Did you LIKE Snape?

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 183148

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" <mcrudele78 at ...> wrote:
>
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/183136
> Mike:
> 
> I'm sorry for being so vague in my question. I was looking for 
> another impetus that may have caused Snape to have a change of 
heart. 
> Something besides Lily's impending doom. Your examples showed that 
> Snape was a decent human being that cared for the sanctity of 
life; 
> he was concerned for all people. But I don't see him changing from 
> some callous youth into this person. I have no indication he was 
> somehow different before the prophecy and the Lily dilemma.

(snipped)
> I suspect that Voldemort was still in his charming, recruitment 
mode 
> when Severus became enamored with the idea. Yet the name alone, 
Death 
> Eaters, should have been a large enough red flag to warn off a 
person 
> of Severus's intelligence. Another enigma that we won't ever get 
> solved.

(snipped)

> I'm wading into some speculation waters here, but I think Snape 
would 
> have been the same decent human being even as a DE. I think even 
> without the prophecy and Lily, eventually something would have 
> impelled Snape back to the side of good. But did you see anything 
> like that in the story, anything besides Lily that caused Snape to 
> return?


Leah: I'm cutting your post because basically I agree with 
everything you say about Snape.

Why does anyone do stupid political things in their youth?  I was 
watching a documentary a while back about a young British man of 
Asian Muslim extraction. He had a university education, came from a 
Westernised family and had many white non-Muslim friends. He joined 
an extremist Islamist group after 9/11 because he thought Muslims 
would need protection against an inevitable backlash.  The 
organisation he joined portrayed itself  as simply supporting Muslim 
values, but it was in fact a terrorist organisation, something that 
could have been found out through investigation when he joined. He 
left after the July 7 bombings in London when he found out what he 
had got into and now talks in schools etc about fundamentalism and 
terrorism.  While seeing people being blown to smithereens is a more 
compelling reason for leaving than Lily being in danger, the point 
is that this man went through no fundamental character change - he 
was misled or allowed himself to be misled, he joined up for what 
objectively was a worthwhile reason, and he was the same person,just 
with his eyes open, when he left.

The trouble with the books is that the Deatheaters are presented as 
a cluster of bigoted baddies, with no real character development 
(except for Malfoy) and then there's Snape.  Without further 
explanation, it doesn't make a lot of sense.  Possible reasons for 
Snape joining the Deatheaters:

1. Protecting the wizarding world from Muggles. For the first time 
in history, Muggle technology gives Muggles something approaching 
wizarding skills -healing, flying, moving rapidly from place to 
place, communicating instantly at long distances.  And the Muggle 
world in the late seventies is not appetising: there's been the 
Vietnam war, the escalation of the Cold War, nuclear weapons, and 
the memory of the Holocaust, when Muggles showed what they could do 
to people they considered Other.  If Voldemort set out a shopfront 
of keeping the WW safe from Muggles, that might well appeal to a 
young man who has personal experience of Muggles and their attitude 
to magic, which has not been good.

2. The structure of the WW. This isn't some lovely democracy.  There 
is a great deal of corruption and patronage in the ruling class.  
Barty Crouch Snr has licensed the equivalent of the police force to 
use Unforgiveables. Dumbledore is running a private army which 
operates separately from the Ministry.  Everyoee looks down on 
Muggles to some extent - no one actually wants to dress like a 
Muggle; everyone can see how to, they just don't do it, even people 
like Arthur Weasley regard Muggles as some amusing group in need of 
protection, not as equals.  In these circumstances, the situation 
seems more like a country like Lebanon, with rival factions 
competing for power, than the Deatheaters being an outside terrorist 
threat.  After all, some of the most influential and old-establised 
wizarding families support Voldemort's public agenda (eg the Blacks).

3. Personal reasons:  Snape has been bullied and humiliated by boys 
who later join Dumbledore's organisation.  Neither Dumbledore or 
Slughorn have done anything effective to stop the bullying or to 
punish a boy who set Snape up to be transformed into a werewolf or 
killed.  At least Avery and Mulciber hang out with him, and Malfoy 
impliedly appears to offer him some sort of patronage.  There seems 
absolutely no reason why school leaving Snape should think the Order 
is a good place for him to be, but some reason why the Deatheaters 
might appeal. Terrorist organisations and cults make a habit of 
targeting lonely isolated 'lost' boys like Snape. 

4. JKR has said Snape joined because he thought it would make Lily 
think he was cool. That seems rather unlikely from what we see of 
Lily's reaction to Avery et al in the books.  He may have thought he 
could protect Lily as a Deatheater.  And actually, Lily is attracted 
to a boy who is one of the class leaders, has his own gang, and uses 
that gang to bully and humiliate others. (She is attracted in SWM, 
before James apparently changes)  So perhaps Snape is not as daft as 
all that.

5. Deatheating- the destruction of death. I don't think that's 
necessarily a warning sign.  Harry is confused by the very similar 
Christian message on the headstone.  Snape is interested in magic, 
allegedly in dark magic, and in developing new skills and spells. If 
this is presented as part of Voldemort's agenda, he might well be 
interested.

Finally - my impression is not that Snape was coming back to 
the 'right side' when he came to Dumbledore. The item on his agenda 
is to warn Dumbledore and save Lily.  If Voldemort finds out what he 
has done, Snape will die. He also expects Dumbledore to kill him, 
and just wants to get his message out first.  We just don't know 
whether he has hated every moment with the Deatheaters, or whether 
he would have become Voldemort's right hand man if Lily had not been 
threatened.  I suspect the former, but you can't just leave the 
Deatheaters. It is the threat to Lily that makes Snape put his life 
on the line. He seems to me to be a boy without hope.  Inadvertantly 
this warning leads to him working for the Order, and in the end I 
think, he saves himself and allows his true nature to triumph.  But 
as others have said, I don't think he thinks he is necessarily 
saving the world for the light.

Leah