OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

More on Snape and his affection (or lack thereof) for the Death Eaters, and other related topics.

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"Did Snape Betray His Friends?"

Well, of course he did!

He was passing on information to the enemy. Even if there was no Great Bloody Ambush of the sort that Cindy seems to be slavering for, there can be no question at all that he was betraying his colleagues.

As to whether or not he still considered those colleagues "friends" at the time, though—or, for that matter, whether he ever considered those colleagues "friends"...well! That's the question, now, isn't it.

And Cindy, if it will make you feel any better, I have always firmly believed (on the basis of no canonical evidence whatsoever) that the information Snape passed on to Dumbledore led Evan Rosier straight into the ambush in which he was killed by Alastor Moody.

There now. Does that satisfy a bit of that blood lust?

No? Still thirsty?

Well, then why not add a chaser of Wilkes?

Now me, I prefer to take my Wilkes all over the hands of Frank Longbottom—but I guess that Snape can have some too. Plenty to go around.

I dunno about this throwing every single DE whose name we've ever heard into one massive ambush, though. That's really kind of pushing it, don't you think? I doubt Snape even knew half those guys.

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Snape's Old Gang Roll-Call

About Sirius' comment that Snape "was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters," I wrote:

BTW, that "nearly all" is interesting, isn't it?...Who, one wonders, were the abstainers?

Eileen and Rebecca both felt that I had misinterpreted Sirius' comment, and that the six people he mentions (Snape, Rosier, Wilkes, Lestrange, Lestrange, and Avery) were in fact the entirety of the gang. While both of them agreed that they would very much like it for there to have been abstainers, neither of them believed that this was what the author had intended. Rebecca wrote by way of explanation:

I thought "nearly all" meant all but possibly Snape—Sirius isn't sure if Snape actually became a DE when he spoke this.

Interesting! It never even occurred to me to read "nearly all" that way. I had just automatically assumed that there were one or two others, whose names he never bothered to mention, who were (or who Sirius believed to be) innocent. But given that this was apparently a highly idiosyncratic way to read the line, I will concede that the six of them probably were the entirety of the gang.

::sigh:: Pity, really. I, too, liked the idea of abstainers.

I must disagree, however, with Eileen, who wrote:

As an aspiring member of L.O.O.N., I must point out that Sirius is proved wrong in his estimation of the gang. After all, he doesn't know Snape became a death-eater, and many of "the Slytherin gang," acquitted, turned out to be Death Eaters after all.

Much as it frightens me to tangle with a future LOONy, I do feel compelled to defend Sirius here. He was not "proved wrong in his estimation of the gang." He freely admits that he doesn't know about Snape, and he quite correctly identifies all of the other five members he mentions as Death Eaters. He isn't wrong about them at all. He's dead right about them.

Not that this is all that great a feat of perspicacity on Sirius' part, of course, since by the time that he's speaking, the only one of them he could possibly have guessed wrong about (other than Snape, about whom he confesses his ignorance) is Avery. All of the others have already been condemned. But Sirius does show proper insight into Avery's character: he's resolutely unimpressed with Avery's acquittal, and as it turns out later, his skepticism was justified.

But about Avery...

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Poor Misunderstood Avery

Eileen, again:

Yes, what about Avery?. . . .Re: Avery being so obliging. So, what if Snape feels that several of his friends have joined him in abandoning their wicked ways?

Weeeeellll...

::slow smile::

I suppose I'll take this opportunity to point out that Avery may very well have done just that. For all we know, he may have been leading a blameless—nay, even exemplary!—life these past thirteen years. There is absolutely no evidence in canon to the contrary, and rather a few suggestions to support...

::sigh::

No. Nope, sorry, just can't do it with a straight face. Not today. So I'll just go through the major points in Avery's favor, shall I?

