PoA Chapter Eighteen

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I've been packing all day and totally forgot to post this like I planned until now!



Based on the title of this chapter, more interesting things to follow!

Sirius leaps on Ron’s broken leg. Sucks to be Ron. He doesn't even suffer in a woobie, sexy way.

Sirius says they can explain what's going on afterward he kills Peter. Apparently he hasn’t learned anything from Azkaban. Try explaining first just once, Sirius. You might like it.

Ron’s now been bitten a lot by Scabbers btw. Ron’s pretty tough to be able to still hold on to him. Rat bites are nasty.

It is kind of ironic that it’s Lupin telling Sirius to explain everything from the beginning. Almost as if he’s trying to stretch this out until the moon rises!

LOL! Ron actually tries to say “I’m off” and hobble out on his broken leg. Possibly the funniest thing Ron’s ever done. Yeah, we’ll meet you back at school, Ron.

Ron and Harry’s eyes meet. They both believe Sirius and Lupin are out of their minds because the story makes no sense. Um, yes it does make sense. You just saw that Sirius was the black dog here, you guys. Hermione really is the thinking brain dog, isn’t she?

There’s only been seven animagi in the entire century. It’s kind of cute that at this age it doesn’t occur to Hermione that that’s because nobody actually registers.

That door opening? Totally Snape entering the room. Severus Snape: Super Spy.

Despite the fact that Wizards grow up in a world where all sorts of magical things happen, they never seem any more prepared than a Muggle would be to deal with this stuff if somebody doesn’t walk them through it beforehand: But Scabbers can’t be a man, he’s a rat! Or: Oh, the door opened by itself as if someone was walking in? Couldn’t possibly be someone walking in. We didn’t see them!

Lupin says that “in those days” (when he was bitten) there was no cure. There’s no cure now either, Lupin, as far as we know. The Potion isn’t a cure.

Harry can see where this story is going. Well done, Harry! (Though I don't think Harry ever tells us where he thinks it's going. Knowing Harry maybe this is all leading up to Julie Christie, and not Petunia Dursley, being Harry's aunt.)

Lupin’s friends couldn’t help but notice he disappeared once a month. Too bad you didn’t have Harry for a friend, Remus. He could have easily not noticed. Or at least not deduce anything from it if he did. How are you and Ron doing on that “Hermione’s regularly three places at once” mystery you’ve been solving since September, Harry?

Lupin reminisces about how his friends let a werewolf wander around loose in a town, trusting that they’d be able to keep him in control. Next you can all share stories about those carefree nights drunk driving on the highway and the laughs you had when you’d almost hit someone. Hermione agrees with me, at least.

Lupin feels a little guilty about betraying Dumbledore’s trust. Don’t worry, Lupin. Once Dumbledore finds out he’ll make you pay for it. You didn’t really think all that spying on the werewolves was for nothing, did you? Or that Sirius really needed to live in the one house he hated more than anything?

Lupin explains he didn’t tell Dumbledore Sirius was an animagus because he was too cowardly. Though really he could have told him without his disapproval. He could tell him Sirius had become an animagus without telling him why. I just can’t help but cheer anyone on for keeping a secret from Dumbledore for any reason.

Lupin cleverly says that Snape’s been right about him all along in the exact company that will assure him that Snape is never right about anything.

Lupin makes the first reference to the trick Sirius pulled on Snape, which Sirius still says served Snape right. I miss this version of the Prank.

Wow. Speaking of versions of stories, Lupin throws in without having to that Snape didn’t like James because he was, I don’t know, jealous of how good he was at Quidditch. Does he just automatically cut Snape down and cover for James and Sirius here without thinking about it even though it’s not necessary for the story? Because there’s just no way Lupin could actually believe that.

Lupin continues to impress me with how smoothly he polishes up the story dishonestly on the fly. (Seriously, I love Lupin.) Not only did he take time to suggest Snape hated James over Quidditch but he adds that James pulled Snape back from the tunnel at “great risk to his own life.” Except James is an animagus, as we’ve already learned, and werewolves are only dangerous to people. James regularly went down the tunnel to see Lupin for fun. The only danger James was in was being outed as an animagus by Snape. But he sure sounds more heroic in this version of the story.

And this is where Snape reveals himself, and given what he’s just heard man he must be pissed.

