Snape Reduced (was: Re: Villain!Dumbledore...

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 177807

 
> Betsy Hp:
> Heh.  To me the elephant in the room causing the dysfunction was 
> Lily's not very well hidden contempt for Snape.  It was an ugly 
> relationship that any kid with healthy self-respect would have thrown 
> over. 

Pippin:
Contempt? Ugly relationship? Where do you see the canon for this?
I don't see anything ugly in their relationship apart from Snape's
disguised anti-Muggle feelings until the post-prank memory,
and at that time they are still "best friends." That means they
were good friends for seven years, almost. Just as long as Harry
Ron and Hermione (minus the epilogue of course.)

Lily was a popular girl, according to Slughorn -- there was no 
reason for her to call Snape  her best friend if she didn't genuinely 
like him. 

He does get all tongue-tied and red-faced whenever the conversation
veers too close to his feelings for her, and he did follow her around
before he found the nerve to start a conversation -- which makes
him exactly like Harry with Cho. IOW, he's not being creepy, he's
being a kid. 

I thought it was Snape's inability to recover from his grief that you
found unhealthy. I see I misunderstood. Apparently you're seeing
a whole masochistic self-hate thing going on which I'm missing 
completely.

As far as I can see, no one in The Prince's Tale ever expresses any 
disgust for Snape except when he's actually said or done 
something which would be disgusting whoever did it,  Slytherin
or not. So what does it have to do with the Slytherin dynamic?


> > >>Pippin:
> > If it's Draco's soul that matters, and it's safe, what else needs to
> > be done? Turn the boy into a cog in Dumbledore's plan?
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> I'm unclear as to how Draco being forced to torture people for 
> Voldemort makes his soul safe.  And I'd have liked to see Draco play 
> a part in *Snape's* plan.  Or Draco take action of any sort really.  
> Just one step so he can finally get off that Tower.  A teacher who 
> cared about him would have tried to help Draco do that.

Pippin:
I...what? Draco did get off the tower. Literally, and figuratively.
He was no longer being ordered to kill and so tear his soul.
It's murder that tears the soul, Slughorn is quite clear about that.
It's of a different order than other crimes, torture included
apparently. 

Draco was forced to perform cruciatus curses and so were all
the other kids at Hogwarts. But as Neville says, "they don't 
want to spill too much pure blood, so they'll torture us a bit if 
we're mouthy, but they won't actually kill us." Fleeing from
Voldemort would get Draco killed, so I am still not sure what 
you were expecting Snape to do for him.

The expectation that Draco would morph into a hero can
not have been based on canon, IMO -- when did he show any
signs of it?  I can see where it could have been based on
other stories -- Lando Calrissian is the example that comes
to mind of a half-hearted villain who becomes a hero
in his own right. But he was Han's old friend, took a
shine to Leia, and never had any use for the Empire.  OTOH,
Draco was never friends with the Trio,  never 
wanted to be Ron's or Hermione's friend at all, and would
have been perfectly happy to see Voldemort reign over the
WW if Voldie hadn't turned against his parents. 

> > >>Pippin:
> > What he does to help the family that were his friends is to
> > bring about the end of the war as quickly as possible.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Really?  *Snape* does?  I thought it was all Harry.  Snape gets him 
> the sword, but wasn't that about all Snape does?  (Oh, he gets Mad-
> Eye killed, for some odd reason.  And there was that fortuitous 
> memory dump.)  And why are we supposed to think Snape is worried 
> about the Malfoys?  Is there anything in DH to suggest it?

Pippin:
The sudden movement in GoF, Narcissa's faith that Snape will find 
a way to help Draco (and her expectation that he will do this without
any reward from her), Sirius's lap dog comment, all show there's
a close relationship between Snape and the Malfoys. But there is
nothing he can do by directly challenging the Dark Lord as he
explained in HBP, and he would be a fool to attempt it.  

Harry, OTOH,  can destroy Voldemort, therefore Harry is the
Malfoy's best hope. Even Narcissa recognizes this in the end.
Since Snape, like everyone else except the Trio and DD's
portrait,  is not privy to what Harry is trying to do, 
Snape's role is limited. I wouldn't say reduced, since what he does
do is vital. His role in the book is reduced compared to HBP,
which after all is named for him. But it isn't reduced compared to,
say, CoS or GoF. In DH he gets the only fully realized death scene in
the entire series, which makes him quite important since 
death is a major theme. 


> Betsy Hp:
> Screw the students, huh?  ::shrug:: Kind of Dumbledore's normal way 
> of operating though so yeah, scew 'em. <g>  

Pippin:

Even with the Elder Wand, Dumbledore's power was not infinite, 
therefore his power to protect the students was not infinite. 
Snape's power was even less. I think the necessity of choosing
their  battles is  a lot of what makes JKR's good characters interesting.
But if your idea of a hero is someone who never has to 
compromise, then yeah, such a person could not exist in the 
universe JKR chose to write about.

I  can see where it might  be tempting to exaggerate Snape's
victimhood.  Then we readers could construct a rescue
scenario of our own, where JKR is the bullying tyrant who 
abuses her characters and we who point this out can 
cast ourselves in her  place as champion of the oppressed.

After all anyone who's that rich and that famous can't really be
good <veg>. 

Pippin