OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Chelsea wrote:

I don't knw much about chess, so I'm not sure exactly how significant the knight piece is. However, Ron taking the knight piece, and valiantly sacrificing himself to help his friends, seems a very powerful thing to do.

You know, I've always wondered about Ron taking the knight's position as well. Ron's obviously a very good chess player. So why would he have chosen to take the place of a knight? I am not very good at chess myself, but I have played enough of the game to know that the knights are, well...

Well, there's just no nice way to say this. They're pieces that one often chooses to sacrifice.

But I agree with Chelsea's implication that the symbolism was probably more on JKR's mind there than the actual strategy. All the same, as an in-character action, it has always bothered me a bit. Taking the part of one of the knights was wiser than taking the place of one of the pawns, admittedly — but it still would have been safer for Ron to clamber up into a castle. Or, for that matter, just to play the king.

<Elkins experiences a sudden and intense desire to lay into an elaborate speculation which would culminate in the mysterious Florence singing a rousing rendition of "Nobody's On Nobody's Side," but she valiantly resists this urge and carries on...>

I said that I shared Athena's perplexity over Dumbledore's decision to pronounce Snape's agent role to the crowded tribunal. David wrote:

My view is that this is because Dumbledore considered that Snape's spying career was, and still is, over.

Even so, though, surely Dumbledore's pronouncement could have placed Snape at far greater risk from other (still at-large) Death Eaters? He makes the pronouncement during Karkaroff's plea bargain, at a time when the Ministry clearly believes that there are many Death Eaters not only still at large, but also as-yet unidentified. For that matter, he makes the pronouncement after it has become clear that there might still be Death Eater moles within the very ministry itself! It just seemed a bit...inconsiderate to me.

For that matter, what about all of the DEs who gained aquittal on the grounds of Imperius? As far as I've been able to reconstruct the timeline of events here, Lucius Malfoy was probably already a free man at the time of Karkaroff's hearing, as likely were a number of the other DEs we know to have been aquitted (Avery, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle).

I very much doubt that Dumbledore ever attached much credence to Lucius Malfoy's claims of innocence. At the time of Karkaroff's hearing, he must have known that there were Death Eaters who would likely never be brought to justice. Why place Snape at risk of acts of retribution from his former colleagues by making his pronouncement in what seems to be such a (relatively) public milieu?

Did Dumbledore really have faith in the discretion of all two hundred or so of the people in that room? Did he feel confident that not one of the walked-free Death Eaters would be willing to risk his own safety by trying to get a bit of payback on a traitor? Did he figure that all of the DEs had to know the score already, so a public pronouncement couldn't possibly do any more damage? Or did he just want to ensure that poor Severus would never be able to feel comfortable setting foot outside of Hogwarts again, or be able to socialize with those who might prove a Bad Influence on him? ;-)

I realize, of course, that the scene is probably just written that way because it makes for a more dramatic moment. But all the same, it does make me wonder.

—Elkins