Re: Is Snape good or evil?

On 23 Feb 2006 eggplant wrote:

If he wants to kill Dumbledore anyway at some point,
I can't see that anything is to be gained by inflicting a
magical contract upon himself that forces him to do
so before a given time limit elapses and under a
given set of circumstances

There is no mention of a time limit in anything said in chapter 2 and
the "set of circumstances" is just to help Draco kill Dumbledore.

Draco appears to be seriously worried that he is running out of time.
It would appear, therefore, that his task does have a time limit -- if
not an explicit one, then one defined by the limits of Voldemort's
patience! -- and that Snape's 'magical contract' will thus be invoked in
the near future. Moreover, he will have to do it if and when Draco
fails, which means he has very little choice over the situation in
which he may find himself, and the sort of defensive magic Dumbledore
may already have invoked in response to the failed attempt. For a
'smart evil' character, that seems tantamount to tying one's hands
behind one's back.

I must confess that I simply cannot believe from what we have been
shown so far that Snape *wanted* to take that Vow, because it doesn't
make sense to me either way round... if he wanted to kill Dumbledore,
or if he didn't.


Why would *Voldemort* want Snape to make such a vow?
(Apart from anything else, if Draco succeeded in killing
Dumbledore as ordered, that would promptly cause Snape
Voldemort's best spy -- to snuff it, unable to fulfil his oath!)

What on earth are you talking about?! Why would that not fulfil his
oath?

You stated that you believe it probable that Voldemort had already taken
an Unbreakable Vow from Snape to kill Dumbledore.

If he had made such a promise (e.g. 'kill Dumbledore or die'), for
Voldemort to then order someone *else* to kill Dumbledore *first* would
be to risk forcibly invalidating Snape's Vow. Of course, Voldemort
didn't believe that Draco could actually do it, but it seems an
unnecessarily arbitrary risk (and not one calculated to inspire
devotion to him on Snape's part, either).

Since this first Vow is entirely hypothetical, one can argue that it
may have been worded in a manner that left plenty of loopholes (e.g. 'I
vow to kill Dumbledore if possible'); but since we have no grounds as
yet to assume the existence of any such contract, it seems to me
unlikely that Voldemort would have gone to such lengths to ensure that
Snape carried out a specific task, especially if Snape is really his
most trusted intimate.




It would make much more sense to force Snape to take an
Unbreakable Vow never to lie to Voldemort

No my Lord I will not do that. If you insist I make such a vow you
might as well kill me right now because from time to time employees
ALWAYS lie to their boss and that will never change. I will vow to
usually tell you something close to the truth, but that's the best I
can do. If you demand too much all your followers will die.

As you see, Unbreakable Vows are really a very unhelpful tool.
(Which is just as well, because -- like Time-Turners -- they strike me
as a pretty dangerous piece of plot mechanics for an author to start
throwing around, particularly at this stage!)


I see no probability of Voldemort's choosing to
inflict 'a big deal, a very big deal, a very very big
deal, an absolutely unimaginably astronomically
huge big deal' for something relatively unimportant to him

Killing the only wizard Voldemort ever feared is unimportant to him?

I'd forgotten that bit -- I withdraw that statement :-)

However, we are not given the impression that Voldemort fears
Dumbledore *now*. Indeed, he would be hard-put to it to retain his
authority in being seen to command an underling to undertake a task
which he himself is unable or fears to do -- isn't the Evil Overlord's
final error always to exclaim "My Trusted Lieutenant has failed again to
perform this simple task [of killing the heroes]; I see I must do
everything myself"? :-)

*Harry* and not Dumbledore is Voldemort's main enemy, just as Voldemort
and not Snape is Harry's. Getting rid of Dumbledore is simply removing
an obstacle on the route to Harry -- it will have to be done sooner or
later (unless the Ministry of Magic happen to do it first, in which
case I doubt Voldemort would bother hunting down a deposed Dumbledore
before going to finish off Harry) but it is not nearly as important as
dealing with Harry Potter once and for all. I just have difficulty
imagining a situation in which Voldemort would bother extracting an
explicit Unbreakable Vow from Snape to kill off Dumbledore (*before*,
apparently, actually ordering him to do so -- unless Snape is lying
about that as well).

The only reason for doing so that would make sense to me in character
terms would be as a test of Snape himself, and specifically of Snape's
loyalty to Dumbledore. If it transpires in Book 7 that Voldemort had
become extremely suspicious of Snape at this point and wanted to ensure
that he would ultimately do as he was told, then I could swallow it.
But I think Voldemort is reasonably confident which side Snape is on;
which is more than most of the rest of us can say!


Bellatrix could -- and, going by her attitude to Snape in
this scene, would probably love to -- report back to her
Dark Master that Severus Snape has done something
*else* that looks suspicious

If a sergeants walked up to a colonel and demanded he make all sorts of
promises to him the sergeant would quickly discover a boot inserted
deep into his backside. If Snape had done that to Bellatrix I have no
doubt Voldemort would chuckle.

I picture the Death Eaters as something a little more akin to an corrupt
dictator's court than to the US Army. Everyone is backstabbing everyone
else, no-one really trusts anyone, and the easiest road to favour with the
people who matter is by informing on someone higher up than yourself.
Snape's position rests entirely on Voldemort's caprice, and the
knife-edge balance of his trust. For the moment, as I see it, he's
riding high in favour, having managed to overcome the Dark Lord's last
set of suspicions and benefiting from the resulting upsurge of
gratification, not to mention having managed to avoid being implicating
in the most recent fiasco (as Bellatrix and Lucius have not).

But basically, his life depends on stoking a madman's raving ego --
just how safe can he ever be?
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/

The Yellow God forever gazes down

.

Relevant Pages

  • DEATHLY HALLOWS - Revelations, pt 4 (Chapters 28-32)
    ... Aberforth Dumbledore - barman at the Hog's Head Inn, ... Current state of Hogwarts: ... Voldemort near the cave entrance at the time of being summoned - ... Showdown between McGonagall & Snape - not unlike the one between ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Snape didnt take the vow.
    ... Snape behave in a wildly unbelievable manner. ... I keep coming back to the Vow. ... then having him kill Dumbledore in the tower would have been ... along that Voldemort planned for him to kill Dumbledore eventually - ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Dumbledore asked Snape to kill him
    ... to do what nobody can but Harry, and vanquish Voldemort. ... Snape had to have been already feeling guilty about telling Voldemort, ... AT the same time - the Longbottoms were likely to have been at Hogwarts at the same time (Neville and Harry are very nearly the same age - maybe their parents were too - or close). ... Actually - It is Dumbledore that identifies the Longbottoms as one of the two families. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Dumbledore asked Snape to kill him
    ... to do what nobody can but Harry, and vanquish Voldemort. ... Snape had to have been already feeling guilty about telling Voldemort, ... AT the same time - the Longbottoms were likely to have been at Hogwarts at the same time (Neville and Harry are very nearly the same age - maybe their parents were too - or close). ... Actually - It is Dumbledore that identifies the Longbottoms as one of the two families. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Snape didnt take the vow.
    ... Severus Snape, and therein lies my great value to the Dark Lord" ... I, personally, think it was Dumbledore. ... Forgive me, Draco, but they have been feeble ... The vow that was made at Spinner's End was that the vow taker would ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)