Snape, again...(was Re: Come on folks)

[julie]

No: HPFGUIDX 173558


> Sydney:
> 
> Every kind of ME TOO to this post!  She turned the angle and 
suddenly
> he looked wonky.  I simply can't make sense of this guy who on the 
one
> hand seems to be a complete moral vacuum, and on the other hand he 
can
> sustain this hopless Love for decades that's so pure it produces a
> Patronus of Dazzling Goodness.  

Julie:
I just want to insert here that I don't think Snape's patronus
represented any kind of "Dazzling Goodness." It represented only
one thing--Lily--the woman Snape loved, the person who was his
"happy thought" (of their childhood friendship obviously, not
what came later) and the motivation for all his actions.

I also don't see Snape in a complete moral vacuum even
as a DE (he could love, and because of that he tried to 
protect that person he loved), nor do I see him sustained 
by a hopeless love for decades. Yes, I guess you can call
it "hopeless" in the sense that she's dead and will never 
love him back, but I don't know that loving someone who 
won't ever love you back is hopeless. That just sounds too
sad, like loving is a pathetic thing if it isn't returned
in kind. Love is love. If it inspires you to act in good
ways, what's wrong with it, or with admitting it? (I also 
think what sustained Snape even more was his determination 
to make up for his part in Lily's death--to make up for his 
betrayal by protecting her son. Not hopeless, pathetic love,
but motivating, instrumental love.)  

Betsy:
I wasn't quite sure how it was going
> to work before DH came out, but I was pretty sure it could;  but it
> can't work like this.  It's not accidental that Snape in DH suddenly
> seemed considerably slower on the uptake than in any previous book, 
or
> that his voice was so silenced.  It wasn't even anything that Snape
> actually DID that broke the character;  it was the author's need to
> 'explain' him. 

Julie:
Regarding Snape's voice being silenced, I felt stunned at first
myself that Snape was so...subdued. Especially in the scene with
Voldemort where he put up no fight whatsoever. Later, after 
thinking about it for awhile, I came away feeling it was in 
fact in character. For the first time Snape sees Nagini being
kept close to Voldemort (what Dumbledore warned him about) and
he realizes that the end has come. (Harry watching from under
the Invisibility Cloak had an immediate sense that Snape was
in mortal danger, and I think Snape may have felt it too.) 

Could Snape have run, or pulled out his wand and duelled? I
suppose he could have tried something. He's not going to win,
because no one except Harry Potter has a chance to beat 
Voldemort one-on-one, but he could have gone down fighting.
Except it wasn't about what he wanted to do, but the job he
still had to finish, and the possibility that he would be
able to get it done was in serious jeopardy. He had to get
those memories to Harry, it was what he'd sacrifice his 
life for (figuratively as well as soon to be literally). 

So I can buy that he is so desperate, looking at Nagini, and
begging Voldemort to let him go get Harry Potter. (And, yes,
it would have been smart to have already put the memories in
a vial in case something happened to him, but Snape can take
care of himself in almost any circumstance except against 
Voldemort, and he had absolutely no reason to expect that
Voldemort would turn on him before the battle was finished).

Betsy:
> What's so frustrating is that it wasn't necessary-- it feels like
> Rowling deliberately took the character and crammed him back into a
> box after he had grown out of it.  You'd have to cut very few lines
> out of DH and we'd all be back here happily arguing away about
> something that was still kind of ambiguous and fun.  But she had 
kept
> hammering home this idea that no, everything good in Snape came from
> Lily and only Lily;  and he did nothing on his own initiative but 
only
> directed by Dumbledore, who controlled him using this weird idee 
fixe,
> like a reverse Manchurian Candidate.  

Julie:
I admit that I was hoping against the whole Snape loves Lily
thing myself. I wanted Snape to be acting on principle, and
to be less damaged by his life (and I speak here of both his
choices and his truly horrid childhood). And while he did 
agree to do whatever Dumbledore wanted because of Lily and
only Lily--and he kept his WORD, no easy thing to do when you
consider Dumbledore wasn't neither nice or subtle about that
promise even as the years passed), I don't believe everything
good about Snape came from Lily, only that it *started* with
Lily. Some of Snape's good eventually came from Snape himself,
the Snape who saved Lupin, and who said he watched those die
"Lately, only those I cannot save." 

Betsy:
I suppose this was originally
> due to some kind of symbolism thing with the Gryffindor/purity
> whatever connects with the corrupted Slytherin thingie, but with 
real
> people it just doesn't work.  Of course the character was so vivid
> that people will continue to work around this, but I can't ignore 
the
> fact that Rowling sawed back all his green shoots and painted them
> over with herbicide.  Or almost all.. he will keep sprouting out!
> 
> Oh the other hand.. I'm going to do this a lot with this book 
because
> although I feel she gutted a lot of what had been my favorite stuff,
> her genius will shine through!  We got some nice extra touches on
> Snape, like his inner Emo!kid, and his fascinatingly sick 
relationship
> with Dumbleodore (I think Snape latched onto a new father figure 
after
> dear old Da and Voldemort, when Dumbledore said, "You disgust me." 
Oh
> Snape, you poor messed up puppy).  And even without ever meeting
> Eileen and Tobias, once you meet 'desperate for approval' Snape you
> can write a one-act play about them:
> 
> EILEEN: I wouldn't have even married a worthless muggle like you if
> you hadn't knocked me up with that brat!
> TOBIAS: He's going to be a freak like you, and not a real man, isn't
> he? I'm sick of both of you. I'm off to the pub. (cuffs Eileen)
(kicks
> little Snape)(SLAM!)
> EILEEN: (bursts into hysterical tears) Oh Sevvie.. promise me you'll
> grow up to great Slytherin wizard, then maybe my family will forgive
> me for having you.

Julie:
Thank you for breaking my heart with this scene :-(

Seriously this is exactly how I see Snape's childhood and
why I have so much sympathy for him. The scene between Lily
and Snape after he referred to her as a "filthy Mudblood!" 
is used as an example that Snape had a choice between 
sinking further into evil or aligning himself with Lily,
and one theory is that if he loved her so much, then he
would have stuck with her. But someone else also said
that choices aren't made in a vacuum. Snape made the 
wrong choice, but throughout his childhood and youth he
was given little incentive to make that right choice.
That he did make it later, even if the incentive was a 
completely personal reason, doesn't change the fact 
that he did finally make that right choice.

Julie, who might have strayed a bit from the original
topic...