Love, Hate, Joy, Despair---the Greatest is Love

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191097


Amandageist: 
> Hey! I can't read as much as I used to, but I've been scanning the posts
> lately and there's just not enough Snape. We can't have that. So here's some
> thoughts in response to Pippin's lovely post (still so eloquent!).

Pippin:
:;blushes::
Amanda! And I thought you had left us forever :)
>  
> AG:
> So I fully agree that Snape was exhibiting selfish love in his childhood and
> teens, but in his maturity, it is far from that.  Something happened to make
> him see how his selfishness offends and could hurt his beloved; he learned
> to distinguish the needs of the beloved.

Pippin:
Here's the thing, I'm not sure he did, entirely. He loved her without expecting anything in return, that is true, and it was unselfish. 

 But when he shrinks, in Dumbledore's office, it's Dumbledore's contempt he shrinks from, not Lily's -- he doesn't see that *she* needs Harry and James to be happy; that their happiness is necessary to hers.  And tearing the photograph shows, IMO, that  he always felt that way. He could put Harry's life before his own desires, for her sake, and then recognize, also for her sake, that the Order was more important still. He couldn't have done that as a teenager, and in that way he grew. But he was still stunted, IMO. 
 
Tearing the photo was brutal -- maybe I read it as stronger than JKR meant it to be, because I know how it feels to have a child torn from your life. But I don't think so. 

I think it is a rebuke to the fantasy of the "good Slytherin" in more ways than one. It puts Snape in a bad light  just when we've seen him at his best. But it also tells us something about ourselves. 

 We can see that it was hopelessly unrealistic for Snape to imagine a Lily  who would not only  come to share his opinion of her family and friends but turn into someone who would be happy palling around with the Malfoys and Avery.  And yet some of us were extremely disappointed that Snape or  Draco or another Slytherin who had expressed contempt for Harry did not undergo a similar transformation in the opposite direction and become a pal. 

Pippin
who likes her Snape the way she likes her chocolate -- dark, bitter and complex