Snape, Snape, Snape--favorite moments (Re: Snape's involvement in the...)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 169290

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at ...> wrote:
>
> Celia:
> > 2. Similarly, the Snape/Fake!Moody/egg/Filch/Harry-under-the cloak
> > stairs scene in GoF has the startling vision of "non-teacher" Snape 
> > in his gray nightshirt. Another glimpse of Vulnerable!Snape maybe, 
> > Jen? Confused, and not in control, and outmatched by Fake!Moody, 
> > seizing his pained Dark Mark arm, and tuning a "nasty brick color,
> > the vein in his temple pusing more rapidly." (471) I love love love 
> > Snape in cool control, as discussed up thread, but this scene gives
> > the opposite view, a Snape that doesn't know what is going on and 
> > can't maneuver properly to find out. I think it is a very important
> > scene for making him a multi-dimensional character.
> 
> Jen:  That scene was so disconcerting to me and you know what it was? 
> When Snape said, "Dumbledore happens to trust me," said Snape through 
> clenched teeth.  "I refuse to believe that he gave you orders to 
> search my office!"  I felt a pang for him there, in a metaphorical 
> way Dumbledore's trust is all he has left, it's what's standing 
> between him and the dark abyss of his former life.  And to me it 
> seemed like Snape was questioning for a teeny moment whether 
> Dumbledore's trust was still intact.  
> 
> houyhnhnm:
> > The coolest Snape scene has got to be when he rescues Draco in the
> > bathroom, but one of my favorite minor Snape moments was when Snape
> > caught Harry returning from Hogsmeade.  "What was your head doing 
> > in Hogsmeade? Your head does not have permission to be in 
> > Hogsmeade; no part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade."
> > (or something like that.  I don't have the books with me.) I just 
> > thought it was funny.
> 
> Jen: I laughed at that one too, thought it was clever.  I'd be 
> curious to see Snape laugh, a happy laugh I mean.  What would it look 
> like?  Belly laugh?  Chuckle?  That kind where you sort of snort 
> through your nose?!?  I can't imagine.  
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> > Ooh, you've made two mistakes here, IMO. Mistake number 1: Snape is
> > not a bad boy. Lucius, Voldemort (back in his Tom Riddle days,
> > before his nose fell off), *those* are the real Potterverse bad
> > boys. Sirius is a kind of "safe" bad boy, in that he leaves home
Carol earlier:  
> > Thanks, Jen, for turning this thread in a new direction. You
really are a good sport. :-)
> 
> Jen:  Thanks Carol, that means a lot. :)

Carol again:

I'm glad.

Carol earlier:
> > Yes, yes, yes. Add his image in the Foe Glass and Dumbledore's 
anxious silence as Snape leaves, and you have a scene that left me in
no doubt whatever that Snape was Dumbledore's man through and through
(before the phrase itself had yet been coined).
> 
> Jen:  Not sure if you're saying you doubted Snape's loyalty prior to
that or was it more that you thought he was loyal and the scene of 
Snape leaving the hospital wing just solidified where his story was 
headed?  
> 
Carol again:

Well, I had no doubts about his loyalties until PoA, when one doubt
crept in that I still haven't figured out a convincing explanation
for. Snape's actions in GoF swept that doubt away in the sense that it
showed me that I was right in the first place: his loyalties are with
Dumbledore. But I'm still left without an explanation for that one
niggling detail, which I'll confess here. While his actions in the
Shrieking Shack indicate (unless he's an extraordinarily gifted actor)
that he thought that the spy/traitor/murderer was Sirius Black. He
certainly believed that Black had murdered Pettigrew, and I think he
believed along with everyone else that Black was out to murder Harry.
*But* he seems to recognize the nicknames on the Marauder's Map, which
is where the doubt comes in. If he knew that Wormtail was Peter
Pettigrew, and the Death Eaters knew that the spy was Wormtail, how
could Snape not know that the spy was Peter Pettigrew? The only
explanation I can think of is that the DEs were generally hooded, so
that they didn't know who Wormtail was, and Snape didn't know MWPP's
nicknames, but figured out who they were from the insults and the
nickname Moony, which would be appropriate for a werewolf. Also, I
think it was only Bellatrix and her cohorts who were screaming about
Wormtail being a traiotr, not all the DEs in Azkaban, but why was no
one in the graveyard surprised to find a DE named Wormtail? Did they
not know that he was Peter Pettigrew, and didn't they think that Peter
was dead?

