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

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 178141

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:

Pippin:
> 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. 

Montavilla47:

When you put things like that, Pippin, it makes so much sense
to me.  But that is such a subtle reading--it seems to me
that you can only get there by picking at clues that are buried
under a lot of extraneous material.

That's not to say that you're wrong.  I don't think that you are.
I just think that, if that's the message we *ought* to that, that
it's far too subtle.

Unless, JKR is expecting us to go on a similar (although 
different) quest from Harry's.  We're supposed to know 
about the pure-hearted Harry, but not covet that image?
And, instead, continue with the original quest for tolerance
and inclusion, thus becoming the Master of Harry Potter?

Yeah, I'm beginning to sympathize with Harry's 
frustration towards Dumbledore on a whole new level...

Montavilla47