Snape as Harry's protector or not WAS Snape and moral courage LONG

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 184696

> > Alla (quoting the text):
> > > "So the boy... the boy must die?" asked Snape, quite calmly.
> > > "And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential."
> > > Another long silence. Then Snape said, "I thought... all these 
> > > years... that we were protecting him for her. For Lily"
> > 
> > 
> > Montavilla47:
> > The calmness Snape shows is not acceptance.  It's shock and 
> > denial.  This is sort of following that Kübler-Ross model
> > of people's reaction to death or loss.  She stated that there
> > are five stages that people go through:  Denial, Anger,
> > Bargaining, Depression, and finally, Acceptance.  
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I accept it as intepretation, but how do we know that it is what you 
> say it is? I mean, you could be right, but so do I IMO.

Montavilla47:
Of course.  Things are seldom clear cut in stories.  We all have
to interpret what we read.  And much as I enjoy arguing with you
about all this (and I do!), there is no right or wrong about it.
 

> > Montavilla47:
> > And there we have the anger.  I don't care if there are 
> > capslocks or not.  I don't care if we don't see spittle flying
> > from Snape's foaming mouth.  He's angry and he's shouting.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Absolutely. Snape moves to anger when and only when Dumbledore 
> suggests that he cares for the boy and Snape IMO is angry that 
> Dumbledore could ever think that. I just do not see how you connect 
> his anger with the Dumbledore's decision that Snape has to die.

Montavilla47:
I think he moves completely into anger when Dumbledore suggests
that he cares about Harry.  But I think it's building throughout that
passage, when he accuses Dumbledore of lying to him and using him.


> Montavilla47:
> > We don't see him go through the other steps.  And Kübler-Ross
> > notes that no everyone does, so maybe he didn't go through 
> > them.  Maybe he did and JKR didn't bother to show it. 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Or maybe JKR was not thinking about it at all.

Montavilla47:
She probably wasn't thinking consciously about Kübler-Ross.  I know
I had to look up the model on Wiki to remember exactly what the stages
were.  But if you know the characters and imagine how they would act
in the given circumstances, it's hard not to have an an initial reaction of
shock from Snape.  

That's the way I'd approach it, if I were writing such a scene.  I don't 
really know what JKR's process is, so I can only go off my own process.


> Montavilla47: 
> > What I don't see is Snape in this scene ever actually coming
> > to acceptance.  Obviously he eventually did.  But I don't see it
> > in this scene.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> You mean we do not see him saying yes I will do it in that scene? 
> True, we don't, but we do not see him saying no I will not do it 
> either and coupled with the fact that he in fact followed 
> Dumbledore's plan, to me proof is in the pudding that he accepted and 
> followed it.

Montavilla47:
Yes, of course he did.  As did Harry.  It's just the readers like us who
keep expressing anger, trying to come up with other solutions, and 
get depressed. :)

But accepting it doesn't mean that Snape didn't care.  Which is what 
you are arguing.  

Hmm.  I was going to say, "Just because don't see Snape crying...."

But we do see that, don't we?  We see Snape with tears running
off the edge of his nose while he stares at Lily's picture.  I don't 
blame anyone for forgetting that moment, because I tend to 
blank it out, but it shows him expressing deep grief.  Is he so
heartbroken because he's suddenly reminded about the girl he
loved?  Is he heartbroken because she wrote "love, Lily" to 
Sirius and not to him?  Is he heartbroken because he's now
committed to a plan that means he's betraying his goal of 
protecting her son?

Again, this is evidence that he cares.  It's certainly not proof, but
I don't think it's possible for us to get clear proof.  


> Montavilla47: 
> > Or is it just that he feels, having once been nearly killed
> > by classmates, that near murder warrants severe 
> > punishment?
> 
> Alla:

> But if Snape thinks that because he was played a prank in school 
> which yes, could have gotten him killed, but where no force in making 
> him to go in the tunnel was involved, if he thinks that the child of 
> the man who saved him needs to die for it, then I hope that he burns 
> in whatever version of Potterverse imaginary hell for all eternity.

Montavilla47:
I think you misunderstood me.  The "severe punishment" that I meant
was "lots of detentions in which Harry gets to read about James being
a jerk" and not "death."