Snape and moral courage WAS: Re: The Houses, Finally

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184674

 
> Alla:
> 
> Please see above. I have no gripes with what you wrote here, but 
> again in what world this is called protecting Harry? I can respect 
> Snape's motivations if they were what you just described, ( I mean,
I  dislike it, etc, but hey, if that is what he thinks,  his right to 
> think so) but this is certainly NOT protection in my book, this is 
> sacrificing pig for slaughter and Snape ( after at least voicing 
> initial disagreement to my surprise) going along with it. Reasons 
> could be the most chivalrous reasons ever, my point is, it is not 
> protection.

Pippin:

In a chivalric world view there is no protection for Harry or anyone
else outside the moral order. 

Nor can Harry live if Voldemort survives.

"He will not try to possess Harry again, I am sure of it. *Not in that
way*" [emphasis mine]

"Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a
parasitic growth." -DH ch 33

Dumbledore did not mention death when he asked Snape to protect Harry.
He spoke of "terrible danger." Snape supposed for years that the
danger he was protecting Harry from was death, and indeed that was the
danger that Harry was facing when Lily died to protect him. But she
did not know that Harry was going to get a soul bit lodged in him.

To Dumbledore, as we know, there are worse things than death. 

Only Harry's death can separate him from the soul bit which is gaining
power along with Voldemort and may eventually overpower Harry. Only
Voldemort's death can protect Harry from losing all that he loves in
life to Voldemort, perhaps watching helplessly through Voldemort's
eyes as it happens. 

It might be a little clearer what was at stake if JKR had let Arthur
die but surely we can imagine what that would have been like for
Harry? Which do you suppose he would want to be protected from more:
death, or having to watch from behind Voldemort's eyes as Arthur
was murdered? 

Snape may not care that Harry is going to suffer if his friends die.
But he knows that Harry's mind and Voldemort's are linked, that Harry
is unable to defend himself with Occlumency, and that Dumbledore has
implied that Harry's current ability to protect himself may not last. 

 

> Alla:
> 
> Sorry I wanted to respond to couple points in your earlier post and 
> did not do it, so doing it now.  So you are saying that DE who kill 
> and torture do it why exactly? During the cup they do those things
to  Muggles fo example not because they believe in it? Sorry, but 
> indication to the contrary, if I see them perform the act, I will 
> assume that they fully believe in what they are doing.

Pippin:
They're doing it for fun. Morality doesn't come into it. Why should
they care whether it's right or wrong? It's only Muggles. They might
feel differently if they weren't drunk, and masked, and part of a mob,
but I'm afraid people in that state aren't much concerned about their
moral compass. I don't think they're feeling righteous anger at all.

 IMO  they're drunk on power, firewhiskey and the madness of crowds.


> Alla:

> 
> And of course I would love to accept the interview that they came 
> back and I still think it is possible to read that crowd with 
> Slughorn as if some of them were students, but it is just that 
> inference, because while I believe that your other inference was 
> exceptionally strong, this one even to me looks weaker, since other 
> inferences IMO are equally possible, that none of them returned.

Pippin:
I don't think it's a weak inference, just one that takes a bit of
logic to work out, like the other.

Slughorn returns at the head of a crowd that looks like the citizens
of Hogsmeade, the relatives of the fighters, and  "the friends of
every Hogwarts student who had remained to fight." If these last
aren't some of the students who left, how does Harry deduce that
they're friends of the others? 

McGonagall said that the protection they had placed around the castle
was unlikely to hold "unless we reinforce it." She didn't have the
presence of mind or the cunning to see that it could be reinforced
from outside as well as from within. But someone did, and that someone
is very likely to have been a Slytherin. 

 Does it make sense that Slughorn would be leading an army with no
Slytherins? That the people of Hogsmeade would trust and follow
Charley Weasley, who's been away for years, and not Slughorn who is on
good terms with shopkeepers everywhere? And again, no one, Slytherin
or otherwise, betrayed this plan to Voldemort.

I have to wonder if part of Draco's reason for getting Crabbe and
Goyle to try and capture Harry was that they *would* have squealed on
the other students, or expected him to do it. 

> Alla:
> 
> Oh LOL Crabbe was using them? Where is indication of that in the six
 books? And IMO the first assumption based on six books would be that
 Draco was using them, but based on him saving Goyle, I cannot make 
that assumption anymore.

Pippin:
Take a look at  CoS. There's more sympatico between Draco and Goyle
than Draco and Crabbe. 


Draco has talked to Goyle before about who Slytherin's heir might be,
and  is annoyed at Goyle's seeming failure to remember his
theories, while Crabbe's cluelessness attracts no attention.

Goyle(Harry) offers some concern over the raid on Malfoy Manor, which
Draco accepts.  Draco snickers at Crabbe(Ron) while he is supposed to
be grimacing with stomach cramps, and tells him to go give the
Mudbloods in the hospital wing a kick from him. That's using Crabbe,
who will later return the favor. No love lost there, I think.


Alla: 
> And quite honestly I see no difference between him and Pettigrew, I 
> mean they performed different actions of course, but they both
turned  their back on their friends and were willing let them die.

Pippin:
You cannot see any difference between Crabbe, who is proud of what he
is doing, and Pettigrew, who cannot bear to look Harry in the eyes? 
Does Pettigrew ever take any pride in what he did? 

Pippin