On the perfection of moral virtues.

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 168995

Julie:
> Sorry, I misread your post. I thought you were refering
> to Harry surviving DH. It is true that Harry thwarted 
> Voldemort in the instances above. I won't go so far as to
> say he saved the WW at that point, as Voldemort still 
> survived to gain a body in GOF. So I can't really see 
> Snape (or most anyone outside of Ginny) even thinking 
> Harry saved his life. Harry may do so someday, as he 
> will certainly save the WW, but he hasn't been put in
> that position yet. 
<snip>

Dana:
I disagree with this assessment because Harry did save Snape's life 
when the spell rebounded in GH, sure it was actually Lily who did the 
saving but if Snape is good then this event did safe him from being 
on the wrong side. We see what happens to people that wanted to leave 
LV's service, they do not live to tell the tale. So if Snape really 
defected at great personal risk then Lily's actions removed that risk 
at least for more then 13 years.

If Snape is truly good but just a nasty person then he owes his live 
to the Potters more then once and how does he repay them? By bullying 
their son. Yes, a really noble man that Snape. 

 
Julie:
> As for Snape, we don't yet know how much personal danger
> he has placed himself in throughout the books. Though it
> is true he certainly wasn't in any personal danger in PS/SS.
> That wasn't the point though. The point was Harry didn't
> thank Snape for saving him. Which is not required, though
> I actually wouldn't have been surprised if Harry had, as
> their relationship, while unpleasant, hadn't deteriorated
> to outright hostility at that point.
<snip>

Dana:
Well the only problem I have with Snape placing himself in personal 
danger, throughout the books, is that we never actually see him in 
any mortal peril. We see that his return to LV's side is less 
dangerous then defying the man and not return (LV promised the one 
that left him forever would be punished but we never saw Snape paying 
for it). We see that Snape lives through sending the Order in OotP 
and we see him live through the UV in HBP. For me it is not that 
difficult to come to the conclusion that Snape only made very 
calculated risks that never truly risked his own life. And that 
wouldn't make these actions noble. 

Someone said that taking the UV was putting himself in risk of dying; 
well I disagree because a UV is only a risk to you if you do not 
oblige to its stipulations and we actually see that Snape thought he 
could risk it because he was under the impression that he was going 
to be ordered to do it anyway. Meaning that he already decided that 
he was going to kill DD if asked to by LV and therefore the UV did 
not put more risk to his life then when he never planned to kill DD. 
The only problem was that he misjudged LV's decision making because 
he was never asked to do it but now he had no choice if he wanted to 
life through the whole ordeal. 

So to me sending the Order could have just been Snape thinking LV 
would want him to act as an Order member to keep his cover with DD 
and as we see he is still alive in HBP so he gambled right (if it was 
a gamble at all ;o). So Snape actually does nothing that could risk 
his own life and his gambles of how to preserve his own life have 
actually saved his life through it all (even the first VW). He only 
gambled wrong in HBP when he took the vow because the order to kill 
DD never came and he actually lost more then he had been willing to 
do before but it was still not enough to try and fight his way 
through to safe DD's life at the cost of his own. (And no I do not 
believe he did it all for Harry crap because where was he during the 
4 to 6 hours that he lost Harry out of sight when he was in the 
company of someone that possed a threat to Harry's safety twice 
before)

Also my opinion about Harry and Snape's relationship not 
deteriorating in outright hostility is different from yours. On two 
occasions Snape's treatment of Harry became downright worrisome. The 
first was after PoA when Harry helped Sirius escape and the second 
after the pencieve scene. Snape laid the basis for Harry not trusting 
him to such an extent that Harry believed Snape was not going to help 
him when he was in dire need in OotP. DD might have downsized Snape's 
hatred for Harry in his "after the fact" speech but it was actually 
the expression of this hatred that made it possible for Harry to 
believe this about Snape. You might think that it is not so bad and 
nothing Snape could actively have done to change this but I disagree. 
Snape is the adult here and if he is so good in compartmentalizing 
his feelings and what makes him a such suburb occulemens, then he 
should have made a bigger effort to control his hatred for Harry but 
he didn't. This was an active choice Snape made; he is not an 
innocent victim that could have done nothing to prevent this from 
happening. 

