CHAPDISC: DH33, The Prince's Tale

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 184820

Carol:
> 2. Voldemort gives the Hogwarts staff one hour to "dispose of
> [their] dead with dignity" and treat the injured while he waits in 
> the Forbidden Forest. Assuming that he means what he says, how do 
> you think he expects them to "dispose of" the dead?

SSSusan:
I don't think he did mean what he said, actually.  I think he was 
issuing the final ultimatum:  one hour, that's it.  I don't think he 
suddenly developed a measure of compassion for the other side & their 
desire to bury or otherwise dispose of their dead.  Heck, it may have 
been to give himself to strategize with his own troops.


Carol:
> > 4. Harry blurts out "Dumbledore!" and the door to the stairway
> > leading to the headmaster's office opens. When and why do you 
> > think the password changed and who or what changed it?
 
Pippin:
> It could be a backdoor or master password arranged by Dumbledore
> himself. Only someone who believed that Dumbledore wouldn't be truly
> gone from Hogwarts as long as some there were still loyal to him 
> would use it.

SSSusan:
Yes!!  This is what I think exactly, Pippin.  (I told you, didn't I, 
Carol? ;))


Carol:  
> > 6. What do you make of the description of Severus as "batlike" in
> > his oversized coat? Why does JKR continually connect Snape with 
> > bats?
 
Pippin:
> Because he's a vampire! (Sorry, sorry) But Siriusly, the oversize
> clothes are an obvious parallel with Harry. Perhaps Snape is wearing
> his father's hand-me-downs? Here, the bat comparison makes Snape 
> look comical, where as in earlier canon it made him menacing. So 
> perhaps this is JKR's way of, er,  de-fanging the bat metaphor.

SSSusan:
Or perhaps it was her way of having a nice laugh along with us... 
sort of one last nod to the fans who had long held the belief in 
vampire!Snape.  

Hey, it's possible! <g>


Carol: 
> > 8. Severus tells Lily that only wizards who "do really bad stuff"
> > are sent to Azkaban. What does this remark reveal about his sense 
> > of good and evil and age nine or ten?

Pippin:
> It shows he has one, at any rate. He has moral fear, unlike 
> Voldemort.

SSSusan:
True, that.  But it also raises the question, then, of when he *lost* 
it.  How/When/Why did he change from this 9-or-10-year-old, 
recognizing "really bad stuff," to the 5th year being chastized by 
Lily for tolerating Avery & Mulciber and to a young man who'd 
actually join the Death Eaters?  Did he lose that sense of good & 
evil, or did he just set it aside in an effort to fit in?


Carol:
> > 11. How in the world did the Muggle Evanses get through the 
> > barrier onto Platform 9 3/4 (or is this scene a Flint)?

Pippin:
> We've never been told that Muggles can't get through the barrier, 
> have we? 

SSSusan:
This was similar to my thought:  how do we know that parents of 
Muggleborns don't often go through?  Or perhaps at least get to go 
through their first year of packing off their child?  I could 
imagine, when a Hogwarts representative came to deliver the details 
to Muggle parents of their child's magical abilities, also delivering 
some instructions about using Owl Post, getting to Platform 9 3/4, 
and perhaps getting through the barrier onto it.


Carol:
> 13. Why doesn't JKR identify the boy who calls out, "See ya,
> Snivellus"? Which boy do you think it was, and why do you think 
> so?

SSSusan:
I think I have always imagined that it was Sirius, but I've no idea 
why I think so. ;)


Carol: 
> 16. Aside from not wanting to repeat a nine-page scene in detail,
> why do you think JKR condenses Snape's worst memory to a single
> paragraph? Is the tactic effective? (The relevant paragraph is on
> page 675 of the Scholastic edition and page 542 of the Bloomsbury
> edition.)  Note especially the last line, "Distantly, he heard Snape
> shout at her in his humiliation and his fury, the unforgivable word:
> Mudblood.

SSSusan:
I honestly just think JKR didn't see the need.  We've all seen it.  
Poor Harry has entered into it and was made extremely uncomfortable 
by what he witnessed there.  Why replay it in detail now?  It's 
enough to just re-set the context for the new material which mattered 
more for Harry at this moment:  the scene afterwards where Snape 
tries to apologize to Lily and their friendship is (pardon the pun) 
*severed*.


