Caring about people

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 184569

> Carol, winking at Montavilla and thanking her for being persuaded by
> Pippin's and my arguments regarding Portrait DD's plan.

Montavilla47:
Don't get too comfortable. :)

I do agree with Magpie about the essential silliness of Snape needing
to tell Voldemort anything in order to secure the Headmaster job.

Yes.  He just freakin' killed Dumbledore.  Beyond killing Harry Potter
himself, there's nothing that any Death Eater could do to please
Voldemort more.  And sure, the Death Eaters are constantly 
jockeying to get Voldemort's favor, but there are plenty of plums
to go around, and neither Yaxley nor Bellatrix shows any interest
in becoming Headmaster.  Nor does anyone else.  Even the 
Carrows.

Who are shown to be pretty stupid.  Would Voldemort actually
*want* them in charge of England's wizarding youth?  Yeah, he
wants them trained to be his new army, but he doesn't want a 
*stupid* army, does he? (Doesn't he already have that with the
Inferi?)

And it's harder to explain how Snape still has a contact within
the order than it would be for him to explain to Voldemort why
he doesn't.  He freakin' killed Dumbledore!  No sane person in
the Order would trust him.  He has to go confund Mundungus 
in order to get his information--which is, again, silly.  Why is
Dumbledore's killer able to stroll into random pubs to bend 
elbows with someone who just broke out of Azkaban?  Isn't 
the Ministry looking for these people?

The whole situation requires a huge suspension of disbelief.
It's there because, as someone noted, JKR wanted to create 
the strong impression that Snape was fully in Voldemort's 
Camp.  And possibly get us worried that there was a traitor
in Dumbledore's Camp.

(Incidentally, I predicted that JKR would do something to
make Snape look evil early in the book.  It seemed like a 
logical move in order to twist things at the end.  So, when
I read the first chapters of DH, I knew that Snape would
turn out to be good.)

But in order to pull off this effect, (and to have the 
alchemically fun scene of seven naked Harries running
around), JKR asks the reader to suspend too much.  We're
asked to believe that the entire world is counting on 
Harry, and that the Ministry is putting extra protection
on several safe-houses.... but yet, it wouldn't be safe to
use the Ministry floo network.  That it's safer to polyjuice
six people to look like Harry than to polyjuice Harry to
look like any random person and simply walk out the 
front door.  I still can't figure out why it's smarter to 
move the Dursleys out of the house before Harry leaves
than afterwards.  And now that I think about it, how
does the blood protection end when Harry becomes
seventeen?  What kind of magic is that?  And, if it
does, why does it still work later on in the book when
Voldemort AKs him?

Speaking about that idea of a traitor in Dumbledore's
Camp... I wonder if that was supposed to explain why
Harry refuses to confide in anybody about the Horcrux
Hunt?  Were we supposed to wonder if Lupin was really
ESE?  If so, then it might have worked--if Harry hadn't
categorically refused to consider that idea.    If he had
worried about a possible traitor, then I wouldn't have
been left gnashing my teeth when he told Lupin to 
take a hike or ask Bill for advice about breaking into
the bank that Bill worked for.

Montavilla47