[HPforGrownups] Re: Question about the prophecy and a thought about Ginny

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 171258

Magpie:
<snip>
> I don't think that's the logic. One *can* believe that DD believes 
> that Snape's remorse was the sole reason for his return. The reason 
> for DD's trust in him is presented as a separate question, one that 
> Dumbledore doesn't answer. Dumbledore has no issues about talking 
> about his feelings on Snape's remorse, but does not give that for 
> the reason he thinks he can trust Snape.
<snip>

Dana:
I'm just going to respond to this bit not because the rest is not 
worth responding to

Magpie:
Oh well. I gave it a shot.:-)

Dana:
I'll ask you this, how do you know that DD was thinking about telling 
Harry his reason for his trust and that he did not need a moment to 
make up his mind if he still was sure Snape was indeed on their side 
still? Because Harry is not asking why DD trusts Snape, what Harry is 
asking is how DD can be sure that Snape is on their side. Especially 
because Voldemort is convinced Snape is on his (pg 513 UKed PB 
chapter "The Seer Overheard"). And then DD takes a moment as if he 
was trying to make up his mind. If he was sure without a shadow of a 
doubt that Snape is on his side, wouldn't you have expected DD to 
respond immediately to Harry's question? Because Harry is not asking 
an explanation for DD's trust in Snape. He only wants to know *how* 
DD can be sure Snape is truly loyal to him and DD's reason for 
trusting Snape will not provide an answer to this question for the 
simple fact that DD's trust will not keep Snape loyal if Snape 
decides not to be and neither will the reason for his trust. 

Magpie:
I understand that view, and I think it's presented as one way of
interpreting the text even in the text itself, particularly the part about
Dumbledore's hesitation being about him wondering if he really did trust
Snape 100%. I was just explaining that the view that Dumbledore didn't tell
Harry why he trusted Snape (since he didn't answer the question when posed
directly even if you believe that he just didn't have an answer) was for us
a separate issue from why he thought Snape turned. It seemed like you'd
assumed believing there was more to the trust meant there was more to the
reason for why Snape turned.

I do think that since, as you say, only Snape can decide who's side he's
on, Harry might as well be asking Dumbledore why he trusts Snape. Asking
him how he knows Snape's on their side seems to translate that way to me,
despite Snape being the only one who can decide what side Snape is on. I
don' t think Harry thinks he's asking Dumbledore how any of us can know
other people--he's not so philosophical. 

As to whether Dumbledore would have responded immediately if he didn't have
a shadow of a doubt, no, I don't see why he would. He claims that he
doesn't have a shadow of a doubt by saying he trusts him completely, but I
think the hesitation is about the "how" not whether he trusts him or not.

Dana:
If DD had no issues about talking about Snape's remorse and the 
reason for his return then why does no one know that it was Snape 
that brought the prophecy to LV? Why does DD not allow people to make 
up their own minds about Snape and if they still would want to work 
with Snape if they had this information? Because DD does not trust 
that people could ever forgive Snape for what he has done no matter 
how truly sorry he was for it. 

Magpie:
I meant Dumbledore obviously has no issues talking about Snape's remorse
*to Harry in the scene we are discussing.* Because he's doing it--he's
begging Harry to let him keep doing it. Obviously he doesn't just spread it
around to everyone. Few people even know about the Prophecy, I believe. To
me, Dumbledore's hesitation reads as if he's considering telling Harry
something new--but since I'm not in Dumbledore's mind I don't know if I'm
right. Dumbledore's actions don't read to me like he's hestitaing because
he's not sure if he can trust Snape or even that he's given up on Harry
understanding about the remorse (though I suppose it could be that) because
I think he'd seem more defeated if that was the case.