He laid the basis for it himself without Harry ever doing anything to 
deserve it. Harry should have controlled his curiosity with the 
pencieve but it was Snape's own responsibility to make sure Harry 
never got that chance by not leaving Harry unsupervised in the room 
with the memories, he was supposed to be hiding from Harry at all 
coast in the first place. It is like having a cabinet with guns and 
locking it so your kids can't snoop around in it but then hide the 
key in plain view. When something bad happens because of it then it 
is unreasonable to put the blame with the kid because you were stupid 
enough to think such a kid knows that snooping around is wrong. 

If you want to prevent the kid messing with things you do not want 
them to mess around with then you'll need to be on your guard at all 
times and make sure that the kid under no circumstances has access to 
the things that provoke that curiosity in the first place and that 
include emergency situations. The blame is with the adult and no 
matter how wrong it is for the kid to snoop around you can't shove 
the responsibility into their shoes and not take any yourself. 
Especially if you have seen before that this kid has trouble 
controlling his curiosity.  And that is what Snape did, he runs out 
and not remove the threat from his office and no Snape was not in 
that much of a hurry that he forgot, he had enough time to tell Harry 
that the lesson is cancelled and that it will be continued at another 
time instead.  

Julie:
> Harry's actions weren't ignoble at all. But I was also
> replying to your post that Snape should thank Harry for 
> saving *him.* That's the assertion I disagree with, that
> Snape has had reason to thank Harry for saving him, as
> Harry has never directly done so. 
<snip>

Dana: 
Well as I stated above the Potters have saved Snape's life on more 
then one occasion but instead of thanking them, he hates them for it 
even more. Harry would never want the people that he saves to treat 
him any differently and go around thanking him on bended knee but 
Snape however does want the glory of being considered a hero for his 
deeds and why he rubs it into everybody's faces at every chance he 
gets. He should have been grateful that both James and Lily saved 
him, in the same way he wants to be recognized for his actions but 
his behavior shows only ungratefulness in how he treats their son. 
And him putting the blame with James for being in danger does not 
exclude he should be thankful to James because that is what everybody 
says of Snape's actions as well and Harry still needing to be 
grateful to Snape. Snape actions have put Harry in more dangers then 
Snape actively saves him from but still Snape is considered the hero 
that Harry should be grateful towards. 

Julie:
> I haven't taken much part in the debate over Harry's grumpiness
> with his friends, but I admit I do feel free to call Harry on
> his misdeeds. Why? Because Harry is the hero, one of the good
> guys, and I automatically hold him to a higher standard than 
> Snape, or Draco, or any of the other questionable characters.
> (Those on the definite side of evil--Voldemort, Bellatrix, 
> Fenrir, etc--I pretty much ignore, as they're lost causes.)
<snip>

Dana:
Well it is interesting that the hero is supposed to be perfect while 
Snape fans consider Snape the hero for his actions as well but give 
him slack for behaving the way he does. If Snape is the hidden hero 
of the books then he should be held to the same standards as you hold 
Harry. If Snape is one of the good guys, as many presume he is, then 
he has no excuses for his behavior. You can't say he is one of the 
good guys and then allow him to behave nasty while the good guys are 
not given the same slack. 

And if he is just a bad guy that has some good in him then he can't 
by no means be the hero by these same standards because if you're bad 
then your good actions are only redeeming factors but it doesn't make 
you automatically one of the good guys. 

Julie: 
> I can't speak for others, but the reason I give Snape a lot
> of "slack" as you call it, is because he is DELIBERATELY
> written as an ambiguous character. Yes, it was JKR who 
> put all that slack in Snape's character! While we know 
> he's unpleasant in personality, we don't yet know if he is
> on the side of good or evil. Thus our point of evaluation
> is not defined, as it is with Harry. We know Harry and his
> motivations as Harry flat out TELLS us when he's acting in
> a less than noble manner (he knows it's wrong to peek into
> the Pensieve, he knows it's wrong to sneak off to Hogsmeade,
> he knows he's being irrational blaming Snape for Siruis's
> death, etc, etc.) It's difficult to ignore Harry's own
> conscience telling on him!
<snip>

Dana:
Is JKR really keeping Snape's motivations deliberately ambiguous or 
are these just the ideas of the readers and why it is now being 
exploited by the publishers to create more interest in the final 
book? Because JKR has never been ambiguous about Snape being a 
horrible teacher (or even person) or that bullying your students, is 
the worst thing a teacher can do. Yet as we see in previous 
discussions Snape's teaching methods are considered noble by his fans 
while it never was the author's intent to make this noble in her 
books. 

