Snape's the Rescuer - Really? WAS: Justice to Snape
Renee
rvink7 at hotmail.com
Sun Jun 24 00:34:58 UTC 2007
No: HPFGUIDX 170684
--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...>
wrote:
<lots of snippage>
>
>But had
> Snape not taken HRH them to the hospital wing, Harry and Hermione
> could not have Time-Turned and therefore they could not have saved
> anyone. The story would have ended with Sirius Black and Harry
> soul-sucked (whether or not the unconscious Hermione and the injured
> and unconscious Ron survived both werewolf and Dementors with no
> TT!Harry to conjure the Patronus).
Renee:
Of course Snape contributed to the happy outcome (though I wonder what
he would have done if he'd foreseen it would lead to Sirius's escape).
But he did not save any lives and souls, as there was no immediate,
life-and-soul-threatening danger at that moment; as others have
pointed out, he takes his time. That he enables H&H to Time-turn
later, is merely a collateral result of what he thought he was doing,
not a merit.
Carol:
> Alternatively, Snape *could* have summoned the Dementors to soul-suck
> the supposed murderer on the spot and left the kids who had knocked
> him unconscious to their fates, knowing that a transformed wereolf was
> prowling the grounds. That he did not do so is surely to his credit
> and to me speaks volumes about his loyalties.
Renée:
It was in the first place his duty; he's a teacher at the school and
as such responsible for the well-being of the students, regardless of
what they did to him. Any teacher who has his priorities right, would
do so. And if he truly still believed Sirius to be a murderer, it was
also his duty to turn him in. I don't think this makes a particularly
strong case for his loyalty in the larger conflict - a conflict that
wasn't even acute at the time.
<snip>
Carol:
> As I said before, they could not have Time-Turned without being
> brought to the hospital wing and restored to consciousness so DD could
> suggest using the Time Turner. Had Snape not saved them, Harry and
> Hermione could not have Time-turned and therefore TT!Harry could not
> have saved them from the Dementors even though the Patronus *seems* to
> come first in the circular time frame of the TT!sequence. Snape had,
> in essence, *always* saved them. <snip>
Renee:
But he never "saved" them, except - in his own view - from Sirius
Black - from whom they didn't need to be saved. Snape is just one of
the people who enabled H&H to Time-turn (and inadvertently at that),
and IMO not the most important one.
In the circular time frame, Harry2 has always cast the Patronus that
ultimately enabled Snape to find the Trio & Sirius with their souls
intact and take them to the hospital wing. Even if you insist in
calling it saving, Snape couldn't have saved Harry without Harry.
Apparently it's not just the time frame that is circular, but also the
argument.
Renée
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