It is possible that although too frightened or too weak-willed to refuse the summons to the graveyard, Avery nonetheless really had, as Eileen put it, "abandoned his wicked ways" in the thirteen years since V's fall. He has, at any rate, certainly kept a low profile. Sirius has no idea what he's been up to, and we have never once heard his name mentioned in connection with any contemporary Dark activity.

And boy, he sure does crack fast when Voldemort starts accusing his DEs of ideological infidelity, doesn't he? I mean, the poor bastard just goes all to pieces. All of the Death Eaters are quite naturally frightened, but Avery would seem to be tottering on the edge of nervous collapse: his reaction to Vold's suggestion that some of his DEs might now owe their true allegiance to Dumbledore is not merely fearful, it is quite literally hysterical.

Which kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? Just what has Avery been up to these past thirteen years, that he should be in such a nervous state, or that he should so readily identify himself as one of those guilty of ideological compromise?

Something that he thinks Voldemort wouldn't approve of, that's for sure. Something disloyal to the Death Eater cause. Something ideologically unsound. Something...well, dare we even suggest it? Something that we the readers would approve of? Something that might perhaps even be virtuous

And he would seem to respond instinctively to guilt, as well. His behavior is consistent with that of someone well-accustomed to thinking of himself as guilty, someone who has a long personal history with shame.

I also find it interesting that when Sirius is listing all of the members of Snape's old Slytherin gang, he mentions Avery last. You would think, wouldn't you, that the criminally-minded Voldie-supporting Dark Wizard whom you know to still be at large would be the very first name that would leap to your mind? Particularly if you were Sirius, already sufficiently convinced that Dark Dealings Are Afoot that you've come all the way back to Britain to keep an eye on your godson? Sirius did go out of his way to warn Harry about ex-DE Karkaroff, and that was even before he got so worried that he returned. He's in a highly paranoid state of mind. But the possibility that Avery might be a live threat doesn't even seem to occur to him. He does not, for example, say: "Well, there was that son-of-a-bitch Avery, who got off scot-free—he's still at large somewhere, so you want to watch out for him: if you hear anything about him snooping around Hogwarts or anything like that, I want you to let me know about it immediately—and then there were Rosier, and Wilkes..."

Nope. Nope. Doesn't work that way. Avery's the very last member of the gang that Sirius thinks to mention, and his tone when speaking of his acquittal is one of simple disdain. In Sirius' mind, Avery just isn't a threat. He barely even registers on the radar. Which leads me to suspect that Avery was always a bit of a lightweight in the Big Bad Evil department. Maybe he was never all that terrible, as DEs go.

Really. Avery's not all that bad. He's just...high-strung. ("Not half high enough," I can hear Cindy growl somewhere in the background.) Certainly not at all Tough. And far too easily led. But not evil to the core.

(I somehow imagine Avery to have been the Pettigrew of Snape's gang—you know, that weedy little kid who was always hanging around in the background, laughing like a hyena, while Rosier and Wilkes beat up on some smaller boy. But that's just me.)

I could, I suppose, go on now to spin a highly compelling portrait of poor, reformed, guilt-laden, hysteria-prone ex-DE Avery, a man who has spent the last thirteen years of his life desperately trying to atone for past wrongs by volunteering in soup kitchens and patting small puppies on the head and making generous donations to pro-muggle causes, a wizard who despite his high birth and sterling intellect has resolutely avoided the public limelight due to a (quite proper) sense of shame and humility and contrition, a man who has only in the past few years finally begun to emerge from the shadows of his past and regain some degree of self-respect and social confidence...only to have all this absolutely shattered by the return of Voldmort...

I could. But I don't really have the stomach for it anymore, somehow. Maybe because I've already 'fessed up to the fact that I don't really believe for an instant that it's at all what the author intended, which frankly, takes nearly all of the fun out of the game. I'm sure, though, that you can fill in all of those blanks yourself, if you're so inclined.

