On the trivial and the profound.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 165695


> Sherry:
> 
> But in a War, a real war, you don't go and kill your top general, just so
> you can look good and get in good with the other side.  Imagine someone
> killing the top Allied generals, or even Churchill or Roosevelt during WWII.
> It would have been a calamity, and whoever it was would not have been a
> hero.  He or she would have been a criminal, hunted down and if caught tried
> and probably executed.  It's truly an argument I just don't understand

Pippin:
You're omitting some details. Dumbledore was already in very bad shape and
Harry was in mortal danger.

If there was little chance Dumbledore could be saved, the principle of 
triage would compel Snape or any other Order member to save Harry first. 
Those who have fought with Dumbledore would understand this.

Sherry:	.
> No matter Snape's motives, it's likely he will be hated and 
reviled for that one deed forever--unless somehow, he did not 
really kill Dumbledore, such as Dumbledore being dead already 
or something. 

Pippin:
Do you think DDM!Snape cares about that? He's never been popular. The 
important thing is that the next generation has a chance to live
free of Voldemort's domination. I can't imagine Dumbledore ever promised
Snape he would live happily ever after.

Sherry:

> I know.  I've expressed all of this before, and we're not all going to
> convince the other side of our point of view.  But it does truly baffle me
> to consider that a truly supposedly good guy could ever have a legitimate
> reason for murdering his leader, just to stay close to Voldemort.  I'd think
> it could actually make his position with Voldemort more precarious, because
> double agents are never really trusted very much.  

Pippin:
Huh? But Voldemort already thinks Snape is a double agent. The goal
cannot have been to make Voldemort trust Snape. Voldemort is utterly 
incapable of trust. He could never believe that Snape was truly on his
side, even if Snape was in truth as fanatically loyal as Bellatrix.

But Voldemort could never understand willing sacrifice, or that
loyalty to a cause supercedes loyalty to a leader, so he will never believe
now that Snape has any loyalty to the Order. 

Dumbledore told Fudge he might have to give up his all his power and 
become reviled and hated in order to do the right thing, but eventually 
he would be remembered as a great minister of magic. Do you think he 
wouldn't take the same advice himself, or put Snape in such a position?

Pippin