Snape still gives off that stalker vibe to me

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 172481

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "houyhnhnm102" <celizwh at ...> wrote:

> His initial response to finding out Voldemort was after 
> the Potters *was* selfish (as was the "love", initially,  
> of most of the teenagers we observed in the Potterverse).  
> "You disgust me," Dumbledore said.  And Snape did not 
> argue.  He didn't whine. He accepted Dumbledore's 
> judgement and offered to do *anything* to keep all 
> three safe.
> 
> Snape loved Lily with as honorable and unselfish a 
> love as any depicted in the books, in my opinion.


He may have truly loved her.  She treated him kindly at a time in his
life when no one did.  But it doesn't make him a wonderful person.  It
makes him a person who had one spot of goodness in his life.  In
comparison to Riddle, who had no goodness, it's the world.  And that
one shining example of goodness, well, it enabled him to be one of the
bravest in the fight against evil.  and that's nice.  But I still
can't have too much respect for him.

That one spot of goodness wasn't enough to make him into a fair
person, or a nice person.  He couldn't be decent to Harry, only
protect him out of a sense of obligation left over from a tragic,
unrequited love.

And worse... that spot of goodness couldn't even make him a not evil
person until it was directly affected.  It didn't stop him from going
towards the dark arts, towards voldemorte, towards hatred to an entire
group of people (a group of people he is a part of, in fact).  He had
a bad childhood, but harry didn't even have a 'lily' the first 11
years of his life.

If Harry wasn't the object of the prophecy, Snape would likely never
have changed the path he was on.  He would've continued on the side of
evil, killing people that Lily loved - even James or Harry if he had
crossed their paths.

Snape turns out to have been  'good' for the series which many of us
thought he would.  But he wasn't nice.  And his goodness is qualified.
 In the end... I don't know that i can have more respect for him than
Pettigrew, or even Umbridge.  There are different layers of good and
evil, nice and mean, fear and bravery, love and hate in JKR's world. 
Snape was an interesting character.  But a brave man, to be emulated?
 I don't think so.  concerning his 'soul'... I think he was lucky to
have ever known lily - her life and her death being all that stopped
Snape from complete evil.


Btw... if he had truly accomplished dumbledore's request and defeated
dumbledore... would his death at voldy's hands mean harry would've
died in that final conflict?