Carol:
> 17.  The adult Snape is marvelously articulate, often brilliantly
> sardonic and sometimes even poetic, yet the teenage Severus is often
> at a loss for words, and even the young adult Snape seems
> tongue-tied in the hilltop scene with Dumbledore. What do you think
> happened in the twelve or so years between the hilltop and Harry's
> first year at Hogwarts to turn Snape into the snarky, sarcastic
> Potions master that we encounter in SS/PS?

SSSusan:
I think just the passage of many years. We know that those years did 
NOT heal Snape, did NOT result in his having forgotten Lily nor 
fallen out of love with her.  But I think that many years of just 
time passing, and being *away* in large part from the DEs and 
Voldemort, gave Snape the time to get more comfortable in himself.  

Let's face it, facing students in a Potions classroom is nothing like 
living through the student years as an outsider & outcast.  It's also 
nothing like facing Voldemort's kill-you-on-a-whim wrath.  Having 
years of sort of mundane existence, alongside many of the same 
colleagues for a good length of time, under DD's tutelage, could 
easily have allowed him to develop that side of himself where he has 
some self-confidence and some definite skill & talent, as well as 
bring about the snarky, sarcastic side that he so often showed to 
students.  That is, those years teaching at Hogwarts are both 
comfortable (hence, the confidence) and tedious (hence, the 
snarkiness), if that makes sense.

 
Carol:
> 20. Why did JKR choose these particular memories for this chapter?
> Why did *Snape* choose them?

SSSusan:
One thing I've said since first completing DH is that this was 
Snape's gift to Harry.  It's why, imo, he said "Look... at... me."  
Not just so he could see Harry's/Lily's eyes once more, but also 
because he knew that the memories he was giving to Harry would truly 
allow Harry to *look* at Severus Snape.  And looking at Severus 
Snape -- even, and especially, those most painful, intimate scenes -- 
would allow Harry to see all he needed to see in order to 
understand.  He *had* to give Harry a certain portion of them for 
Harry to know what he needed to do, but he gave him *more,* I am 
convinced, because he knew it would help Harry to not just get what 
was necessary but to UNDERSTAND.

Interesting.  This just hit me.  For years I argued, as a former high 
school teacher, that Snape was not an effective teacher with the two 
students who most needed him to utilize different methods than he 
did:  Harry & Neville.  I argued that, knowing one of them was 
Prophecy Boy meant that Snape should have done everything he could to 
make sure those two learned ALL they were truly capable of learning.  
Given their ages and Snape's experience and skill, I felt more of the 
onus was upon Snape to work to get those boys to truly *get* things, 
to truly understand.  

Huh.  Look what Snape did here at the end.


Carol:
> 21. Did this chapter change or confirm your view of Snape? What
> surprised you? What disappointed you? How did you feel at the end of
> the chapter the first time through?

SSSusan:
Eh, can anyone really remember what she felt the first time through?  
*Now* I wish I'd kept a journal, actually written down my gasps & my 
groans & my ahas!

I was pleased to get confirmation that things *had* played out as I'd 
thought re: DD instructing Snape to kill him and that DD had felt (or 
at least implied that he felt) that there *is* a difference in what 
happens to the soul of someone who murders vs. the soul of someone 
who kills an old man at his own request.  

I also had felt LOLLIPOPS would prove out somehow, but I had not 
anticipated their relationship having gone back so very far, that 
Severus & Lily had had a true, two-way, long-lasting friendship.  So 
that surprised me, but it worked for me, too -- provided an 
explanation for a lot of things which rang quite true.

As to how I felt about Snape, there was a bit of, "Wow, that's truly 
pathetic" that he could not move beyond Lily.  But I also felt a 
sense of gratefulness towards Snape.  For what he shared with Harry, 
of course.  And also for finding out he'd been willing to spit some 
things at DD that I thought needed to be spit ("like a pig for 
slaughter").

Siriusly Snapey Susan