DH Thoughts

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 172532

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "leslie41" <leslie41 at ...> wrote:
>
>
> 
> Lupinlore: 
> > Dumbledore for his part respected Snape and developed compassion 
and
> > pity for him. But he also felt disapproval, disappointment, and
> > outright disgust for many of Snape's choices and attitudes and
> > practices, and is expressing those feelings in rather harsh terms
> > right up until late in HBP.
> 
> Leslie41:
> Go back to "The Prince's Tale".  That chapter is late in HPB, but 
it 
> covers a period of about 25 years in Snape's life.  
> 
> Dumbledore exhibits disgust with Snape when he returns before the 
> Potters are killed.  That's perfectly true, but that's when Snape 
is 
> around 21 or so, after he comes to DD as a Death Eater. When Snape 
> puts himself in Dumbledore's service after the Potters are killed 
> (shortly after that), Dumbledore promises not to reveal Snape's 
> secret, which he calls "the best of you."
> 
> After that, every single thing Dumbledore says about Snape is 
> admiring, even loving. 

ROTFLMAO!  Let's see.  The last scenes in "The Prince's Tale" to be 
set in the context of HBP:

"What are you doing with Potter, etc (page 684)

DD's reply:

"Why?  Are you trying to give him MORE detentions, Severus?"

Not loving or supportive or fatherly.  Sounds like tension, 
disapproval, and a reluctant acceptance of the undesirable parts of a 
business relationship to me.  As well it should.  One of the more 
elegant ways JKR avoids the trap of approving of child abuse.

Page 687

"Don't be shocked Severus, how many people have you watched die?"  

Not at all loving, that.  Particularly as it echoes Dumbledore's 
disgust of so long ago.

"But this is touching, Severus," said Dumbledore seriously.  "Have 
you grown to care for the boy, after all?"

Disapproval, tension, and what for Dumbledore is biting sarcasm.  All 
in the same tone he uses to word whip the Dursleys in HBP.


Sorry, I don't buy for one minute that DD had a loving, paternal 
relationship with Snape, or that Snape regarded Dumbledore as an 
archon of light and goodness that he followed as the way to general 
moral redemption.  

You are right that Dumbledore feels pity and compassion for Snape, as 
shown in the episode with the doe.  This in no way negates the other 
aspects of this layered and deep relationship -- a relationship that 
resists being reduced to a simple positive reading, or indeed a 
totally negative one.




> So, er, are you, *Lupinlore*, relishing in the death of the 
character 
> who, at some risk, deflected a curse that saved Remus Lupin's 
life?  
> 
> Now there's an irony I find delicious...
>

Absolutely!  Snape's fate is satisfying and fits well with the 
demands of moral and karmic justice.  The multiple levels of irony 
that fold around it make it all the more satisfying and amusing.

Lupinlore, who chuckles every time he rereads the Snape/Dumbledore 
interactions in DH and says to all of those who find Dumbledore to be 
a jerk -- "YES!  And Snape richly deserves every jibe and criticism."