HBP: Snape & Wormtail (WAS: DEFT PIG)

[nrenka]

-- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, elfundeb <elfundeb at g...> wrote:
 Spare the rod, spoil the child.
 
 ::watches rod ready to strike::
 
 Spare the rod, spoil the child.
> 
> ::watches rod ready to strike::
> 
> Spare the rod, spoil the child.
> 
> ::watches rod ready to strike::
> 
> Spare the rod, spoil the child.
> 
> ::watches rod ready to strike::
> 
> Spare the rod, spoil the child.
> 
> ::watches with relief as upraised hand with rod is lowered to 
owner's side::
> 
> *************************
> It also suggests a third option to the rekindled question who Snape 
is
> really working for.  With Pettigrew, the answer is clear:  he's
> working to protect his own hide.  And if my view of Snape's
> motivations is correct, he is doing exactly the same thing.  Like
> Pettigrew, Snape is in position to end up on the winning team --
> regardless of which team it is.  Nobody *really* knows.  Except that
> Snape does it more deftly, more elegantly, than Pettigrew ever 
> could. Nevertheless, they seem to be well able to Look Out for No. 
> 1.

Their motivations seem (seem!) rather different, though.  As best we 
can tell, Snape joined the DEs willingly, and he's probably never 
lost some of the things that would have led him to go over there.  
Power, a desire to be bigger/more important/more powerful than he is, 
glory, etc.  Peter joined and betrayed largely out of fear, looking 
for security rather than advancement.  I think.

> So why do we, by and large, find Pettigrew repulsive while we lavish
> our fascination on Snape?  One difference is style.  As Pip so
> rightfully points out, our man Snape can *act*.  The other is 
> courage.  It takes an immense amount of courage, and a bit of 
> brinksmanship, to keep up the double agent game as Snape is doing.  
> Pettigrew, of course, has neither, a point which is hammered home 
> as he fails even to eavesdrop on a conversation without being 
> discovered, and much more powerfully when he refuses Snape's offer 
> to take on a more active task for Voldemort.

I think the other point of that scene is that Peter is not exactly 
terribly happy where he is.  Peter owes Harry a life-debt, too.  I 
doubt he likes being bossed around by Snape

> I think they were hanging out together to remind us that Snape and
> Wormtail will facing the same choices in Book 7.  Not to mention how
> much pleasure Snape must get out of tormenting one who once enjoyed
> Snape's humiliation so much that he nearly wet his pants.

*If* Snape is ESE, then Wormtail's literary chances for redemption go 
way up.  I admit I can't see book 7 passing without his debt for 
having been spared from the Furies being paid out somehow.

-Nora notes that ironic underestimation may well be Wormtail's 
perpetual theme