Dana:
We have seen various people in canon that are loyal to DD and DD 
trusting them and all of them have to some point done something that 
could be defined as betrayal of that trust but for some reason with 
Snape, DD's trust in Snape is somehow so binding that Snape could 
never betray DD's trust because DD must have a good reason to trust 
Snape and it needs to be bigger then Snape's story of remorse. That 
is defining logic to me. JKR might indeed have intertwined Snape's 
loyalty and DD's trust in Snape because that is what makes Snape 
ambiguous. She forces the reader to make a distinction between DD's 
judgment and Snape's loyalties and most people fail to do so (IMO) 
because she uses the support of other characters in canon to define 
that trusting DD's judgment is trusting Snape. She cleverly distracts 
the reader from the option that Harry might in this case be the only 
one who is right. 

Magpie:
Yes, she does--I agree that she's laying out this possibility. The fact
that other characters have only trusted Snape because Dumbledore said he
did is highlighted in HBP, begging the question of whether they were right
to do so, since we ourselves don't know why he trusted him. Your
interpretation is given in the text as Harry's interpretation--he tells
others DD only trusted Snape because he believed he was remorseful about
the Prophecy. Snape also gives that same story to Bellatrix when he says
Dumbledore just believed his tale of remorse (because he wants to see the
good in people).

On the other side, we've got those of us saying wait, Dumbledore *didn't*
give the remorse answer to the question of why he trusted Snape, he was
talking about that before Harry asked how he knew he could trust him. And
McGonagall also obliquely references that same idea when she says she
thought DD hinted at a true "ironclad reason" for trusting Snape.

Both versions are therefore there in the story and we don't know which one
is right yet. I prefer my own, and argued it.

Dana:
Especially because she laid down the cards that Harry has been wrong 
so many times about Snape that the reader expects him to be wrong 
again. And she certainly makes the reader believe that Harry would 
never be able to judge Snape's character better then DD himself 
because of Snape's history with both James and Sirius. So Harry must 
hate Snape for the simple fact that he inherited a prejudice from 
both his father and his godfather as she makes Lupin remind us during 
Christmas in HBP and therefore Harry can't be considered a reliable 
judge of character.

Magpie:
Yeah, I have heard this argument a lot, but it falls very flat to me,
personally. The fact is, even if Harry is right about Snape being ESE, it's
only because it happened to fit in with his biases. It doesn't really show
Harry judging Snape's character better than Dumbledore did at all. Not even
in HBP, where Harry thought Snape was a great guy and defended him as
someone to be trusted in the form of the HBP. Harry hates Snape because
Snape's a jerk to him--he's not a reliable judge of character on Snape,
whether he happens to be right about his being a DE or not. Even a broken
clock is right twice a day. This would be one of those moments for Harry,
imo. And Harry is right about Snape a lot, imo. His expectations for
Snape's behavior in class, for instance, are usually on the money.

I have to say, I'm impressed with the way JKR manages to work with this
kind of thing. Pre-HBP I remember people saying Draco would be the bad guy
because of his threats at the end of OotP, but I thought, "How would that
work when Harry always suspects Draco? It would be unrealistic for him to
suddenly not suspect him." Instead JKR used that and still pulled a twist
by having Draco being more "innocent" even while he was guilty.

Dana:
Therefore I stand until proven otherwise with my so-called illogical 
assessment that DD's trust in Snape or his reason for it has nothing 
to do with Snape's loyalty and neither are DD's judgment skills 
dependent on being right about Snape. 

Magpie:
Are you suggesting I called your thinking illogical in general? Because I
don't believe I did. I disagreed with your description of the logic behind
the position of thinking DD had a reason for trusting Snape other than his
remorse. I don't remember thinking you were illogical for thinking that
DD's judgment skills are not entirely dependent on being right about Snape.
I disagree with it in the context of the story, obviously--I think JKR's
set it up so that a lot rides on Dumbledore's judgment of Snape not being
what the DEs thought it was in HBP. But I didn't have trouble following
your logic. If we should all just stand until prove otherwise why talk on
the list at all? We could just all be waiting for DH.

