CHAPDISC: DH33, The Prince's Tale

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 184859

> 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. 

Montavilla47:
Hmm.  I can't dispute that there's no in-book interest on Lily's part
for James—although I don't know why Snape would think there was
if there wasn't.  I took that scene to show that Lily wasn't consciously
aware of being attracted to James.  Or that Snape had a generalized
alarm that Lily might be interested in *any* boy and quick to jump
on the slightest hint that she might.

But what strikes me in that scene is how quick she is to believe some
story she's heard about Snape sneaking around under the tunnel and
unwilling to even ask about his side of the story.

But... ya know...  it's cause I'm biased. :)

Mike:
>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.

Montavilla47:
And certainly no better than Harry, who has been known to do 
a bit of rule-breaking in the name of catching rule-breakers himself. :)

Not that that excuses Snape.

Mike:
> Aside: I find the criticism of Lily's actions in all this a bit 
> harsh. She's remained friends with this geek of a boy (admit it, he 
> was)...

Montavilla47:
Fully admitted.  He was.

Mike:
>...despite all the probable peer pressure on her to drop him. So 
> while Sev is giving in, to some degree, to his Slyth buddy's peer 
> pressure, Lily is not. 

Montavilla47:
Except that she is.  See above note about accepting her friends'
story about Snape and not asking him for his side--or even how 
he's feeling after nearly being killed.  If he was.

Mike:
> And her actions in SWM take on a new light 
> after reading the backstory that lead up to it. She wasn't flirting 
> with James, she was actually trying to come to Sev's rescue. 

Montavilla47:
Yes.  Coming to the aid of her best friend, while treating him as if
she didn't know him.  Weirdest.  Best friend.  Ever.

Mike:
>And that 
> smirk when Sev's greying underpants are revealed; come on, what 16-
> year-old girl wouldn't smirk for a fraction of a second upon seeing 
> that, even if it was your friend?

Montavilla47:
Wow.  I wouldn't.  Seriously.  You made me flash back to my sixteen-
year-old self with a friend who wore the same clothes every day to 
school because he didn't have other clothes to wear.  If someone had
pulled his pants down, the last thing I'd be doing would be to laugh
at the shape his underpants were in.

But maybe we were just a bit more sophisticated back then.  It was
the seventies and I think public disrobing was more in vogue.  By which
I mean it wasn't as likely that the sight of underwear would provoke 
embarrassment (and thus smiles and laughter) on the part of the 
spectator.  Also, I grew up on the West Coast of the U.S., which is 
a more laid-back atmosphere than England.


Mike:
>It wasn't until Snape calls 
> her "Mudblood", a slur she knew he was using with some regularity, 
> that she decides enough is enough. And Snape not denying that he was 
> a DE in training tips the scales all the way for her.

Montavilla47:
Yeah, this is what I don't understand.  Was it okay with Lily that
Snape was using the word with some regularity as long as he didn't
apply it to her?  If so, why?  If not, then why didn't she complain 
about it before?  Because I kind of get the idea that if she had,
he'd have stopped using it pronto.

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

Montavilla47:
I agree with you.  What the heck was he thinking?  I did expect
better from the guy who called himself "The Half-Blood Prince."

Mike:
> The final straw, the one that sealed the deal for me, was the scene 
> on the windswept hill. That's when I knew I had pegged Snape for who 
> he was. You see, I kept looking for a sign that Snape had joined up 
> with the DEs as an infiltration move. Or, lacking that from the 
> start, had quickly realized his mistake and opted for spydom and 
> working against LV as an alternative to turning tail and running, 
> leading to his probable early demise. But no such altruistic reason 
> was forthcoming.
> 
> Instead, we get the sad and disappointing lost love but still pining 
> for his Lily reason. OK, that's not an altogether unexpected nor 
> totally self-centered reason for changing sides. Yet it is somewhat 
> egotistic and very much too sappy for my taste. But the basis for my 
> belief that Snape doesn't win my support is the timing. I know JKR is 
> poor with her numbers, but I think in this case holding to the 
> timeline to be a credible exercise.
> 
> 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.

Montavilla47:
Yep.  Can't disagree with you--except that there's a little wiggle
room in that he might not have joined immediately after school
(or, as some suspect, while he was *in* school).

But does that mean that sin can never be washed away?

Mike:
> Nothing that came later in this chapter was either surprising or 
> transformative of my opinion of Snape. I thought he would prove less 
> malleable to Dumbledore, but that was not a big revelation. I ended 
> the chapter with the same opinion I had of Snape going into it.
> 
> There, how's that for recalling what I felt the first time through?
> I'll just never like Severus Snape!

Montavilla47:
Which is entirely your right.  Thanks for the post!