Petunia's Eyes/Snape, Snape, Snape

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 169937

Jen:

> Because I don't see how a DDM!Snape can be Grey. 
> His redemption is supposed to be a *complete* reversal 
> when all was said and done. All his actions will make 
> sense for a fully redeemed Snape when his loyalty and 
> motives are revealed, even the tower where he is 
> supposed to be acting on DD's orders to kill him (or 
> there was no AK is the second option, I suppose). And 
> Dumbledore's man *through and through* as I understand 
> the concept, at least how I interpret the canon version 
> of that statement, would be a Snape who has renounced 
> the following if he subscribed to them during the time 
> he was Voldemort's man: the dark arts, pureblood 
> superiority, and *real* ties (not the double-agent 
> pretend ties) and loyalty to Voldemort or his followers 
> which would in any way supersede his loyalty to 
> Dumbledore. Otherwise I don't see how he's DD's man 
> through and through if he has other masters (so to 
> speak) that have caused him to falter in his loyalty to Dumbledore.

houyhnhnm:

I believe Snape made the starkest *choice* of any 
character in the books (and will still be able to 
claim that distinction by the end of the last one).  
He slid nearly all the way all the way down an evil 
road.  But something turned him around, something 
completely internal I think.  With his face in the 
abyss, with no friends or family to help pull him 
back, no promise of future happiness, no hope of 
reward, he chose Right for its own sake alone.  
Don't call him coward.  

That's the way I see the character, anyway.

So Snape is redeemed already.  But he is not healed.  
He has not renounced, or overcome, or even acknowledged 
the need to transcend the bad emotional habits that lead 
him astray in the first place. Anger, resentment,  hatred, 
he hasn't learned to accept them and let them go. He 
represses emotions instead.  So he has not fully 
conquered the little Dark Lord that lives inside 
(that lives inside of everyone ).  I believe his 
will has decided for the right side to the death, 
but his nature has not fully embraced the Light.  
That is how I see Snape being "grey" even though 
I am convinced that he is DDM through and through.