So, see, I'm not 100 percent sure that Snape is DDM. That and the UV
and the killing of Dumbledore raise nagging doubts in my mind. But the
rest of the evidence (the first two books, most of PoA, all of the
fourth and fifth books) counteracts those troublesome moments. I don't
think for a moment that he's ESE, but I can see just enough grey to
understand why others don't interpret him as I do and to have just the
smallest tinge of fear that they may be right. But in the long run, I
trust Dumbledore's judgment, and I can explain the UV and the killing
of Dumbledore in ways that I find perfectly consistent with DDM Snape.
But I'd really like to hear from other DDM!Snapers regarding his
apparent recognition of the names on the map. (Didn't know that was
coming, didja?)

Jen:
> I read up through OOTP all by my lonesome with *no* outside input
whatsoever, just my own thoughts, and read Snape as loyal all along. 
I thought the times with Harry asking if he could be trusted and Ron
doubting him were just a red herring.  I guess the combination of
internet info and HBP were the things to make me question the
character a little more.  

Carol:
Me, too, with regard to reading the books on my own and seeing Snape
as DDM (except for being unable to reconcile that one piece of
information with my view of him), but the Internet had the opposite
effect for me. I felt like a member of a support group for Snape fans
when I discovered that I wasn't alone in believing in him. (Sort of
like the Richard III Society, as some of you know!) And it really
helped me to come back here and find that the true believers were
still out in force, and it wasn't just me making excuses for my
favorite character or grasping at straws. Thank you, SSS and Potioncat
and Pippin and Julie and whoever else I'm forgetting! But, as I aid,
it isn't HBP, which surely the first half of a mystery novel with
Snape as the red herring villain again, that bugs me. It's that one
little detail relating to the identity of Wormtail that I can't find
an explanation for.
> 
Carol earlier:
> > And also Sectumsempta and its countercurse are almost like the two
sides of the Snape coin in one symbol.
> 
> Jen: Nice imagery.  I see him as still holding both those sides but
I think you're saying one side was his past and one his present?  
That's the part I need reconciled in DH--is that part of him still 
completely in his past?  How did it happen if it is?  And if not, how
much of his darker side is left?

Carol:
I hadn't thought about it that way, and it wasn't really what I meant.
I think that his Dark side is always present. He came to school
knowing all those hexes and curses (and maybe a bit about potions,
too), which suggests that his mother let him do pretty much whatever
he wanted with a wand and maybe taught him a thing or two herself, or
maybe he grew up with his Prince grandparents. (I really don't think
that Spinner's End was his childhood home unless all the Muggles were
long gone.) The obsessive interest in DADA, which is the reverse side
of the interest in the Dark Arts, showed itself clearly in the
Pensieve memory. Slytherin itself and his future Death Eater friends
would have brought out the Dark side; possibly Dumbledore nurtured the
interest in DADA to counter it, or Severus did that himself? He
doesn't seem to have been evil, just fond of inventing hexes, charms,
and potions improvements, so the Dark Arts and DADA would have been
intellectual interests. Remember Hermione's comment on the books in
the restricted section? They're books about really Dark spells and
potions for advanced DADA students. You have to know your enemy, know
what you're fighting. And Snape does, which makes him so much more
effective at healing Dark curses (and providing antidotes for poisons)
than Madam Pomfrey.

Dumbledore said that Snape "returned" to our side, which suggests to
me that the Dark side of his personality, the side obsessed with
revenge and the Dark Arts, temporarily gained control, and he either
joined the Death Eaters or was recruited by them and accepted. And
then, when he learned how Voldemort interpreted the Prophecy (and
possibly, like Regulus and Draco, saw what being a Death Eater was all
about), the other side took control again and he "rejoined our side."
I don't think that his loyalties have wavered since that time, but I
think that the Darker side is always there, a part of his nature that
he reveals when the occasion requires it, but in terms of allowing
himself to act on it, I think he's put that firmly behind him. And
that's why having to kill Dumbledore was such a torment for him, his
own personal hell, because he had to let the Dark side out to do it. I
really think he would rather have died uselessly beside Dumbledore
than kill him. He was back in control when he parried Harry's cursed
and saved him from the Crucio. The agony only showed once. Maybe he
can use Occlumency to suppress it, to compartmentalize his feelings so
that they don't control him. If I were Snape, I'd take that memory out
of my head and put it in a corked bottle so that it wouldn't
constantly torment me.

Anyway, that's how I see Snape, and I think the good side--the Healer
of Dark spells, the protector of Draco and Harry--will triumph. Or
rather, it already has. It's only Harry and the entire WW and we, the
readers, who don't know it yet.

Carol, hoping that this freewriting (I can't call it a post!) makes
sense to someone besides me