Dark Magic WAS: Re:help with JKR quote/ Children's reactions

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 176853

> Carol:
> Exactly. *Buy into.* Yes, Mulciber becomes a Death eater who
> specializes in the Imperius Curse, but what did he *try* to use
> against Lily's friend Mary McDonald? We're not told, much less
> shown. We're just supposed to take Lily's word that it's Dark magic
> and "evil" and Mulciber is "creepy" (DH Am ed. 673-74). What makes
> Mulciber "evil" and James merely an arrogant, bullying "toerag"? And
> how does Lily know that something Mulciber *tried* (and failed) to 
> do is "Dark magic"? (I'm not criticizing Lily, folks. I'm 
> criticizing JKR.) 

Jen:  The problem here is JKR's objective for Harry.  She intends 
Harry to see Snape as trustworthy via the Pensieve memories, which 
means Harry never really sees why Snape become a DE in the first 
place!  The memories circle around any bad deeds without actually 
showing the acts or consequences.  

I'm not trying to bring Snape down, more to explain what I see as the 
gap in JKR depicting her intended 'bad' characters (with Snape as a 
redemptive bad guy).  There's very little shown in the Pensieve 
memories to get me from point A: Severus the seemingly 
nice enough young guy heading off to Hogwarts with his friend Lily, 
to point B: Snape the Death Eater.   Snape being attracted to other 
DEs and calling other Muggleborns 'Mudbloods' - those are clues to 
his story.  If he really became a DE as his Dark Mark proves, then he 
was thinking like a budding DE already.  Muggleborns were inferior 
with one exception made for Lily, and he found whatever Mulciber was 
doing that Lily termed 'evil' and 'creepy' to be funny.

Not to rehash points already debated on this thread, but I haven't 
thrown out Sirius saying, 'Snape knew more curses when he arrived at 
school than half the kids in seventh year and he was part of a gang 
of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters.' (GOF, 
chap. 27, p. 461, UK ed.)  The second part of this statement is 
corroborated by Lily in the memories, and the first part has some 
back-up with the invention of his own dark curse, Sectumsempra, and 
the memory of Snape as 'a greasy-haired teenager [sitting] alone in a 
dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down 
flies....' (OOTP, chap. 26, p. 521, UK ed.)  Granted, I don't know 
that killing flies is a bad thing in Potterverse, but he's a 
character who's going to be a DE, depicted 'shooting them down' and 
not stunning or something else.  I assume he's killing flies, which 
as far as I know means he was practicing an AK.  (The bucking 
broomstick memory could corroborate either Snape knowing curses or 
Snape as picked-on kid, both part of his story.)

I wish that JKR had made Snape's trajectory very clear by showing all 
his acts in plain view so a real judgement could be made.  Her choice 
seems to cast an unsavory shadow on Lily as the narrator of Snape's 
story and also throws doubt on the Marauder's observations about 
Snape as someone attracted to and dabbling in dark arts.  I don't 
think DH is meant to toss out the past though, only to widen the 
scope of Snape's story.  

Jen