<-"I Will Diminish and Go Into the West" |Main|The Cover!->

Trust Snape

March 27, 2007 1:23 AM

went to Borders today. While there, I finally reserved my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Come 12:01am on July 21st, I will be rushing home to sit down and read the final installment in the Harry Potter series. I expect to be both excited and sad.

Of more immediate import, however, is the fact that I had to make a choice when I reserved my copy. I had to choose one of two stickers. One said "Snape is a very bad man," and the other said "Trust Snape." I chose the latter. This issue came up in the comments here, but I thought I'd comment on it in a post. Spoiler warning!

Simply put, Snape was acting under Dumbledore's instructions, even when the former killed the latter. The main argument in favor of this position is that Dumbledore is, after all, Dumbledore. Ms. Rowling has constantly showed us how incredibly, unbelievably intelligent he is. His judgment has very rarely failed him. The greatest couterargument is that Dumbledore's greatest weakness is the fact that he's a big softy. Some argue that it would be easy for an evil Snape to convince Dumbledore to trust him. Most, if not all, of the mistakes we've seen Dumbledore make were due to his basing a decision on emotion rather than reason.

But Dumbledore, perhaps more than anyone else, knows what's at stake in making a decision about trusting Snape. Dumbledore's wisdom would abount to nothing if he wasn't able to see his own shortcomings and adjust accordingly.

Therefore, I think that Dumbledore ordered Snape to do anything he had to do to earn Voldemort's trust--including killing Dumbledore.

So there you have it. Trust Snape.



4 Comments





Dee said:

i'm with you. i just re-re-reread half blood prince. one of the last things harry says to snape is, "kill me like you killed him, unless you are a coward." and snape screams (something he has never done previously) "don't call me coward!" i agree that he is loyal to dumbledore, no question.

March 28, 2007 11:16 AM



TheExpat said:

While I agree with your appraisal of Snape with regards to Dumbledore's wishes, he still remains a wild-card in my mind. With Dumbledore presumably out of the way, what would stop Snape from screwing over the good guys? He comes accross as so inscrutable as to still be dangerous, regardless of initial motives. Also, if The Order has no idea he was acting on Dumbledore's orders, they're likely to interfere heavily with whatever he does.

I'll shoot down the Reagan-era Republican line and say Trust Snape, But Verify.

March 28, 2007 11:30 AM



Lauren said:

I agree with you Ismael, but I think its important to point out that its Dumbledore we all trust, and not Snape. The only reason Snape has any credibility at all is because Dumbledore trusted him. I don't want to believe that Snape betrayed Dumbledore because that would mean Dumbledore was wrong. And even Harry acknowledges that only Dumbledore was left to stand between he and Voldemorte. If Dumbledore was wrong about Snape, then the world becomes a very scary place, and I'm not ready to deal with that. So I trust Snape only because Dumbledore did and I can't believe he was wrong.

March 28, 2007 12:11 PM



Leave a comment