It was never ambiguous that Snape acts on his hatred for James, 
Sirius or even Lupin and why he even insults Tonks because of her 
association with him. 

She never makes it ambiguous that Snape acts on his own rather then 
working with DD and that he calls DD's judgment into question on more 
then one occasion. The only thing that makes Snape's actions 
ambiguous is DD's trust has in him but not what we see of him on 
page.  

Only his fans make him ambiguous because DD's trust in him must mean 
that there is more to Snape then meets the eye but personally I do 
not think it will be so. Because hatred is the one thing that can 
make people disloyal to their friends and make them betray the people 
they are supposed to protect. Underestimating someone's hatred can 
cause your own downfall and I believe that is what happened to DD. 

And believing that the circumstances of the trust you have in someone 
can never change is very unrealistic and the story of Harry Potter 
actually begins with precisely that. Wormtail had been friends with 
James for 7 years and still the fear to his own life was enough to 
betray that trust. 

To me the story of Snape is precisely the same. Snape told DD a story 
of true remorse and DD believed that Snape, like James, had overcome 
his hatred to do what is right and I believe DD truly believed that 
Snape would always do what is right regardless of the hatred he felt 
and why DD downplayed Snape's hatred for Harry in OotP or even why he 
allowed Snape to continue bullying Harry. I believe DD truly believed 
that Snape would never betray Harry because of that hatred but I 
believe he was very wrong and Harry is right that Snape let his 
hatred for Sirius get in the way and I believe he did betray Sirius 
with the intention to get him out of hiding and killed even IF he had 
not foreseen that LV was going to use it against Harry. (And that is 
a big IF because I believe Snape did foresee that Harry being in 
trouble would be the only reason Sirius could be lured out but that 
he knew Harry's life was not in danger because LV was not going for 
the prophecy and then let his DEs kill Harry at the same time because 
what is the use of getting it to use against Harry if he is already 
death?)

The first sign that Snape was actually nothing like James and 
actually could never overcome his hatred is in PoA, when his true 
hatred for Sirius made him actively try to get Sirius soul sucked. 
Lupin like DD wants to believe that there is always something good in 
a person and why Snape's loss of control after Sirius escape was 
downplayed as him being disappointed in not receiving the Order of 
Merlin. It wasn't, it was Snape not getting his ultimate revenge on 
Sirius that caused him to lose it as he did and this misreading of 
his actions is what caused DD to make the vital mistake of trusting 
Snape enough to send him back to LV. Snape's hatred is a threat to 
the safety of people and it should have been treated with the utmost 
care but it wasn't and I believe this is the essence of Snape 
motivations that JKR is going to drive home with Snape's character. 
Harry is going to go the same way if he doesn't learn to control his 
hatred for Snape. Snape's character is not ambiguous only DD's trust 
in him is. 

Trust is a beautiful thing to have and it makes you more open to 
people in your environment but it can also be dangerous if you do not 
understand that the trust you have in a person can change due to 
changes in circumstances, situations, people losing trust in you and 
people's inability to overcome their past. DD's trust in Snape was 15 
or 16 years old and after the events of GH, the stimulation to 
Snape's hatred was removed. James was dead, Sirius locked up in 
prison and Harry was too young to attend Hogwarts. But Harry's 
arrival reactivated that hatred and both Lupin and Sirius showing up 
in the third year added to the fuel and then when he had to work with 
all three of them for the cause it became unbearable and the final 
straw was when the conflict came to a climax again in the kitchen 
scene in OotP.   

