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Becky wrote:
I can see the desire to have a "good guy" in Slytherin (and not an "apparently good guy" like Snape), but the we miss out on Gryffindor!Peter going evil.
Indeed we do. We also miss out on the perfectly lovely Snape/Pettigrew parallels which the text of PoA and especially of GoF keep drawing for the reader.
Way back in my very first post, I annoyed a good number of Snapefans by tossing out the statement that "Severus Snape is Peter Pettigrew through the looking glass." A lot of people really didn't like that statement very much, and so I defended it -- so very skillfully, in fact, that all dissent was quelled. No one DARED argue! Ha HA!
Or, um, so I thought. Recently, however, it has been brought to my attention that, er, well, that the post in which I defended that statement actually, er, never even saw the light of day. It never actually appeared on the list at all, in fact. It vanished utterly without trace.
Which might explain why no one ever argued the point with me.
Oh.
Yes, well. So. Now that I am handed this opportunity, allow me to reiterate my claim that Peter Pettigrew serves as a literary double to Severus Snape.
Peter Pettigrew is a fallen Gryffindor. Severus Snape is a fallen Slytherin.
The two characters are "mirror images" to each other: they exhibit both symmetry and reversal. The mirror reflects, but it also reverses. The mirror always reverses that which it reflects.
The symmetries are obvious enough, I think.
Both men are traitors. Both men acted as moles during the war.
More specifically, both betrayed their old circle of school friends by passing on information to the enemy, information which eventually led to some of their friends' violent deaths.
In both cases, this old circle of school friends included people who were killed in the last year of the war (the Potters, Rosier, Wilkes), those who were sent to Azkaban but who have either already escaped or who seem likely to be liberated in the near future (Black, the Lestranges), and those who may have escaped death or imprisonment, but who nonetheless seem to have suffered profound psychological damage as they have not achieved much of anything with their lives in the years since the war (Lupin, Avery).
Both circles also included a married couple (Lestranges, Potters), including a woman who was both the token female member of the group and unusually talented and/or formidable.
There are indications that both of these two characters were always in some sense on the fringes of their respective groups, accepted but not fully invested, somehow neither in nor out.
In making the decision to turn on their companions, both men effectively sealed their fates for the rest of their lives up to the start of canon. At the series' opening, both men are in some sense trapped. Neither seems to have gained very much of anything in the way of contentment or happiness or personal satisfaction out of life. Both have been effectively enslaved by their past decisions.
Both men respond with more emotion and indignation to accusations of disloyalty than to any other type of slur.
Both seem to be struggling with deep-seated feelings of guilt and shame.
Both have incurred a life-debt to a Potter after being protected from Black and Lupin in or near the Shrieking Shack.
In both cases, this debt is given pride of place in one of the "closing Dumbledorian arguments," the scenes at the end of each novel in which Dumbledore explains or pontificates upon the plot for Harry's benefit.
Both men seem somewhat fixated on Harry's resemblance to his father. Both of them try to influence his behavior by giving their own interpretations of what James was like, how he behaved, or what he would do.
Both characters have a "neither fish nor fowl" quality. They are both painted in shades of moral grey.
So for the symmetry.
As for the reversals, the "mirrored" traits:
• Snape is the redeemed representative of what is generally held to be a corrupted House.
• Pettigrew is the corrupted representative of what is generally held to be a virtuous House.
• Snape betrayed his friends. By doing so he was acting in accordance with his principles, but much against his instincts.
• Pettigrew betrayed his friends. By doing so he was acting in accordance with his instincts, but much against his principles.
• Snape owes a self-imposed "life-debt" to Harry Potter; he struggles to fulfill it even though it would seem to be purely a bond of personal honor.
• Pettigrew owes a genuine life-debt to Harry Potter; he struggles to ignore it even though it would seem to be a bond of ancient magic.
• Snape is imprisoned by his desire for atonement
• Pettigrew is imprisoned by his fear of atonement
• Snape places his Slytherin talents—cunning, shrewdness, the capacity for deceit—at the service of Gryffindor Dumbledore
• Pettigrew places his Gryffindor talents—pluck, nerve, daring, decisive action (think Bertha Jorkins) and raw physical courage—at the service of Slytherin Voldemort
• Snape willingly serves Dumbledore and his cause -- even though his temperament militates against it.
• Pettigrew willingly serves Voldemort and his cause -- even though his temperament militates against it.
Was Pettigrew a member of House Gryffindor?
Yes. Yes, I insist that he was.
And Snape was a proud member of House Slytherin.
—Elkins
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on October 17, 2002 4:05 PM
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