Dana:
DD would not have tried to help Draco if one of his clumsy murder attempts
had led to the death of a student. 

Magpie:
I wouldn't say for sure, though it seems like that should be true.
Dumbledore would have been somewhat complicit if Ron had died, for
instance, since he knew what was going on, was not interfering and saw what
almost happened to Katie Bell. 

Magpie:
> Rather than analyzing and appreciating the text that's there, you 
> seem to be making a demand about what scene you need to see and 
> assume that any deviation proves your point. 
> Both with Draco and Snape unless the two of them declare for 
> Dumbledore in front of DEs 
> and die for it they can't possibly be anything but bad guys. One 
> obvious reason Draco doesn't do those things is that JKR is a 
> competent writer.
<snip>

Dana:
I am not really sure what you wanted to achieve with adding this to 
your post because I do not really believe that you know me well 
enough to be a judge on how I analyze or appreciate the text. It 
sounds really condescending to me. 

Magpie:
I thought it was clear what I wanted to achieve--it's not a personal
attack, it's me trying to explain why your specific argument in that
paragraph was frustrating. I didn't judge you personally on how you analyze
or appreciated the text in general, I said that looking at the Tower scene
and saying Draco couldn't feel killing was wrong because he didn't declare
that killing was wrong or stop Snape was not an analysis or appreciation of
the scene, it was making up an ideal scene and judging Draco against it. It
was not meant to be condescending. It just seemed to be pushing things to
extremes when they weren't, to me. 

Like if I argued the opposite way and said that Draco could not be said to
have any bad intentions at all in HBP because if he did, why didn't he
murder Dumbledore? Why didn't he look like he was enjoying himself during
the year? Why wasn't he made happier by almost killing people and thrilled
in the Tower where he could totally kill him? These questions have some
limited merit, just as the ones you asked did, but they're more describing
what didn't happen than what did, aren't they? All they establish is that
Draco isn't enjoying himself during the year, just as your questions
establish that Draco isn't a committed DDM--both of which I would think are
obvious at the start.

Imo, it's like saying, "If Ron really likes Hermione, why didn't he ask her
out in the beginning of the year and tell Lavender he didn't want to see
her because he liked someone else? Ron doesn't really like Hermione at all."

Dana:
But tell me do you really believe that a person is actually a good 
guy if he kills, tries to kill or let someone be killed to safe his 
own life? That it is proof that these people have a strong moral 
value of doing the right thing? 

Magpie:
I don't really think that question is relevent. I didn't say Draco was "a
good guy" or had a "strong moral value of doing the right thing." I
described the transitional steps I think Draco was going through in
HBP--whether those steps eventually lead him to being someone that could be
described as a good guy or a guy with a strong value of doing the right
thing remains to be seen. That Draco is trying to kill someone to save his
own life, and that this is not a moral thing to do, I take as a given. It's
the set up for the story that Draco is intending to do a bad thing. I can't
think of any moral defense at all for Draco killing Dumbledore--if he's
doing it for glory it's reprehensible, if he's doing it to save himself and
his family it's more understandable, but still wrong and still murder. 

Dana:
That JKR wanted to show that you can 
still be good if you sacrifice the life of someone else to safe that 
of your own? Or that it is okay to sacrifice the life of someone 
without that person knowing you have gambled his or her life? 

Magpie:
Obviously JKR hasn't said yet, if she's going to at all, that you can still
be good if you sacrifice the life of someone else to save that of your
own--she didn't have Draco sacrifice Dumbledore's life. (She *did* have
Dumbledore gamble with the lives of others without telling them with his
hands-off policy over the year.) She has said, imo, that you can do the
wrong thing and then realize you made a mistake and then change. In CoS
Ginny makes choices that put other people in danger and could get them
killed to protect herself and because she's afraid. I think she's still a
good guy.

