Snape's Psychology: WAS: More thoughts on the Elder Wand subplot - Owner?

[zanooda2]

No: HPFGUIDX 187529

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:


> Do you think that he is not clear enough in his response 
> to Dumbledore?


zanooda:

He is clear enough about his feelings (cares about Lily, doesn't care about Harry and James), but not about what he would have asked DD. To be clear enough about that, he should have said: "Well, I kind of didn't intend to ask you to protect her husband and child as well, but OK, hide them too" :-). 



> Maybe I should rephrase it this way - what does Snape's 
> response when he says hide them, then means to you?


It means to me the same thing that it means to you, that he didn't care about Harry and James and that he probably wouldn't have asked to protect them. But it doesn't matter what we think it means, because these words can be subject to interpretation. For instance, they can mean "it's true, I don't care what happens to them, but I can see from you reaction that I should and that you want me to".  The words "hide them, then" are not a direct statement of Snape's previous intentions, they are not a proof. Any lawyer would have gotten him off on a technicality, LOL.
 


> And same question about "hiding her, them". 


This one is even easier - he thinks about her and only her, so he says "her", but then remembers, you know, *them*, so he adds "them" :-). Maybe that's exactly how he would have expressed his wish: "Protect her...them". Once again, I'm not saying it would have been like this, just that we cannot be sure unless it actually happened, and it didn't.


> Alla:
 
> What I am not sure that Zanooda is agreeing with us is your 
> last sentence, that Snape's later words indicate that he 
> *agrees* with Dumbledore's interpretation. 


I actually agree (with very small reservations), but it doesn't mean anything. We still can't accuse Snape of not asking to save Harry and James. What didn't happen, didn't happen. We can safely accuse him of not caring at all about Harry and James though.