Could Harry have saved Snape? (was Reacting to DH...)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 178134

> 
> Alla:
> 
> Oh but you see there is not to me. All that Harry does, I totally 
> expected from him at the end of the story when he has all the 
> information.
> 
> I already saw him saving Peter, that pretty much told me that push 
> comes to shove Harry can do something extraordinary and more than 
> ordinary person.

Pippin:
Harry did not want to save Peter. He wanted to keep Sirius and
Lupin from becoming murderers. He said he was okay with
Peter being turned over to the dementors. 

Alla:
> And when Harry is Christlike figure? ( Sorry, do not mean to offend 
> anybody, but that is how I perceive it) That is what Christ like 
> figures do IMO - they offer protection to anybody and see good in 
> everybody.
<snip>
> As to what changed Harry even more? I say his death experience, 
> nothing more than that IMO.

Pippin:
But that doesn't work, because his decision to save everybody had
to have been made  before he "died" although, as when he faked 
doping Ron's pumpkin juice, the narration does not let us in on it 
until afterwards.

Anyway, although I don't know if Jesus is on record as to whether
it's okay to let  murderers kill another, but he stopped people
from executing the woman taken in adultery, despite warning
that her would be executioners were  just as bad as she was.

I wouldn't think we are supposed to see Harry as someone who
could cast the first stone. 

> 
> Pippin: 
> > It seems to me that Snape is Harry's Ariana, the death he
> > would have tried to  prevent if he had been as decent
> > a person as he thought he was. After that realization, IMO,
> > it's no longer enough for him to feel that he's a decent person
> > in his heart and do what his heart tells him. He has to
> > consciously try to be good. 
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Wow. Sorry, not buying.

Pippin:
See, there's this pattern in canon of people thinking that they
can approve of killing because it's only inferior, unsympathetic 
people who are going to be killed. And then they find out that 
it doesn't work like that, and it changes everything. 

It isn't only Dumbledore and Ariana, but also Snape and Lily,
and Regulus and Kreacher.  

It seems to me a similar transformation took place in Harry,
although in his case any sympathy for Snape would not have 
been kindled until after Snape was dead. But still he would
have realized his mistake, just as Dumbledore and Snape did,
and that's why he chose to protect everyone from Voldemort,
not just his friends, IMO.

In a fairy story, according to Bettelheim, the morality of the hero's 
actions is shown by their success. 

If Harry had not protected Narcissa from Voldemort's magic,
she wouldn't have been able to get away with lying to the
Dark Lord, and Harry's ruse would have been discovered. 
That shows, IMO,  that Harry did the right thing by
choosing to protect everyone. If it was the right thing then,
how could it not have been right earlier? And why would
Harry not recognize this?

A Harry who learned from his mistakes the way Dumbledore
and Snape did is more real to me than one who has saintliness
bestowed on him as a reward for his courage, especially since
Snape himself was very brave and it certainly didn't make a
saint out of him!

But that doesn't make the pure-and-uncomplicated Harry
reading wrong, I'm just showing that there's room for another
way to look at it. 

Pippin