Re: Rowling’s Debunking of the Marauders

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 172866

Leslie41:
> Of course!  But some interpretations hold more water than others.  

Dana:
All interpretations hold water in the eye of the beholder as long as 
they really want to believe what they are seeing is true. 

Leslie41:
> I'm not understanding here
if Snape did what he did purely for 
> Harry, that would be okay
but if he does it because of Harry's mom 
> instead that somehow impugns his manifold acts of bravery?  I'm not 
> following that line of reason.
<snip>  

Dana:
There is indeed a slight difference in wanting to comfort once own 
feelings and doing something for someone else. 
So in other words doing what is right because it is the only right 
thing to do or doing something because you are so desperately longing 
for the pain in your heart to be resolved. 

Snape is doing the later. Helping Harry is not giving him any comfort 
and he does not get any pleasure out of it and he is constantly 
looking for excuses to quit and the only thing that keeps him going 
is the memory of the one he loved and lost. 
After all these years he still does not give one iota for the kid. 

What would, to me, have been okay is if he had acknowledged Harry as 
not being his father and worthy of his help regardless of Lily's 
sacrifice for the mere fact that it was Snape's action that put this 
kid in danger his entire life. But Snape doesn't think in these terms 
he only helps DD because it is the only thing he can do to keep 
Lily's sacrifice from being in vain. 

Does that change anything about what he did? No, of course it doesn't 
but that doesn't mean that Snape as a person really changed into 
something saint like just because he helped out the light side. 

Leslie41:
> He didn't "try" to save Lupin.  He actually *saved* Lupin.  
> Deflected a curse that would have killed him. I think a clear sign 
> that he developed "empathy and respect for people's lives" is when 
> he tells Dumbledore that he has suffered through having to witness 
> the deaths of people he was not able to save.  People that have 
> nothing to do with Lily Potter, like the Muggle Studies professor.

Dana:
Yes, and cuts off George's ear in the process, which can't be 
repaired because the injury was caused by a dark curse. So why did 
Snape not use a simple stunning spell. It is actually saying 
something about Snape's way of thinking in how he uses magic.  

And my actually point was that Snape put Lupin in danger in the first 
place. Apparently killing DD was not enough to get Snape into LV's 
good grace and someone else still paid with his life for this move. I 
understand that people in the light of DH (and JKR's lack of moral 
values) that it is apperently okay for people on the good side to 
sacrifice people on their own side in the battle against LV but 
Snape's willingness to do so in my view does not really differs much 
from when he was a DE and willingly let people die for LV's cause. He 
is more reluctantly to go around and kill people randomly but he is 
still willingly turning a blind eye and he doesn't even question it, 
he just does. 

Leslie41:
> Actually, that's only partly so.  What Harry says to Voldemort is 
> not that Snape belonged to Harry's mother.  He says that "Snape was 
> Dumbledore's."  His loyalty is to Dumbledore. I'm not saying that 
> this wasn't because of Lily and his love for her (which Harry also 
> acknowledges), but Rowling clearly marks Snape as Dumbledore's 
> here, first and foremost.  There are so many other ways that she 
> could have done it to blur that.  She makes it pretty clear.
<snip>

Dana:
Please read it again because that is not all what Harry said. He said 
Snape became DD's the moment LV started to hunt down his mother. And 
he then goes on about Snape's patronus being the same as his mother 
and that he loved her nearly all his life. He became DD's spy because 
LV threatened Lily and he has been working against LV ever since 
because of her. 

I do not think I will be able to make you see that in essence Snape 
was not loyal to DD at all. They had an arrangement that pretty much 
covered the same goal but if DD had changed his mind and had gone on 
an extended holiday because he no longer saw fit to do anything to 
keep Lily's memory and sacrifice high, then Snape would have turned 
on him without blinking twice. Of course this never happened but I 
think it is stretching things a bit to believe that Snape was loyal 
to DD because he believed in the man's values. Snape did not trust DD 
and DD's judgment. I hope I can remind you that DH is not the only 
book in the series and that not everything Snape stood for was 
written with a pink pen and rose colored glasses. 

