[HPforGrownups] Deathly Hallows: My Review (SPOILERS!)

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 172474

Ali:
I think I might well get some strong contentions on this opinion, but that's
just how it is.  JKR has yet proven to me that Snape isn't evil.  In fact,
while I always thought Snape wasn't good, I never even thought Snape was
evil *until* this book.  Let me explain that one before I get buried under
the flames.

Before DH, Snape was a man who stood for something.  He did what he wanted
and didn't worry about what others thought.  He wasn't nice, but his methods
had reason.  True, his teaching Neville was less than desirable, but I've
had teachers who've yelled and thought that served as motivation.  Snape
just wasn't evil; he was just awful and mean - he exemplifies Sirius' remark
that the world isn't divided between good guys and Death Eaters.  In DH, he
was a guy who always went after the dark arts, wanted to be a Death Eater
from very early on; he was someone who chose that over his friend
Lily.  (And don't even get me started on how much I dislike Snape-Lily.)  In
the end, I feel like JKR wanted me to believe that "Snape turned good for
the love of a woman," but what I felt was that this man decide to *switch
sides* for his own purposes.  He didn't turn good; he bargained with
Voldemort to save Lily first.  Had it worked out that Lily was saved, I
doubt that Snape would've worked for Dumbledore.  Working for good didn't
make him any less evil.  Pah.  (Yes, start sending the flames my way.  I
accept that my view is entirely unpopular.)


Shelley:
Oh, heck no. No flames from here. I just can't buy the Snape loved Lilly 
theory, even if we have it in canon that Snape told that to DD, and DD 
believed it, then Snape showed that memory to Harry. It's too shallow. Snape 
could have, at any time, turned away from his friends at Slytherin, become a 
good guy while still at Hogwarts. He didn't do it then.  Lilly didn't break 
that relationship up- Snape did, by driving her away. He didn't have the 
balls to go after her- he didn't have the guts to change things then. Using 
the love of a woman as an excuse to return from being a Death Eater- a 
woman, who, by that time, had married, and was sleeping with another, and in 
fact, had a son by her lover and husband, and then murdered- is a bunk 
argument, because no matter what he did, he would never get her back. NEVER. 
He needed an excuse to get the "trust" of Dumbledore, pure and simple, so he 
could still spy for Voldemort. That's what I still think.

I think DD was a fool, or, maybe he played along to accomplish his own 
manipulations. Snape was good at both Occulemency and Legilemens- we must 
remember that.