I do, however, still seem to be able to work up some enthusiasm for my objection to Rebecca's characterization of poor Avery as a "grovelling toady," so...

<Elkins whips out her shiny new S.Y.C.O.P.H.A.N.T.S badge and pins it to her chest with an ill-concealed grimace of self-loathing. Having thus assumed her role as the founder of the Society for Yes-men, Cowards, Ostriches, Passive-Aggressives, Hysterics, Abject Neurotics and Toadying SYCOPHANTS, she prepares to pontificate.>

Now, I do realize that to many people all Grovelling Coward types look exactly alike, but I assure you that we members of S.Y.C.O.P.H.A.N.T.S recognize a great range of diversity within our ranks, and while such distinctions may seem insignificant to others, they matter a great deal to us. So.

Avery is not a toady. Nott is a "Toady." What Avery is is a "Nerveless Hysteric."

When you obsequiously declare yourself to be prostrating yourself at someone's feet—while all the while remaining in a steadfastly upright position—that is being a Toady.

When you literally prostrate yourself at someone's feet, while simultaneously shrieking for forgiveness at the top of your lungs and shaking so violently that even a tightly-bound fourteen-year-old boy with some rather serious problems of his own to contend with can still detect the motion from all the way across a darkened graveyard, on the other hand...

Well, that's not "toadying," precisely. That's...er...

::winces delicately::

That's what we here in S.Y.C.O.P.H.A.N.T.S. prefer to refer to as a "crisis of nerves."

A minor point, perhaps. But one to bear in mind, particularly should you ever find yourself invited to our annual Minions' Ball, where ignoring such niceties can really set off the Whining Neurotics—and that's just no fun for anyone, not even for the Sociopathic Sadists seated at the next table down.

<Nodding with satisfaction at having cleared that matter up, Elkins unpins her S.Y.C.O.P.H.A.N.T.S badge and thrusts it back into her pocket.>

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Slytherin/DE Loyalty

Rebecca wrote:

I do concede your description of how the current Slytherin students exhibit loyalty toward each other, maybe they aren't all so bad....But if we are talking about Snape's attitude towards the former DEs, then we only have the adults to go by, and if we are talking about his former schoolmates, then we have even less to go by.

I think that maybe you misunderstood my point in bringing up the Slyth kids' tendency to close ranks. My point there was not so much to argue that the Slyths "aren't all so bad" as it was to point out that there is some canonical evidence to suggest that House Slytherin as a whole places a high value on in-group loyalty. It seems therefore not unreasonable to me to assume that both Voldemort and the DEs (themselves mostly Slytherin grads) would share that aesthetic.

I think that it's clear from the graveyard sequence that Voldemort does place a very high value on loyalty, and as I argued previously, the vast majority of the DEs who faced trial would seem not to have named names to the ministry.

What I was attempting to suggest there was that Snape, as Slytherin and Death Eater, was likely to have himself been instilled with a very strong sense of in-group "my House right or wrong" style loyalty, which must have been the very devil to overcome, and which might well have left behind residue in the form of a lingering sense of attachment to old colleagues and classmates.

Eileen wrote:

It's funny, actually, since one would think that ambition might not be best served by loyalty. On the other hand, if you look at real-life politics...there's a huge loyalty factor.

I think that's because under most circumstances, ambition is well-served by loyalty. Careful alliance-building is a far sounder long-term strategy than indiscriminate backstabbing.

Also, Slytherin would seem to be not only the House o' Ambition, but also the House o' Entitlement. It's the Old Boy network of the Potterverse. Old Boy networks run on the engine of in-group loyalty; it's how they function.

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Murderers Who Play Bach

I wrote:

We hear a great deal about Rowling's statement of intent to show how genuinely bad evil is in these books, and I laud that sentiment. But evil is also complicated, and there are times when I find myself wishing that Rowling would run a little further with that particular ball.

