Harry Potter and The Boys From Brazil (long)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 170411

Neri:
> Yes, yes, but what about Snape, some of you must be asking by now <g>.
> If Free Will is the main theme of the series, then what is the role of
> Snape's character in this theme? Well, in this obvious duality of the
> two mirror images, Harry and Voldemort, the one who chose good and the
> one who chose evil, Snape stands in the middle like a wild card,
> always ambiguous, always refusing to take a side. 

Pippin:
What you are leaving out, in your otherwise excellent analysis, is the
idea of Second Chances. There is no Free Will without them. No one, 
not even Dumbledore, can choose rightly every time, so without
Second Chances the  first wrong choice will lead inevitably to another, 
and another, and determinism triumphs after all. 

Snape is the only adult character who has been given both a deliberate 
second chance and the opportunity to make a different life for himself
because of it. Structurally, if it turns out that this is one of Dumbledore's
mistakes, then the whole idea of second chances will be undermined,
and with it, the idea of choice will crumble.

If Snape were the character who couldn't choose, if he were 
as cagey as he pretends to be at Spinner's End, then why did
he not treat Harry as he claimed he did? Why didn't he
wait to see what sort of person Harry was, what powers he 
had, in order to decide how Harry would fit into his schemes?

Instead he seemed determined to make Harry hate him 
from the beginning. What purpose can that hatred serve, if
not to convince Voldemort that Harry will never have Snape
as an ally and Snape will never want him? So Snape must 
have been planning from the beginning to help Harry 
against Voldemort.  

We never see Snape being indecisive. If anything he makes
up his mind all too quickly. OTOH,  there is a character
who seems unable to make any choice  until it is forced
on him. He might kill, not to help one side or the other
but to keep his options open. Interesting that Lupin is
in a position to have killed Sirius, and Snape is not. 

Of course Lupin could not have killed Dumbledore, but
then we don't know what killed Dumbledore really. If we
didn't have Harry to tell us that Snape had AK'd him, we'd
have no trouble believing he'd died of the poison at all. 

If Harry, now mature, cannot be mistaken, then second
chances are not really necessary to Free Will, nor is
freedom necessary to virtue. The only proper exercise of
free will would be to turn one's freedom over to the best
chooser and make ourselves his slaves. That, not 
coincidentally, is what Voldemort would like. 

But if  Harry can be mistaken, then he will stand as much
in need of second chances as Snape did, and that, IMO,
will be far more expressive of JKR's theme. 

Pippin