I was wrong (contains spoilers, lots and lots of them)

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 172512

> Eggplant wrote:
> > I once said you couldn't have a good Snape and a good book 7, it 
> > turns out I was wrong. I also said if JKR can figure out a way to 
> > do it then she's an even better writer than I thought she was, it 
> > turns out I was right, she really is a better writer than I 
> > thought she was.
> > 
> > But in my own defense let me ask even the most loyal members of 
> > the I love Snape club something, wasn't there a time when reading 
> > the book you thought I must be wrong, Snape really is evil?

Montavilla47:

Nope.  Not for a single split-second did I doubt in Snape's 
essential goodness.  It played out exactly as I had predicted at 
least a year ago.

I knew that if Snape was going to be good, then JKR would start 
out DH by continuing to make him look as bad as possible.  

If, on the other hand, he was going to be evil, that she would 
continue to plant doubt in our heads by having him provide vital 
information or some such thing.

I had minor spoilers about his patronus possibly being a doe
before I started reading, but I think I would have recognized it as
Snape's anyway (even though no one I know ever guessed he 
would have a doe patronus), because Red Hen had theorized 
that Snape would send Harry useful information with a patronus
that no one would recognize (because it had changed, see, like
Tonks's).

However, JKR got around that difficulty by simply never having 
Harry *ask* who in the order had a doe patronus.

This may have made reading the story less enjoyable, as I 
kept waiting for the big Snape revelation, and of course, it
wasn't going to happen until the end.  I was very excited when
Harry poured those memories into the Pensieve.

And there were plenty of great parts to the story before.  
I loved the Ministry sequence.

Montavilla47