I believe that Spinner's End is as straight forward reading as one 
can get with Snape. I believe he actively choose LV's side because he 
already betrayed the Order and DD in OotP. Snape never believed in 
Harry and Spinner's End is not the only proof of that. He will be 
proven wrong of course but I believe that the moment he betrayed the 
Order he placed himself back in LV's camp and because he believed 
that LV was going to use him to kill DD anyway, he made the Vow 
because it would help him win the trust of his fellow DEs. 

Snape story is entirely the opposite of Sirius's in PoA where it was 
claimed that Sirius betrayed the Potters because he was tired of his 
life as a double agent and wanted to come out as being LV's second in 
command. It turned out to be inaccurate because Sirius would never 
betray the Potters but this story line will be true for Snape. 

Readers believe Snape could never betray DD and choose LV's side and 
be his second in command but we will see that in this case it will be 
true. Snape's timing in choosing LV's side openly by killing DD will 
prove to be the worst timing of all because he believes LV without DD 
will be undefeatable but he misjudged Harry and he misjudged LV's 
permanent downfall coming sooner then he could imagine. Snape will 
not have time to enjoy his position as second in command long and he 
will pay dearly for this decision. Harry will be his only chance for 
redemption but not because Snape was still on the side of good when 
he killed DD but because he made the wrong choices of picking the 
wrong side, when he decided his revenge was more important then doing 
the right thing. Him taking the vow is just a red herring because 
Snape had already decided that he would kill DD if he was ordered to 
do so by LV, the vow did not change that. It only changed the 
circumstances under which he had to do it or even that he had to do 
it at all. As it stands now LV never ordered him to do it in case 
Draco failed. 

It are the choices that make us who we are not our abilities and 
Snape choices in the books are not ambiguous and JKR never made them 
ambiguous she only made DD's trust in Snape ambiguous and why people 
have such a hard time reading Snape's character. If she had never put 
in DD's vouching for Snape over and over again then there would not 
have been any difficulty to put Snape in the right camp. Just as it 
is not hard to place Lucius in the right camp while the MoM does 
believe he is not on LV's side.

For me Snape not wanting to listen to reason in PoA and trying to 
actively take a man's life is enough for me to conclude Snape can 
never be truly good, not even close. Good means that you value the 
life of another person regardless of your personal feelings for that 
person. Harry had every reason to have Wormtail executed by Sirius 
and Lupin but he still believed it was not right to play judge, jury 
and executioner at the same time. Snape does not have this moral 
compass that drives his actions and only this is enough to conclude 
that if the circumstances presented themselves in such away that to 
him it is justified killing a person and this means he would betray 
the reason for DD's trust in him, in a heartbeat, if it was okay in 
Snape's own believe system. 

Just as it is okay for him to bully Harry because he hated his father 
so much while that same man saved his life and should have been 
enough for Snape to be grateful as is stated Harry should thank Snape 
on bended knee for his attempt to safe him in PS, while it was 
actually Hermione who saved him and by no means certain that the 
twins would have let Harry fall to the ground if he could not longer 
hang on.  

I hear the argument of Sirius coming on about his attempt to kill 
Snape when he was 16, well as I said before Sirius only 
responsibility for his actions lies with Lupin not Snape. Both were 
kids and therefore you can't hold Sirius accountable for not 
foreseeing Snape could not control his curiosity and actually do as 
Sirius suggested. It was actually not curiosity that drove Snape to 
his actions but him wanting to get the marauders expelled at all cost.
Sirius might not actually have wanted to trick Snape out of his own 
hatred from Snape but just because he was fed up with Snape trying to 
get his friends into trouble. That doesn't make it right but it was 
not a personal revenge that let Sirius to his actions. 

But Snape in PoA was an adult that should have dealt with his 
feelings of hatred a long time ago. Sirius did betray a secret he 
promised to keep to his friends by revealing to Snape how he could 
get into the WW and go after Lupin. Besides Sirius already paid 
dearly for his actions of betraying Lupin because I do believe that 
it set the stage for him and James excluding Lupin in the SK switch 
and it got him locked up in Azkaban for it for 12 years and no one 
believing him that he would never betray his friends in such a way. 
Let's see how Snape repays his dues. 

JMHO

Dana