To which Rebecca responded:

Again, I'm trying to look at what interpretations have canonical evidence, and I think she's pretty dead set on portraying L.V.'s stance as just plain evil.

I quite agree. But that wasn't precisely what I meant by "evil is complicated." I meant something more along the lines of what Susanna/Pigwidgeon37 was getting at, when she donated that marvellous German saying:

"In my country, a lot of murderers play Bach."

I have no problem with the portrayal of V's stance as Just Plain Evil. How many nice things can you think to say, after all, about genocide and gratuitous torture? I do have some problems, however, with the portrayal of every single one of V's followers as not only "just plain evil," but also as utterly lacking in any redeeming qualities, or likeable characteristics. Leaving aside for the moment the obvious philosophical objections, I also find it just plain boring. Shades of grey make for interesting reading. Noble Heroes vs. Totally Worthless Evil Villains is just kind of a yawn, IMO.

Of course evil is bad. That's tautological. But the nice old guy who lives next door and helps you jump-start your car on cold winter mornings sometimes turns out to have been in the SS, and the person who called the ambulance when you had your stroke and then stayed with you and held your hand until the paramedics arrived turns out to be a Klan member, and the professional torturer goes home at the end of the day and agonizes over his kid's poor math grades. That's what makes evil complicated. And that's also what makes it scary.

And for what it's worth (and to get back to the canon), I do think that Rowling did some very nice work with that in GoF. I liked the crowd of drunken revellers at the QWC, whose numbers grow as they parade their way through the campground indulging in their spot of muggle-torture. Those people weren't all Death Eaters, not by a long shot. I liked the hissing jeering mob at the Pensieve trial. For that matter, I also liked it when the twins hissed at Malcolm Baddock, and I loved it when Harry started fantasizing, in rather explicit detail, about exactly what it might be like to use the Cruciatus Curse on his least-favorite professor. And, naturally, I always like Snape.

Those were the sorts of things I was referring to, when I said that I wished that Rowling would "run a little further with that particular ball." And I actually do think it not unlikely that she will, in future volumes, go even further in that direction, thus making the notion of somewhat more 3D villain characters than we've seen so far not an altogether subversive suggestion. The books have certainly been heading in that direction; by volume six or so, we might even get a few players of Bach who are not (as Snape is) working for the forces of Good.

I certainly hope so, at any rate.

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Snape and the Slyth Kids

Eileen suggested that underlying dynamic of the popularity of "Snape always loathed the other members of his old Slytherin gang" might also be the one responsible for the popularity of "Snape doesn't really favor the Slytherins at all — it's all an act."

She wrote:

Could this be connected to people's unwillingness to believe that Snape really favors Draco, or likes Lucius?

More on Lucius later, but as for Draco?

I know that it's an unpopular opinion around here, but I think that Snape really does favor Draco and the Slytherins. Yes, I suppose that it might also be in his best interests as a possible future spy to stay on good terms with all the Slyth kids' DE Daddies, but I don't really believe that's the primary reason he favors them. I think he favors them primarily because Slytherin is his House, and because Snape is loyal to House Slytherin in spite of the fact that an appalling number of its Old Boys went bad during the last big wizarding war.

It's by far the simplest explanation. It seems perfectly in-character to me. And I don't really see very much in canon either to contradict it or to support a different reading.

As for Draco, I do think that Snape genuinely likes him—or at the very least strongly identifies with him. The kid seems to be good at potions, he has a vicious and spiteful sense of humor, he's partial to hexes and curses, he's prone to envy, and he not only hates Harry Potter but has also been trying to get him in trouble or expelled ever since their very first week of classes together. I mean, really. What's not to like? ;-)

And yes, Eileen. I do think that it's the same dynamic at work. I think you hit that one right on the head.

But as for Lucius...

