Snape's Backslide (was Re: Welcome!)

[carolynwhite2]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...> 
wrote:
> I'll never believe Smarmy!Snape. The only alternative that leaves,
> though, is that he was genuinely glad to see her back and nearly
> herself again.  I'm not a Snape/McGonagall SHIPper, but I do think 
she
> is the closest thing he has to a friend.  In OoP she says she'd been
> teaching at Hogwarts for 39 years; she must have taught Snape. I bet
> she was exactly the kind of teacher he liked best and respected:
> tough, strict, highly intelligent, competent, and extremely fair.
> 
> I'd say, too bad he didn't see her as more of a role model, but that
> wouldn't be any fun, now, would it? (As for backsliding, I don't 
know

Carolyn:
Ah, no...there is much more to it than that, and no SHIPPY nonsense, 
either (at least between Minerva and Severus). Indeed, she must have 
taught Snape, in fact, known him man and boy, but I think the point 
is she was also at school with Tom Riddle. I think McGonagall 
understands why Snape became a DE better than anyone, because she 
also understands where Tom Riddle came from and why he became Lord 
Voldemort - she understands the attraction only too well. 

I also think Dumbledore only trusts her as much as he trusts Snape - 
that there are reasons why he knows he can expect loyalty from both, 
but they are rather enmeshed in back history, not in any gush of 
sentiment. 

McGonagall blatantly admires Dumbledore's power (PS/SS):
'You flatter me' said Dumbledore calmly. 'Voldemort had powers I will 
never have'.
'Only because you're too - well - noble to use them.'

I posted recently on how the admiration of the WW for magical power 
is one of the key driving forces in the WW society (see 108963 on 
main). I think Minerva was dazzled by Tom and his obvious power when 
he was at school, and she was inspired by him to study 
transfiguration (an art which he took further than anyone ever had, 
to eventually turn himself into Voldemort). I think she may have done 
some stupid things, maybe hung around with Tom's teenage friends 
before and after he disappeared, maybe teetered on the brink of 
something worse. 

I think it took Dumbledore, with his superior powers to Tom, to bring 
her back from a dangerous path, and it's her shameful secret. Like 
many other teachers at Hogwarts, he found her a place there to keep 
her safe. So, she understands the whole process Snape has been 
through. It is also possible that she was at school with Snape's 
parents, and perhaps understands the bitterness of his home life, and 
was friends with his mother. 

Kneasy insists that the pensieve memory is of Snape's wife and child, 
[result of bonking Florence behind the greenhouse], but I maintain it 
was his parents after all, that his father was an original Voldy 
supporter and DE (hence Snape's knowledge of the dark arts at age 
11), but both parents have perished in a Voldy-related action in VW1.

It's one of the bitternesses that is driving Snape for revenge, 
although not all of it. There is something else, and I don't know 
what it is, but I'll need serious persuasion it is love for a woman.

Pippin whipped back recently with the many instances of his eloquence 
(..'the beauty of the softly shimmering cauldron'..etc, and 'fools 
who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves' etc) to demonstrate 
he is bottled-up passion in the best Heathcliffe tradition. 

However, I think that passion is in fact the burning conviction of a 
strategist playing a long game, knowing the heavy risks of losing. In 
some ways like Sirius, all those long years in Azkaban. Its turned 
them both slightly mad, and made them extremely volatile. McGonagall, 
the older woman who has been there, done that, isn't a mentor in the 
usual sense at all.

Carolyn
Who didn't mean to write so much, so soon but just heard a 
magisterial interview with David Cornwall (John Le Carre) on the true 
nature of the spying game. Cornwall and CP Snow - how much closer to 
the heart of conspiracy theory can you get?