Being naughty (spoilers)

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" <catlady at ...> 
wrote:
>
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith"
> <arrowsmithbt@> wrote:

SPOILER.........................................
SPACE.............................................
THE...................................................
BOUNDARY....................................
BETWEEN.......................................
INNOCENCE..................................
AND..................................................
DISILLUSIONMENT......................

> > 
> > DD requested Sevvy to kill him
> > Nasty!Snape was actually Snape!DM, helping to protect Harry
> 
> As I said, not necessarily. The straightest surface reading is that
> your theory of Revenge!Snape, A Very Good Hater!Snape, is correct,
> except the detail that it was someone other than Florence & Sprog he
> was revenging. Revenge!Snape protected Harry for the sake of his
> revenge, not out of loyalty to DD, and probably was pleased when he
> learned that killing HP was part of the plan. 
> 

Generous of you to say so, but I'd feel a bit of a fraud if I  tried to
claim credit for that.

It's more or less a given right from the word go that ole Sevvy is
mightily disgruntled about something, so a theory based on revenge
as a motive is a pretty obvious step. But revenge/retribution is the
result of injury or insult, real or perceived.

The really difficult bit is coming up with the root cause - what was the
insult or injury that drove him so relentlessly? Some plumped for
LOLLIPOPS, others that he nursed a species of envy or it was a response 
to the contempt with which the Marauders regarded him. I picked 
Blackwidower/Snape!Son.
And I got it wrong.
Pity. Still think it was a pretty neat idea, though.

> However, granted that Pensieve memories are an objective report, there
> is nothing in Snape's Pensieve memories that PROVES he wasn't lying to
> DD in all those conversations about almost everything except his
> attachment to Lily. Snape is savvy enough that he could have used his
> feeling for Lily, a real desire and a fake intention to save her life,
> to get in good with DD for the sake of spying on DD to serve LV. And
> when LV dissolved, he kept using it to stay out of Azkaban. And when
> LV returned, he sincerely returned to LV's service. Convenient for him
> that the first place that LV's commands and DD's commands to him
> differed is DD's last command, to push HP to die to kill LV. 
> 

True, he could have faked it all. 
But... if he had, would he go to the lengths of lying to justify his actions
post mortem by offering his memories to Harry? (BTW, I thought that bit
was overly contrived - memories coming out of a dying man's mouth?
When previously Pensieve-readable memories have only been accessible
by wand extraction? Don't like it.) Anyway, if Sevvy had been fooling DD
I'd have expected  him to brag about it - "Fooled you all! Enjoyed killing
that old fart Dumbledore! And my Master will kill you Potter, and I die 
knowing I helped him!" He'd want everybody to know how smart he'd 
been, how he'd been under-estimated by those he despised. 
Pride would demand it, and after all, what does he have to lose?


> And he never intended to obey DD's last command, but he never expected
> LV to kill him while he was still useful and a loyal servant. In that
> surprised moment, he instantly needed to avenge *himself* on LV, and
> thought of how to do it -- by telling HP how to destroy LV. Pretty
> quick thinking, especially for a dying man.
> 

Um.
Voldy zaps him with an AK and after the event Sevvy decides to fix/censor
his memories?
That's pushing it a bit, I think.

> > the goodies fling Unforgivables hither and yon 
> 
> That bothered *me*.
> 

Really?
When old canon tells us that Aurors had used them in the previous 
Voldy unpleasantness?
I took that as a piece of prime forshadowing, and once the MoM was
shackled by Fudge, succumbed to bureaucratic inertia under Scrimmy,
eventually falling so that the Auror Office was no longer even marginally
effectively anti-Voldy, their use by others became a racing certainty.


> > DD flirted with Dark Magic practitioners 
> 
> But I was disappointed that he had barely touched the surface, never
> even used Dark Arts himself. I was expecting a bigger crime. I mean,
> his behavior as a good guy (in the name of the Greater Good!) gave him
> plenty of better reasons to feel guilty.
> 

Have to admit, I wasn't expecting crimes (as such) at all.
Mistakes, yes. Grievous ones resulting in unwarranted deaths and 
sacrifices perhaps. Hence my suggestion that he realised  that to produce 
The Chosen One, James and Lily had to die and he went along with it (wrong
again - sort of). Instead, we have DD presented with The Temptation trope
when I expected it to be Harry. (Dear, oh dear. Kneasy  theories falling
like nine-pins.)
 
> > Slytherin House isn't abolished
> 
> Yes, whatever happened to House Unity?
> 

E pluribus unum.
Internal competition (channeled through Quidditch, House Cup, etc.) is
fine, so long as all oppose external threats. 

> > Puppetmaster!DD
> 
> As I said, not necessarily. There's no new evidence that he planned
> even one little thing in this plot before he heard the Prophecy, and
> very few new hints that he planned it before James & Lily died. No new
> canon that he arranged for James & Lily to die. MAGIC DISHWASHER, yes.
> (Pip, I apologize for disbelieving it all these years.) Puppetmaster, no.
> 

Even if he didn't start on his fixing activities until after GH, he's still the
Puppetmaster. It's just for a shorter time-span, that's all.

> > Sirius really was a plonker
> 
> While I was surprised that Regulus drank the poison himself, I saw no
> new evidence that Sirius was a plonker. I still love him (and Remus,
> and DDM!Snape), and I was surprised and deeply touched that his love
> of Muggle motorcycles was sincere, not just one flying motorcycle to
> impress people with.
>

Mmmm... well, we'll have to disagree about Sirius.

Kneasy