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Snape and Lucius, What Snape Knows, and That Sudden Movement

Eileen wrote:

I myself proposed that Snape was the one who supposedly brought Lucius back to the light side, and was astonished that very few people could even conceive of Snape not being on to Lucius, of Snape liking Lucius.

and in another post:

So, what if Snape feels that several of his friends have joined him in abandoning their wicked ways? I've always read that part where he starts at Malfoy's name that way, though I know most people disagree with me, and insist that Snape sees through Malfoy's "conversion" the whole time.

Okay. First things first. "Snape being on to Lucius" and "Snape liking Lucius" are NOT the same thing! This goes all the way back to the point of my original delurk: it is possible to like someone while still recognizing that they are committing evil acts. These are two separate questions.

First question: did Snape ever believe Lucius' claims of innocence? Or if not, had he since come to believe that Lucius had truly reformed?

Sorry, Eileen, but I just can't imagine Snape falling for either one of those notions. He's not a gullible man. Far from it: he is suspicious and misanthropic and sees the worst in everyone, and he also has an excellent sense for when people are lying to him.

Also, as Rebecca pointed out, everyone knows that Lucius Malfoy is guilty as sin. Even Fudge seems to know it, deep in his heart of hearts. If Snape's managed to kid himself about Lucius Malfoy's true nature all this time, he'd have to be a master of self-delusion, and I don't really think that he's that at all.

Lucius Malfoy may be able to pour on the charm when he wants to (at least, I'm assuming that he can, although honestly, we've yet to see him even once behave the least bit charmingly in canon), but he's not exactly subtle, is he? I mean, the man all but walks around with a sign reading "Unrepentant Death Eater" stapled to his forehead.

Rebecca wrote:

While he seems like he'd be wise enough to keep still about his feeling and cunning enough to fool people, I'm not sure I see real evidence of that.

Yes. That is an annoying thing about Lucius as a character, isn't it? Rowling obviously intends for us to read him as clever and conniving and devious and manipulative, but she doesn't actually succeed in portraying him that way at all. The Lucius Malfoy we actually see in canon comes across (to me, at least) as an utter moron who couldn't even dissemble his way out of a parking ticket. He's about as subtle as a brick, and when Voldemort addressed him in the graveyard as "my slippery friend," my first inclination was to snort in derisive laughter. It's a bit...frustrating, that.

So had Snape thought that Lucius Malfoy had reformed? No, I don't think so. I just can't find a way to make myself believe that.

But does Snape like Lucius? I honestly don't know. It's not inconceivable to me that he might on some level like him. Lucius is wealthy and elegant and well-spoken, and he's also quite good-looking, if you go in for those chilly blond aristocratic types. And who knows? Maybe he's also a maestro on the harpsichord. ;-)

Or, as Eileen suggested:

...and if Draco gets his sense of humour and gift of mimicry from his father, [he's] probably a very funny person to be with....And, I'm sure Lucius throws enjoyable parties, at which people say, "Could you do that imitation of Dumbledore?" and all tee-hee-hee away, without meaning any real harm. /me thinks of Fudge.

::spits coffee all over the keyboard::

You know, the image of Cornelius Fudge, one or two past his limit, quietly giggling over his cocktail at some elegant Malfoy soiree, while Lucius perfoems cruel-yet-accurate impersonations of Dumbledore has got to be the most sympathetic thing I have ever imagined about either of those two characters. Ever.

(Although sadly, I suspect that Lucius Malfoy has far too much invested in his own gravitas to entertain his important houseguests in such a clownish fashion. A pity, really.)

As for Snape's Sudden Movement (which is beginning to remind me far too much of That Goddamned Gleam In Dumbledore's Eye), I just can't agree with Rebecca's idea that it was a "gesture of fury." I can't really offer any firm canonical reason for rejecting this interpretation, I can only say that it just didn't look like fury to me. It looked to me like a gesture of shock, or of dismay, or of alarm, or even of warning—but not at all like one of fury.

