Snape's anti-muggle feelings (was Re: Snobby Snape?)

[pippin_999]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Kat Macfarlane" <katmac at ...> wrote:
>
> Snape's whole life was tragic. I find it hard to forgive JKR for writing him off the way she 
did. His book is burned to ashes in the RoR fire, and he himself is killed by mistake 
because Voldemort couldn't get his facts straight about how the Elder Wand operates. He 
loses Lily, first to James and then to Voldemort. He is used as a pawn not only by 
Voldemort but also by Dumbledore, and the fact that he cannot reveal the latter fact to 
Voldemort leaves him in a bind that results in his death ("Well, you see, Ol' Redeye, I really 
*didn't* defeat Dumbledore, because he *wanted* me to kill him, and anyway, it was really 
Draco that defeated him by getting his wand, so go look for Draco..." Un-uh, don't think 
so.) The Trio take off and leave his body in the SS,

Pippin:
They could hardly take Snape's body with them, even if they transformed it 
into something else. Voldemort definitely would have noticed if he came
back and it had disappeared. It wouldn't have been very good if he'd
found them in the tunnel.

BTW, that tunnel seems to change size in a very wonderlandish way--
it can't possibly have been that narrow in PoA, even allowing for the
fact that the Trio are now bigger. But perhaps it had been partly
dug by magic and the spell was wearing away.  

Back to Snape--
Tragic is not the same as wasted.
Harry tells Ron and Hermione "painstakingly" everything that happened
in the Pensieve, so he definitely does get recognition, besides of course
that Harry told the whole hall that Snape had been on Dumbledore's
side for ages. Naming his son after Snape is sort of the icing on the
cake, though it wouldn't, as JKR says, stop Rita Skeeter from writing
Snape: saint or scoundrel. In truth he was neither, IMO, but I don't
see him as completely Dumbledore's pawn. How could Dumbledore
be jerking him around by his feelings for Lily when he didn't even
know that Snape still had feelings for her?

Dumbledore could not know for certain that Harry harbored a horcrux
and would have to be destroyed when he asked Snape to protect
him for Lily's sake, either. In any case once Snape knew the truth,
and Dumbledore was gone, he was answerable only to his own
desire to protect Hogwarts and  to see Voldemort
brought down.  On the night he returned to Voldemort in GoF,
"If you are ready, if you are prepared" he already knew his life was not
as important to Dumbledore as the Plan, but he still went. 

JKR obviously isn't going to hold him up as a hero for young readers,
who wouldn't admire him anyway. But as Chesteron said, "Children
are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer
mercy."  The same might be said of heroes and anti-heroes.

I didn't see Hermione's reaction as any kind of a slap at Snape/
Hermione shippers, just an acknowledgement that Hermione's
thoughts were focused on Harry and Ron, and on getting away
from Voldemort. 

Pippin