CHAPDISC: DH33, The Prince's Tale

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 184963

Zara:
First, a brief comment on a later thread...

> Pippin:
> Someone remind me, just how can we conclude that knowing a werewolf
uses the tunnel to exit the grounds before he transforms translates
into knowing said tunnel is a deathtrap?

Zara:
An excellent question! We don't, and I can't believe this had not 
occured to me yet in the context of this discussion. In a fanfic I 
once wrote about this incident - I had Snape hurrying to reach the 
exit at the other end when he realized James was following him. <g>

But really, I'm posting to get to the rest of Carol's excellent 
Chapter Discussion questions for "The Proince's Tale" which I did not 
address in weither my first response or later posts in response to 
others.

> 12. James's words, "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave,
> wouldn't you?" mirror Draco's words about Hufflepuff in SS/PS. What
> do you think that JKR is saying here about James and Draco or House
> prejudice in general? And what's your reaction to James's imaginary
> Sword of Gryffindor, raised in defense of chivalry?

Zara:
I read this as a straightforward parallel, final confirmation that 
James arrived at Hogwarts full of himself and full of prejudices 
learned at home. The imaginary sword made me curl my lip. <g>

> 14 What's the significance, if any, of Lucius Malfoy's patting
> Severus's back? Why include that detail?

Zara:
I think it signifies Snape was accepted into Slytherin, and 
specifically by the Pureblood supremacist element among the students. 
That he accepted the offered friendship/protection, given his family 
situation, makes lots of sense to me.

> 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?

Zara:
Part of it, I think, was working as a spy in the first war. The 
speech he directs at Harry in Occlumency lessons (how Voldemort 
exploits weaknesses, the inadvisability of wearing one's heart on 
one's sleeve, etc.) is very true of him. If he were pronoe 
to ":losing it" among Death Eaters, he would probably have been 
killed much earlier. 

> 18. What do you think Dumbledore means when he tells Snape, "If I
> know [Harry], he will have arranged matters so that when he does set
> out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort"?

Zara:
I agree with the posters who have suggested this means Harry will 
have arranged to dispose of the Horcruxes and will agree to sacrifice 
himself.

> 19. We get only a few hints of what Harry is feeling as he witnesses
> these scenes, and yet he goes from hating Snape and wanting revenge
> against him to publicly defending him and ultimately naming his
> second son after him and Dumbledore. Aside from the shock of Snape's
> death, which scenes do you feel had the most impact on Harry's 
change
> of heart and why?

Zara:
I think the simple knowledge of a credible reason for the remorse he 
has already been told Snape felt was one factor. I think seeing the 
scene after Lily's death was important because he could see for 
himself what Albus had told him in the previous book (the depth of 
Snape's remorse). Of the later scenes, I think both the Ring scene 
and "Always" scene were critical. The first established that Snape 
had not, as Harry believed, murdered Albus. The second established 
that Snape was Harry's mysterious helper - we know he recognized the 
Silver Doe and grasped its meaning, as he repeats this information 
right back to Voldemort in the final confrontation. And it was 
probably shocking, but also comforting, to hear what was likely his 
own initial reaction to Albus's news about the soul bit in seeing 
that memory. Snape's angry speech to Dumbledore could equally well 
have been spoken by Harry, I believe.

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

Zara:
JKR chose them to clarify Snape's story, I guess. Not only to 
establish his loyalties, but also to explain his moptivations 
throughout the series.

My own view on why *Snape* chose them differs a bit from the most 
popular position among those who answered this question. I do not 
agree he chose them all because they were all necessary to convince 
Harry.  I believe that starting with the Ring Horcrux memory, with 
the omission of the memories related to the 7 Potters as well as the 
memory of crying over Lily's letter,  would have sufficed for that 
purpose. It would have cleared him of having murdered Albus, and 
would have established that Snape had, indeed, worked to benefit 
Harry and not Voldemort in the matter of the Sword of Gryffindor. 
Snape is not aware, so far as I know, that Harry knows who told 
Voldemort the Prophecy, so he cannot be thinking that Harry needs to 
know this to trust him. On the contrary, so far as Snape knows, he is 
entering a new and enormous bl;ack mark against himself into Harry's 
view of him.

But instead Snape included the whole backstory, and an almost full 
account of his dealings with Albus as they touched on Harry. (The one 
group of memories of significance that was left out, IMO, was Snape 
warning Albus and the Order of Harry's disappearance at the end of 
OotP.) I think he felt Harry deserved to know the whole story, the 
bad along with the good. If he had not included the backstory, for 
all Snape knew, Harry would have walked to his death still thinking 
it was a nameless and insignificat Death Eater who had reported the 
Prophecy to Voldemort.

> 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?

Zara:
This chapter confirmed my view. I could not say three was anything in 
it that surprised me. I had not been a proponent of the idea that 
Snape and Lily were friends as children, but certainly has not 
rejected it. I had supposed Snape killing Dumbledore might have been 
Plan B, but could always see where the idea that they had planned it 
from the start of HBP came from. I could also not say that anything 
in it disappointed me. I had hoped Snape and Harry would confront 
another while both still alive, but that disappointment occured in 
the previous chapter.

The "Always" scene I personally found to be emotionally devastating. 
I had to take a long break after reading it, and then I read through 
the rest of the chapter anbd the end of the book pretty quickly. (I 
should add, I had fully expected pre-DH that Harry would walk to a 
fake death which he would survive, so the next chapter, which might 
otherwise have been expected to affect me, was one I simply could not 
take seriously as tragedy. I knew it would end well. ;) ) I guess 
that was the surprise of this chapter for me - not what was in it, 
but that despite there being nothing in it I did not already believe, 
the way it was written would affect me so much. I could not bear to 
open this book for a couple of weeks after finishing it.