CHAPDISC: DH33, The Prince's Tale

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184853

Carol's Question:
> 
> > 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?
> 
Mike wrote:
> First off, thank you Carol for a wonderful, thought provoking
summary and question set. I'm sorry I only have time to respond to
one, but it's the biggy for me.

Carol responds:
Thanks, Mike. It's good to see you posting!

Mike wrote:
> In a way, I was waiting for this chapter since I read the first HP
book. I've always been big on backstories and this is the ultimate 
backstory, isn't it? Has anything else intrigued Potterphiles as much
as the question of from whence Snape got his motivations and  loyalties?

Carol responds:
Yup and nope. Agreed so far!

Mike: 
> When I first started this chapter, I actually felt sorry for young
Sev. How could you not? An awkward kid, at an awkward age, in an 
awkward situation of confronting another young magical person in front
of her non-magical sister. The obvious implication of an abusive and
poor homelife peeking out from around the edges of Sev's whole
personna. I actually started to question whether I would continue to
dislike this character by the end of this chapter.
> 
> Sev stays the more likeable of the newest Hogwartians through the
train ride and the sorting. Now I'm actually questioning my
allegiances, at least as far as James is concerned.

Carol responds:
James aside, it makes you wonder (or at least, it makes me wonder)
what would have happened if this young, impressionable, intelligent,
and mistreated boy had found proper guidance. Dumbledore, alas,
doesn't offer it even to the most promising students. Slughorn would
have recognized his talents and made him a Sluggie but wouldn't have
offered any moral guidance. But suppose he'd ended up in Ravenclaw,
with kids who (like him) valued brain over brawn, or in Gryffindor
under Mcgonagall (and without that unfortunate initial encounter with
James and Sirius)? Would they have appreciated his talent and
intelligence (and courage), making him a Marauder? Surely, if they
could accept Peter as a member of the group, they could accept
Severus, maybe working with him to help him overcome the prejudices
stemming from his background,, reminding him that his friend Lily is
Muggle-born? Instead, he's welcomed by Lucius Malfoy (who would, I
think, have become greatly interested in him when he saw what Severus
could do). To me, he seems like a boy from, say, the barrio or the
ghetto, who joins a gang because he can't find acceptance any other
way. Instead of James and Sirius (who, like him, are bright and
talented boys with conspicuous faults), he ends up with Avery and
Mulciber, who, by age fifteen, at least, have openly declared their
allegiance to Voldemort. To some extent, I think Hogwarts itself, in
particular the Sorting systme, is to blame for the changes we see in
Severus between eleven and sixteen. And, even then, with guidance (and
Lily's loyalty), I think he might have come around.

Mike: 
> But then Sev starts to show his true colors. Sure, he wants to be
accepted by his peers so he's going to try to blend in with hs fellow
Slytherins. But he shows himself to be jealous of Potter and his 
mates long before Lily has ever shown any interest in James. He's
sneaking around, trying to catch those Gryffs at something when Lily 
is still thinking of that Potter boy as a "toerag". And Sev is 
breaking the rules himself to do it, which makes him no better than 
the boys he's trying to get something on. <snip aside on Lily>

Carol responds:
Hm. Well. Maybe he senses that Lily is interested in James before she
does. He certainly knows that James is interested in *her.* And he
knows that James is a "Quidditch hero" and popular, especially in his
own House, which happens to be Lily's. Of course, he's jealous. He's a
teenage boy. As for sneaking around after hours to see what someone is
up to, I was reminded of Harry following Draco around in HBP, sure
that he's up to no good, exactly as Severus is sure that James (who
hexes people in the hallway when they annoy him) and his "mates" are
up to no good. That sort of thing doesn't make him a would-be Death
Eater, just a kid who knows that James is a "toerag" and wants to
prove it to keep Lily from being taken in by him. (See his words to
her in the scene right before SWM.

Mike: 
> Back to Severus: The fact that he was a young DE in training, does 
bother me more, in his case. 

