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

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 184704

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> > Montavilla47:
> > Yeah, I know.  It creeps me out a little, too.  It's one of those
> ways that JKR manages to keep Snape right on the edge between 
> > sympathetic and not.  
> > 
> > I mean, it seems so selfish and self-absorbed, and down right 
> > psychotic to tear up the photograph (he doesn't actually tear the
> > letter) and only take the page of the letter that contains the
> words, "Love, Lily."  As though he wants to pretend--even at that
> point-- that Lily was his and had no connection to the husband, baby,
> or  friend.
> 
> Pippin:
> But how is that different than the feeling you are ascribing to James,
> etc? As if Harry is just theirs, and has no connection to anyone else
> in the world? 
> 
> Do you think, if they had known that Voldemort was going to offer Lily
> a chance to live at her son's expense, that they would have told her
> to take it? Would she have been the person they loved if she had?

Montavilla47:
I'm not sure what you are saying here or what relationship it has
to what I was saying, because I'm not sure how this all relates
to James or Lily.  Could you please clarify?


> Montavilla:
> > Also, people tend to point out that the letter really belonged to 
> > Harry and Snape was stealing it.
> 
> Pippin:
> Perhaps that is why Snape included it in the memory set, as a way of
> returning it.

Montavilla47:
I like that, Pippin.  I can't help but think that Snape makes himself
look very bad in these memories (although he makes Dumbledore 
look worse).  And I also think that he *chose* the memories he sent.
So, why would he include that particular memory?  That always 
bothered me.  

I mean, plotwise, it's needed so that we know how the letter came
to be there.  But why should Snape want to show Harry something 
that shows him in a state he'd *never* want Harry to see him in?

Your explanation makes sense.  And perhaps it also expresses 
grief he *needs* to share with someone.  There aren't many 
people who would understand it.  


Pippin:
> According to JKR, this scene  is supposed to be right after
> Dumbledore's death, so it's no wonder Snape is overwrought.
> 
> I think Snape is mourning his rejection as he reads the letter,  not
> Lily's death per se. He's crying like a child, so I think we are
> supposed to infer childish emotions. I can remember crying like that
> at my sister's wedding when I was about ten. Of course I knew I should
> be happy for her, but I suddenly realized that she was going to a new
> home that didn't include me, and wasn't sorry about it at all. 

Montavilla47:
I dunno, Pippin.  I didn't think of Snape's tears as childish.  Adults
can cry like that.  I know I have as an adult, although I don't remember
why it was at the moment.  I'm also remembering a wonderful moment
from Truly, Madly, Deeply, where Juliet Stevenson is crying with tears
literally rolling off her nose, and her grief is very complex and adult.

Catharsis is usually an adult experience.

Pippin:
> I think Snape liked to believe that Lily had made a terrible mistake
> marrying James, and that she really could have been happy in Snape's
> world. There's some wonderful layering here, with Lily in denial about
> Dumbledore's life and Snape in denial about Lily's. 

Montavilla47:
Perhaps then part of Snape's tears are from realization that Liliy was
happy with her family and child.  Perhaps this moment brought about
a change in his perspective on Harry--helped him see the connection
to Lily that he acknowledges at his death, when he asks Harry to look
at him.