Dana:
And that Draco therefore really can be relieved of the responsibility 
he had in almost getting two students killed, letting a murderous 
bunch of lunatics into the castle and then have them kill another 
person to serve as decoy to lure DD to the tower so he again could 
make an attempt to kill him, because he could not go through with 
killing DD himself? 

Magpie:
I didn't say anything about relieving Draco of responsibility. (Not sure
who the decoy is here.) Draco set out to do a bad thing. He saw his actions
directly lead to bad results even beyond what he intended. He eventually
did not choose to do even the original bad act he wanted to commit. He saw
that act committed anyway by someone else--which would not have happened
without his actions either. It doesn't make him a good guy--it also doesn't
mean he couldn't ever become a better person, or that he might as well have
killed Dumbledore himself imo.  

Dana:
Or that Snape can be excused that he could do 
nothing about it because the vow prevented him from doing so. That 
the entire climax on the tower was not a direct result of the choices 
Snape made at the beginning of the year? 

Magpie:
I think Snape made the Vow of his own choice and that the climax on the
Tower was a direct result of the choices he made in the beginning of the
year. I didn't excuse him of anything. 

Dana:
Of course I know that you believe that Snape put his own life at risk 
with taking the vow and that he did it all to help Draco but to me it 
is forgetting that he sacrificed another man's life to do so. 

Magpie:
Snape did put his own life as risk by defintion with taking the Vow, but
I'm not sure yet why he did it. It could be because of Draco, but we could
learn other reasons. I did not forget he sacrificed another man's life to
do so. The fact that Snape put his life at risk for the UV is, for me, a
simple fact, not something that makes the Vow any less murderous. It was
his choice to make his own life dependent on killing Dumbledore, so I don't
think killing him can really be considered self-preservation.

Dana;
And I know that half of fandom believes 
that Snape told DD all about the vow or that DD ordered or asked 
Snape to kill him or that Snape knew what DD was doing or that he 
knew that DD was dying but the text, that I do not seem able to 
analyze and appreciate, does not support any of these claims.

Magpie:
You really seem really offended that I used those terms at all  (I assume
that explains the opening sentence of your post)--and like I said, I'm
sorry, but it was not meant as some general dismissal of anything you said.
It was referring to one paragraph of arguing a certain way that I described
above, and that I found a frustrating way of arguing a point. I certainly
wouldn't say not seeing how DD ordered Snape to kill him proves you can't
appreciate or analyze the story--I don't see how that could work either. I
don't think any of us will be able to until--and if--that turns out to be
canon.

Dana:
Not that I'm going to convince anyone that already fitted the text to
support 
their own opinion but let's be fair shall we your opinion is as good 
as mine even if we disagree. 

Magpie:
On the question of whether Dumbledore asked Snape to kill him? Of course.
(Though I feel compelled to point out, just in the abstract, that I don't
think all opinions are equal, which is why I think it's worth arguing.) I
would like to think I haven't already fitted the text to support my own
opinion, personally, and that I'd be open to arguments that convinced me.
It's happened before. 

Magpie:
> I believe you yourself pointed that out regarding Sirius and the 
> Prank.) If he's already almost killed without remorse I'd think it 
> would be that much easier.
<snip>

Dana:
First of all that is still assuming that Sirius ever had the 
intention of killing Snape and canon never states this.

Magpie:
I did not assume that Sirius ever had the intention of killing Snape--I
don't believe he did and that's not what I was referring to. I remembered
that you pointed out when Sirius was accused of not saying he was sorry
about the Prank, that since nobody got hurt he had little reason to even
worry about it--just as you went on to explain here. I was agreeing with
your appreciation and analysis in this case and applying it to a different
situation.

You say it's apples and oranges--I don't see how it is. Draco's situation
is nothing like Sirius' and vice versa (I don't know that I'd say one is
obviously better--I don't know if I'd rather die because someone murdered
me to save themselves or because they were Pranking me and it went wrong),
but I only spoke about the way that people feel a different kind of remorse
for things that have everlasting bad consequences than for things that
could have had those consequences but didn't. This is also, I think,
referred to by Dumbledore when he describes Draco's dangerous misadventures
by saying "No real harm has been done." 

