Mourning Snape's life - Objective Truth

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 183132

 
> Julie:
> That's a problem though. If the only way for Harry to believe
> Snape is a deathbed confession or a dying declaration, then there
> is a plot problem, unless Snape is *expecting* to die (or unless
> *Dumbledore* is expecting Snape to die--which I wouldn't put 
> past him BTW). And even if one or both of them has that expectation,
> it's still pretty chancy to depend on Voldemort to play along
> unwittingly and at the appropriate time (and Harry too...).

<snip>

> I'm sure there would have been other ways too, that involved
> a greater change to the plot. At the very least, and even in 
> DH as it was written, there should have been *some* plan to
> get those memories to Harry, and some back up way to protect
> those memories in case Snape did die prematurely (he was
> playing a very dangerous game all along, after all!).
> 

Pippin:
But Snape's memories aren't the only means by which Harry could have
learned about the accidental horcrux or Snape's true role in
Dumbledore's death. 

In DH, as written, Dumbledore's portrait has the information and could
have given it to Harry if necessary. Of course it's much more
satisfying for the reader  to learn it from Snape's memories, but
Dumbledore did have an obvious way to get the information to Harry if
Snape had failed.

I can understand people wanting Snape to have lived because they like
the character, I certainly do, but his role in the story is not
incomplete, IMO. JKR does the same thing with his story that she does
with the Marauders -- there's a complete arc  but it isn't told all
through one character. 

DH begins with the reconciliation between Harry and Dudley and a
mystery: what could possibly have caused Dudley to have a change of
heart? But the question JKR wants us to think about at the end is what
could cause *anyone* to have a change of heart. She's dealing in
universals, not particulars, and emphasizes this by not telling the
whole story through one person. 

Pippin