DH rambles and crows eating _ LOVEd this book

[jkoney65]

No: HPFGUIDX 173610

> Jack-A-Roe wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> > - He agrees not to run away like Karkaroff.
> 
> Carol responds:
> Not agrees. Chooses. It's not DD's suggestion. It's his own free
> choice

> Jack_A-Roe:
> > - He goes back to Voldemort as DD's spy.
> 
> Carol:
> "You know what I must ask you to do," says DD. "If you are
> ready; if you are prepared." "I am," says Snape (GoF 713). They have
> obviously planned his return to LV. 


Jack-A-Roe:
He is asked by Dumbledore and he agrees to go back to Voldemort. 
Dumbledore has not ordered him to do it, he asks and Snape agrees. I 
agree that they have already talked about it and Dumbledore is giving 
him one final chance to not do it.

Carol:
<snip> 
> As he tells DD later, he has spied and lied and risked his life
> because DD wanted him to (DH 687). And note that he says he's doing 
it
> *for Dumbledore*, not just for Lily. 

Jack-A-Roe:
No he is still doing it for Lilly. He is working with Dumbledore 
because of Lilly. The best use of his talents is to be a spy. One 
more body vocally opposing Voldemort will not make a difference, but 
a spy would.


 
> Jack_A-Roe:
> > - He provides info the Order, although we don't know exactly what.
> 
> Carol:
> snip>
> And yet, DD seems to have known that the DEs would
> infiltrate the Ministry and take over Hogwarts. Where can that
> information have come from other than Snaape?

Jack-A-Roe:
Well that bit seems like common sense to me. The two biggest 
institutions in the WW are the ministry and the school. It only makes 
sense that he would try to take them over. With Dumbledore at the 
school, taking over the ministry by stealth would be the obvious 
approach.

> 
> Jack_A-Roe:
> > - He basically admits that his soul is not perfect and agrees to 
be
> the one to kill DD. <snip>
> 
> Carol:
> I interpret this scene differently. He wouldn't be concerned for the
> state of his soul if he had murdered before. DD asks him how many
> people he has watched die, not how many he has killed. And Snape 
says,
> "Lately, only those whom I could not save" (687). That, for me, says
> everything.

Jack-A-Roe:
Dumbledore's phrasing is much more polite than asking directly how 
many have you killed in your past. It also allows for Snape not to 
answer directly. Which he doesn't but he still agrees to kill 
Dumbledore which leads one to think that his soul is already more 
damaged than Draco's.

> 
> Jack_A-Roe:
> > - He would have failed to give his information to Harry if 
Voldemort
> had killed him outright or if Harry hadn't been right there.
> 
> Carol:
> Sadly and ironically, that's true, but how it can be blamed on Snape
> escapes me. He's dying from a snake bite, and rather than die in 
vain
> (which is what he fears throughout this scene), he gives the memory 
to
> Harry (along with the memories that will allow Harry at last to
> understand him) before he makes his last request for Harry to look 
at him.

Jack-A-Roe:
I would like to believe that he did have a backup plan but we can't 
prove that either way. He did have a brief chance in the hallway 
before he fled to tell Minerva that he needed to speak to harry. I 
also think he knew Harry was there. The only reason I can come up 
with is that he wasn't sure that this was the time to do it.

> 
> Jack_A-Roe: 
> > So we are left with a man who's obsessive love for a women, drove
> him to try to make up for the fact that he got her killed. 
> > 
> > Did he ever care about Harry? No, he tells us this by showing his
> doe patronus when DD asked him. 
> 
> Carol:
> I read that scene differently. He has made DD promise never to tell
> Harry that he's protecting him. He wants Harry at the last to look
> into his eyes, not only to see Lily but so that Harry could at last
> see him for what he was. he didn't have to provide those other
> memories, only the one about the soul bit. but he wanted Harry to 
know
> that it was his Patronus that had led him to the Sword of 
Gryffindor;
> that he had been Dumbledore's man since Dumbledore gave him that
> second chance, even when DD didn't fully appreciate him. By the time
> of his arrest as a DE, Dumbledore values him enought to say before 
the
> whole Wizengamot that "Severus Snape is now no more a Death Eater 
than
> I am" (GoF 

Jack-A-Roe:
I read the scene as a dying man wanting someone to know what he did. 
The memories are specifically chosen and none really show Snape in a 
bad light. It's more like an autobiography with the bad things left 
out and only the good things left in.

> > 
> Jack_A-Roe:
> > Did he end up helping the light side? Yes. Not because he saw the 
> errors of his ways but because he was trying to make it up to Lilly.
> > 
> > And since results do matter, I will say that he redeemed himself 
> somewhat. But he was still a poor human being who only truly cared 
> about himself and Lilly.
> > 
> > And no I would not have named my child after him.
> 
> Carol responds:
> JKR apparently sees it differently. The virtue she values most is
> courage, and there can be no question that Snape had that virtue in
> spades. 
> Give the man a posthumous Order of Merlin.
> 
> Carol, who would gladly have named her son Severus but is not so 
sure
> about Albus


Jack-A-Roe:
I don't think I ever said he wasn't brave or that he didn't try to 
carry out his mission. I agree with JKR, that he was brave but he was 
still a bully, etc.

So I can say that he redeemed himself somewhat, but he wasn't a great 
man or a hero.