Dana:
Draco never came to a resolution he would have stood there 
indefinitely if he would not have been shoved out of the way by 
Snape. I totally agree with you that Draco will learn something from 
it but he has not come to this point yet. The only thing that played 
a role at that point in time is that he could not do it. That he was 
too scared to just take someone's life. He then still has to take the 
responsibility that his choices caused someone his life. So Draco not 
being able to kill when he is faced with his intended victim face to 
face does not make him a good guy all of a sudden. 

Magpie:
I agree with those whole paragraph, and that's why I stumble when I get to
the last paragraph. I thought I stated flat-out that it *didn't* make him a
good guy all of a sudden. I said it was a step in potentially learning and
becoming better, not that it made him a good guy. Not taking the next step
down the wrong path, but not putting a step onto the right path. But I
think for those character especially not taking that next step down the
wrong path is a change.

Dana:
Draco had many 
choices during the entire year and he still chose to try to do as 
ordered. Although it might be a lot to ask of a 16 year old to go 
against a Dark Wizard's orders and sacrifice himself for it, he could 
have gone to DD or he could have let Snape help him (well not that it 
would have gotten him very far but anyway) 

Magpie:
He could have, but I don't think that would have been realistic or that it
really matters that he didn't. He didn't, at any time during the year,
transform into what we'd basically call "one of the good guys" and so start
doing what they would do. I think his transformation, if he has one, is
being done in a way that will ultimately be more believable. 

I mean, people are limited by many more things than what they could
physically do. Harry could have let the Order take care of things in OotP
and Sirius would have been saved; he could--and probably should--have told
Dumbledore everything that was going on in CoS and so could Ginny. That
doesn't mean they really wanted the Heir to win. They were working with
what they had, including their own misunderstandings and personal issues.

Dana:
The same goes for Snape. Some might see it as a noble deed that Snape 
took a vow to help Draco but I do not because essentially if Draco 
had made a choice halfway through the year that he could not kill DD 
then Snape still would have needed to complete the task given to him. 
And Snape by taking the vow made himself incapable of helping DD. 
Snape with taking the vow did not help Draco because Snape with his 
action made sure that Draco is still on the wrong side of the fence. 
And because Snape was incapable of preventing Draco in trying to 
perform his task he willingly put other people at risk. It is not for 
nothing that people want to include DD in the killing scheme because 
as canon stands now it does not support Snape as one of the good 
guys. 

Magpie:
Yeah, I pretty much agree. I don't get why he took the vow yet at all--no
matter where he stands. It's a real WTF Snape? moment for me.

Magpie:
> Not having 'the nerve' slides over the whole question of why people 
> don't kill other human beings.

Dana:
Really, I though respecting other people's lives is why people do not 
go around killing other people and because in most cases when the 
stakes are high enough people mostly overcome their anxiety pretty 
darn quick. Hiring someone to have someone killed is still being 
guilty of attempted murder or murder and to me Draco did cross that 
line. It remains to be seen if he takes responsibility for his 
actions but indeed he probably will. 

Magpie:
I don't quite follow what you mean. If respecting peoples' lives is the
reason not to kill it seems to imply that Draco respects Dumbledore's life,
which is a good thing for him to understand is a good thing. I don't know
how high stakes have to be to overcome one's anxiety--the stakes are pretty
high at the end there and Draco doesn't overcome his. (He has fewer
anxieties when he doesn't really understand the reality of it and killing
is just an abstract idea.) Draco doesn't hire anyone to have anyone killed,
so he's not guilty of that. He is not guilty of murder because he doesn't
kill anyone. He is guilty of attempted murder, and I think he does need to
take responsibility for that, and understand how easily attempted murder
could have been murder. (From his pov, it should be almost the same thing.)

-