DH reread CH 31

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 187484

 
> Alla:
> 
> But wait, now I am confused. Me thinking about Snape as suicidal was not even an inference, but straight from canon (or so I thought), I will double check when I am home, but I was pretty sure that narrator describes Snape looking as suicidal that night after Lily's death. I did not pick up on direct analogy between Baron and Snape, and that makes me slower than you lol, because at least you did not think of Snape as suicidal.

Potioncat:
I had a feeling I put too much into one paragraph without enough explanation.

I just went myself to review canon. The scene has Snape saying "I wish I were dead" and DD answering something along the line of, "What good would that do?" It also describes how horrible Snape looks and describes DD as looking grim.

I don't think the line "I wish I were dead" is enough to label a person as suicidal. Nor do I really think he would have gone out and killed himself. So I never took it as a suicidal scene. But JKR has also described his pain visually and she has written many characters with an obsessive love. She's warned us about the dangers of it and shown us other leathal outcomes of it. So I'm now willing to accept the suicidal reading as valid.

And that would make a nice parallel between the Bloody Baron and Snape. There are many reasons I'm glad DD prevented his death, but at one is that even Slytherin doesn't deserve two such ghosts floating about.

> Alla:
> As to whether it makes Dumbledore's manipulation more or less sinister, well to me as I said it before it makes it more sinister, since I was looking at that night conversation and saw a person who was not really clear headed to decide whether he is indeed willing to enter into life service to Dumbledore, you know?

Potioncat:
But what he's really done is channelled Snape's love of and remorse for Lily into a positive direction. I think Snape could have changed his mind at any time. There was no fiery Unbreakable Vow in place. He continued to feel that protecting Harry was his way of honoring Lily. By HBP he was no longer distraught, nor was he limiting his actions to simply protecting Lily's son.

Even though Snape was a fragile state of mind, I don't think what DD was wrong or even overly manipulative.

Back to the Bloody Baron. What is it JKR has about obessive love? What put it into her head? Was it her first marriage--or something else? We have Merope, the Baron, Snape. Only Snape is able to bring something good of it.