I also don't like any of the explanations people have come up with for Snape's Sudden Movement that do not link it specifically to the mention of Lucius Malfoy's name. Again, this is purely subjective, a matter of nuance: from the way that the scene was described, I just can't believe the gesture as not being a response to Malfoy's name.

My personal theory on the Sudden Movement is this: Snape knows full well that the instant that Harry speaks Lucius Malfoy's name, he will have destroyed any chance of being believed by the likes of Fudge. Fudge will never accept a tale that implicates such a wealthy and respectable member of society. So the movement is an instinctive gesture of warning—or of interruption, or even of restraint—which is then suppressed almost instantly because (a) Snape can't very well go shutting Harry up under the circumstances, and (b) it's too late anyway: the damaging name has already been spoken, and any hope of gaining Fudge's trust or allegiance has probably been lost.

::shrug::

Well, that's my interpretation of the Sudden Movement, anyway. Any takers?

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Snape and Karkaroff

More recently, people have been suggesting that Karkaroff might have served as Snape's DE mentor, either as an older student at Hogwarts, as a member of faculty there, or after Snape had left school. As an extra bonus, some people have thrown in a bit of slashy speculation about the two of them as well.

A couple of people have cited the tone of their exchanges in GoF as proof of some degree of lingering affection: Judy, for example, pointed out that Karkaroff is the only person we have ever seen Snape address by first name in all of canon; and someone else (forgot who, sorry) returned to the idea that Karkaroff's moment of hesitation and stress right before fingering Snape to the ministry in the Pensieve scene really was indicative of inner turmoil, of his deep reluctance to turn in someone who he actually liked. A couple of people have also read a good deal of pity in Snape's tone when he speaks to Karkaroff.

I find this interesting, because back in the days of this exchange, Rebecca cited Snape's attitude toward Karkaroff as a suggestion that Snape holds no affection for old DE colleagues:

And Snape is contemptuous and dismissive of Karkaroff, there's no love lost there, so you wonder about the other people.

The fact that people can read these exchanges so very differently fascinates me.

Personally, I think both that Snape's attitude toward Karkaroff is contemptuous and dismissive and that this reflects some degree of residual affection. Snape must know, after all, that Karkaroff tried to rat him out. And while it might seem highly irrational for someone who was himself a mole to take such a thing personally, or to harbor any animosity over it, this is Snape. He's not a forgiving person. I'd be willing to bet that he did take it personally.

So really, I'd say that "contemptuous and dismissive" is quite a generous response, under the circumstances. "Utter despite and loathing" would be rather more what I would expect from Snape, all things considered. (And surely the temptation to take the "I quite agree, Igor, you are in a difficult situation. You know, a potion would at least be quick..." approach must have been very nearly overwhelming.)

It also seems to me that Snape's attempts to avoid Karkaroff towards the end of GoF might well be indicative of a certain level of pure and simple discomfort: Karkaroff is, after all, likely doomed to die most unpleasantly in the near future. Not nice to contemplate, even for someone with as strong a stomach as Snape.

So yeah. I figure they probably liked each other well enough at one time, although I can't quite buy the lovers theory, nor the mentor-protege one. Their interactions are more suggestive to my mind of a relatively equal peer-colleague relationship than of either a sexual or a mentor-protege bond. Not that I can defend that, of course. Just my impression.

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Snape and Young Crouch

In response to my suggestion that Snape could well have been the one to lead his "Old Slytherin Gang" down the road to damnation in the first place, Eileen suggested the possibility of a mentor-protege relationship between Snape and Young Barty Crouch:

What's more, he could have influenced younger Slytherins to the bad. . . . Supposing that Crouch Jr. was in Slytherin (in a younger year) while Snape was still there, and...had looked up to him...

Oh, ouch.

Well, that would put a whole new spin on that "another old friend" comment, now, wouldn't it?

I'm not sure that I believe it, but if true, then that certainly would pile on the angst, wouldn't it?

O, the humanity.

—Elkins