Carol:
but it's not a fact. it's the inference you (and Lily) draw from his
silence. He hasn't openly declared for Voldemort like Mulciber and
Avery. Even Sirius doesn't know as of his own arrest just after
Godric's Hollow (and doesn't find out in prison, either) that Snape
became a DE. He only knows that Severus was a member of a gang, most
of whom later became DEs. I wouldn't call even Avery and Mulciber "DEs
in training" at this point, more like DE wannabes, just as Harry at
the same age is an Auror wannabe. It's their career plan that they
haven't yet embarked on. (It's possible, of course, that like Regulus
and Draco, they joined up young. Lily calls them "your precious little
Death Eater friends," so maybe they've actually showed off their Dark
Marks. But Severus certainly hasn't or Lily wouldn't still be speaking
to him, and Sirius wouldn't be in the dark about Snape's having been a
DE as late as GoF. that Snape did join the DEs at some point is, of
course, indisputable, but I don't think we can safely leap to the
conclusion that he's a "DE in training" at the end of his fifth year.
We can, however, safely say that he's seriously contemplating joining
his friends and sess what they "get up to" as no worse than what James
Potter and his friends do. (And, here, since it's Lily's word against
Severus's and we don't actually know what Mulciber tried to do to Mary
mcDonald, we simply have to make up our own minds based on inadequate
evidence and agree to disagree.)

Mike:
> Who knows, maybe Voldemort was still being his charming self to the
outsiders and maybe Severus was taken in just like so many others
were. OTOH, with all we know and all we've been lead to believe about
this guy's intelligence and savvy, shouldn't we have expected a little
more out of him than from the likes of Mulciber or Crabbe or Goyle? <snip>

> The windswept hill scene must be after Harry's birth, which means it
has to be a good three years after they all left Hogwarts. Severus 
Snape joined a terrorist organization and found nothing wrong with 
being a member of that organization for three years. It is obvious 
from Dumbledore's words that Snape remained a loyal DE, right up to 
that meeting. I cannot abide these actions and I cannot forgive him
for that. In my eyes, this is not forgivable. Penitence for the rest
of his life will not wash away this sin. He will forever remain a DE
that converted, but a DE first. <snip>

Carol responds:
I think a better comparison would be Regulus, intelligent like Severus
but taken in by the propaganda (an no doubt influenced, as Severus
was, by the pro-Voldemort atomosphere of Slytherin House (which its
unobservant HoH did nothing to suppress or redirect). I doubt that
Voldemort came calling in person to recruit Severus and his friends.
it doesn't work that way. More likely, he was recruited (not
necessarily after his fifth year--I'd say more likely after his
seventh) by Lucius Malfoy (as the pat on the back when he enters
Slytherin may suggest). I think that like many other kids who join
gangs (or organizations like Hitler Youth or the Young Pioneers), he
needed to feel that he belonged somewhere and may even have felt (as
Regulus did) that it was a worthy cause. Or he may, like Draco, have
wanted some "glory" (and perhaps a dose of revenge against the Muggles
who had abused or insulted him). It's not commendable, obviously. It's
his biggest mistake next to revealing the Prophecy to Voldemort. But
he regrets his mistakes and works all his adult life to atone for
them, even saving lives of people unconnected with Harry when he can.
We don't see Crabbe or Goyle (or Avery or Mulciber) do anything of the
sort. BTW. Regulus joined the DEs, too, and. like Severus, he
regretted it and did what he could to undermine Voldemort. Is he, too,
beyond the pale, once a DE, always a DE? No distinction between, say,
Dolohov and Bellatix on the one hand and Snape and Regulus on the
other? If that's the way you see it, I disagree wholeheartedly.
(What's the point of repentance if it doesn't earn forgiveness? Might
as well remain a DE.)

Carol, who believes that if we truly repent our sins and work to
repair the damage, we deserve forgiveness from God and humankind