Leslie41:
> It wouldn't surprise me!  But as you say, at this point that is not 
> canon.  And in the epilogue we see that she doesn't want to muddy 
> the waters by making it canon in the book.  She wants the testament 
> of "Albus Severus" to stand alone.  And if James turns out to be 
> James Sirius that certainly wouldn't do anything to change that, 
> because it will, essentially, have the weight of an afterthought.
<snip>

Dana:
Fortunately for me JKR has a high tendency of omitting things in 
canon and assuming the reader will get it. I hope you haven't missed 
that Harry says Albus full name quietly so only Ginny can hear it.  
So apparently it is not something he is so proud of that others 
should hear it too. And I do not think that the poor kid will go 
around yelling his full name to anyone that wants to hear it. 

I have no problem with you believing anything that you want about 
Severus Snape as you are entitled to do whatever you want with the 
canon given to you. So if you want to elevate him to sainthood then 
by all means go ahead. We will then just have to respectfully agree 
to disagree.  

Leslie41:
> Of course!  Because Snape is not his "loved one".  And Harry is not 
> Snape's "loved one."  
<snip>

Dana:
But you wanted to imply that naming his kid Severus meant that Snape 
had made a bigger impression on him then either Lupin or Sirius 
because he doesn't seem to have named a kid after either one of them 
but when he is marching up to his own death the people that he wants 
to escort him to his new adventure are the once that are closest to 
his heart. And as Sirius says we are part of you. Snape is not part 
of Harry and he did not make a bigger impression on Harry then either 
Sirius or Lupin. He just paid the man a tribute by giving the man's 
name as a middle name to his son. And just because we do not get a 
kid specifically named after either man, does not mean that Harry 
thinks less about what they have meant and done for him. Teddy Remus 
Lupin is Harry's godson so he practically already has a son with 
Remus as a middle name. So now we only have to wait for JKR to 
confirm that indeed James's middle name is Sirius and the entire 
marauder era lives fort in Harry's family. (well minus Pettigrew of 
course but nothing he's ever done will be worth mentioning)

Leslie41:
> I like Sirius myself!   And I am willing to grant that perhaps he 
> revealed some aspect of remorse about the prank to her.  But he 
> doesn't do it in the books.  No remorse at all.  We have to infer 
> that.  
<snip>

Dana:
I would suggest to read the part of the Prince Tale in which the 
prank is mentioned again then you see that Sirius in all likelihood 
had nothing to be sorry for. Snape already knew what he could find. 
He was just obsessed about wanting to know what James and his friends 
were up to. 
Not once in the entire memory does Snape claim to Lily that James and 
his friends had tried to kill him or that they played a trick on him 
that could let to his death. Not one inkling attempt to shove the 
lable of murderer in any of the marauders shoes even when Lily is 
claiming that his friend's humor is evil. 

The prank happened before Lily's friendship with Snape ended and 
before the SWM and Lily would never just say to Snape that James is 
just an arrogant toerag if he had tried to kill her friend. And I do 
not believe for one minute that Snape would not have used it against 
James if it actually had been true because at that time he already 
knew James had the hots for Lily and he would have done anything to 
get him as far away from her as possible but I believe Snape would 
never have had the guts to lie to her and risk losing her if she 
found out. 

I already commented on this in a different post 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/172751

So essentially as canon stands now Sirius did not have to have 
remorse about anything because he never had the intention to hurt 
Snape and he is just not sorry to have played a trick on Snape that 
never materialized into anything hurtful towards Snape. Snape going 
mad in the Shack was not about his schoolboy grudge. He completely 
lost it because he was facing the man he held responsible for Lily's 
death. His comment to DD was a last attempt on Snape's part to win DD 
over for his cause and just like 20 years before it failed to deliver 
results. 

JMHO 

Dana