's
endangered when Snape swears to protect and watch over Draco is his
own. As for the third provision, to "do the deed" if Draco can't, that
wasn't in the original bargain. Narcissa through it in after Snape was
quite literally bound to her by ropes of fire. He had to decide what
to do in that moment. What we don't know is why he chose to accept
that provision. Would an evil Snape have risked his own life to save
Draco from committing murder or being murdered? I don't think so. An
evil Snape would have refused to take the vow in the first place
because the Dark Lord wanted Draco to do the job or die.
> 
Carol earlier:
> > It's only the third provision, which he clearly didn't anticipate
given the twitch, that presents a problem.
> 
Eggplant:
> At one stroke that literary device would turn a brilliant enigma,
one of the most interesting characters in the books, into a laughing
stock. Only a jackass would vow to do things when he didn't even know
what he was vowing to do. 

Carol:
I don't think so. I think that Snape is still a brilliant enigma or
you and I wouldn't be discussing him and trying to figure him out. I
think that the twitch means that he feared what was coming, that he
knew he'd be binding himself to something he didn't want to do, but
either he could not escape at that point or he chose to take the risk.
After all, what were the chances that he'd confront a weakened
Dumbledore on the tower or that Draco could get the DEs into Hogwarts?
He's not agreeing to murder Dumbledore flat out at the first
opportunity. He's agreeing to do it if it appears that Draco can't.
And if Draco and Dumbledore can be kept apart and the DEs can be kept
out of Hogwarts, the confrontation won't occur and the vow won't be
triggered. 

It was a calculated risk, and Snape lost.
> 
Carol earlier:
> > the UV in itself does not prove that he's not Dumbledore's man.
> 
Eggplant"
> I think it does prove it, unless someone (like JKR) can come up with
a  sensible reason a good Snape would make that crazy vow. I'm not
saying such a reason can't exist, maybe we'll learn of it on July 21,
but I haven't heard it yet.

Carol:
I think you're confusing proof with evidence. If a point has been
proven, for example that Fake!Moody was Barty Crouch Jr., there's no
point arguing because the evidence is conclusive. Only points that
have not yet been proven can be argued.

You're not convinced that he could have taken the vow for legitimate
reasons, and that's fine. But your skepticism is not proof that you're
correct. It only means that you don't find my arguments convincing.
And the very fact that you concede the possibility that JKR can come
up with a reason you consider sensible shows that the vow does not in
itself prove that Snape is not Dumbledore's man.

Suppose that he took the first two provisions in good faith, risking
his own life to save Draco from committing murder or being murdered.
And suppose that he either had no way out of the third provision
because he was trapped by the first two and/or to refuse would be to
give away his true loyalties and make him useless to Dumbledore as a
spy. Suppose that he did indeed tell Dumbledore and that they worked
together to prevent the vow from being triggered with the combined
motive of protecting Draco at all costs. And suppose that Dumbledore
said to Snape as he said to Harry that, if it came to a choice between
Snape's life and Dumbledore's, Snape must choose to save his own.

Only Snape can get close enough to Voldemort to subvert him from the
inside. Only Snape could save Draco from being killed by the DEs or
Voldemort. And, as it happened, only Snape could save Harry and get
the DEs out of Hogwarts.

I think that Snape didn't want to make the vow and he didn't want to
kill Dumbledore, but in both cases, he did what Dumbledore would want
him to do. What is right and what is easy and not as clearly
distinguishable in this case as they usually are, but I think that JKR
can indeed make it clear that Snape in both cases did what was right
rather than what was easy.

If Snape was indeed evil, why didn't he mock Dumbledore and call him a
"stupid old man," as Draco did? Why did he stop the DE from Crucioing
Harry? Why did he bother to send DD's body over the battlements? Why
not just let Fenrir Greyback savage it, and let the DEs run rampant
through Hogwarts?

Carol earlier: 
> > We're seeing the look of hatred and revulsion from Harry's pov 
> 
Eggplant:
> No, the book said it looked like Snape was full of hate not that
Harry thought he did. <snip>

Carol:
The book is written from Harry's point of view. *He* sees revulsion
and hatred on Snape's face, but he doesn't see what's in Snape's mind.
The parallel with what Harry feels in the cave is surely deliberate.
The wording is too similar to be accidental. Note that the
third-person-limited-omniscient narrator also says that Snape is going
kill Harry or Crucio him into insanity, and it isn't even Snape who's
casting the Crucio. Instead, he stops it. And, of course, Harry
neither dies nor becomes insane.

I can link you to some of my unreliable narrator posts if you like.
But let's just say that just because the narrator says something
doesn't make it true. If you need additional examples, I can cite
them, starting with Harry's parents being killed in a car accident.

Carol earlier:
> > If someone *must* kill Dumbledore, and if it's the only way to
save Draco's life, better Snape than Draco. 
> 
Eggplant:
> I hope JKR doesn't pursue this, trading Dumbledore's life for slime
> ball Draco seems like a poor idea and a very poor plot element.
> 
Carol:
Well, I'd rather that she hadn't brought in the Unbreakable Vow and
had Snape kill Dumbledore on the tower because I hate what it's done
to Snape. (Either I'm wrong and he's evil or he's suffering
unendurable mental anguish and traded the reluctant trust of his
fellow Order members for the hatred of the whole WW and terrible
danger.) I'd much rather that Dumbledore had died from the poison or
even that Draco had succeeded in killing him. when I said "better
Snape than Draco," I was expressing what I believe to be JKR's and
Dumbledore's view, not my own. 

But poor idea and poor plot element? I disagree, it's a compelling and
tragic twist, closely tied in with Dumbledore's mercy on the tower. I
only hope that the consequences for Snape aren't as tragic as they
were for Dumbledore. But I'm afraid that you and I have very different
hopes and expectations and very different ideas about what constitutes
a poor idea or a poor plot element.

Think how much more complex the plot will be if Snape is good and
Harry has to find that out and forgive him and even work with him than
if Snape is evil and we already know all there is to know--nothing
left but a final confrontation between Snape and Harry and a waste of
a complex and fascinating character, a "gift of a character," in JKR's
own words.

Carol, who doesn't think that anything so simple as Snape dying to
save Harry's life can possibly resolve the enigma that is Severus Snape