Seriously, I know he won’t listen to reason here but he really did just hear Lupin give a completely self-serving speech about him and his buddies. Imagine Harry listening to a conversation where Draco talked about his time at school with Harry this way. He'd be even more angry than Snape for less reason.

Things that happen twice:

Peter’s an animagus, just like Black and McGonagall. Perhaps after a THIRD example Ron and Harry will catch on that sometimes animals turn out to actually be people.
Speaking of unregistered animagi: Rita Skeeter.
‘Member how Harry went to the Shrieking Shack in his invisibility cloak? Now Snape’s come to the Shack in Harry's invisibility cloak.
In fact, three books from now it’ll be Harry slipping in a door in his invisibility cloak, only Draco will actually notice. Draco, the only character besides Hermione known to ever deduce things or make a cunning plan—even if it’s usually with disastrous results.
I was half-joking when writing about Lupin’s life among the werewolves in HBP as Dumbledore’s punishment for betraying his trust but it actually makes total sense and is in fitting with Dumbledore’s character. Plus it’s a nicely eerie parallel for Voldemort amusing himself by giving Draco an assignment to make him suffer and fail in HBP!
Lupin didn’t tell Dumbledore Sirius was an animagus because he’s a coward. Because he’s a coward. Because he’s a coward. That'll come up a lot.
Lupin’s “Snape’s been right about me all along” is about as disingenuous as his later “Snape’s right to have me fired” will be shortly.
Lupin’s behavior really does make him seem like exactly the guy Snape thinks he is here, just as it did in the Marauders Map chapter.

It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!

The Prank
Well, this one’s obvious, isn’t it? The series can’t end until we get the real story…

Status: Um...fired, but it turns out it was not so much a real gun as an empty water pistol that Snape shot at his own pants to make an embarrassing stain.





Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
Animagus. It’s not that difficult a concept. Even when you heard the guy had died.

Foley Work
Come on, you know the door had to creak really loudly when Snape walked in, even if his footsteps were somehow muffled.

Informed Attributes
Lupin’s just spitting these out right and left without Harry questioning any of them.

James Bond Exposition Rule
That’s it, Remus, keep talking. Just a little longer before the moon’s up. Don’t leave out the part about Quidditch. Quidditch is really important to the story.

Misdirected Answering
The chapter’s over and we still haven’t gotten anywhere near how Peter’s alive and Sirius didn’t kill him or why Sirius suddenly isn’t a bad guy anymore.

The Stealth Monster Rule
See Work, Foley. Snape must be using some version of Muffliato as he comes up those stairs!

Jabootu Score: 6

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Heck, this guy can even offer the favoritism of the headmaster.

He can?

Reading this I started drawing comparisons between James/Lily and Harry/Ginny ... with Ginny being the latter day 'jock', of course. The good looking a-lot-of-the-boys-like-her life of the quidditch team who snared Harry because ... she was the good looking a-lot-of-the-boys-like-her life of the quidditch team. Their first kiss was even over quidditch.

Snape's deciding to become a murdering Death Eater was still something of a teensy overreaction to Lily's attraction to James, though, you know. Although I'm coming to appreciate his pre-dark-side feelings.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Me: Heck, this guy can even offer the favoritism of the headmaster.

Brad: He can?

Yes. Specifically, he is allowed by the headmaster to brag about saving Snape while Snape is not allowed to tell what he was saved from or that it was James's good friend Remus who is the monster in the tunnel. James has golden coat-tails. James & Co. don't get into trouble for The Prank, either, leaving Snape to think it was just fine with the headmaster that Sirius tried to kill him (see Sirius's remark in this chapter that he had it coming to him - he still has no remorse) and that James's heroics were more to save his friends' skins than to save Snape.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Specifically, he is allowed by the headmaster to brag about saving Snape while Snape is not allowed to tell what he was saved from or that it was James's good friend Remus who is the monster in the tunnel.

Can you point me at the place in the series where this is told/shown? That James is 'allowed to brag'?

see Sirius's remark in this chapter that he had it coming to him - he still has no remorse

Ugh.

leaving Snape to think ... that James's heroics were more to save his friends' skins than to save Snape.

Snape, being prejudiced against James, might think that James was motivated purely to save his friends, but that's not really the case, is it? Is there anywhere in the canon where Jame's reaction to Sirius's 'prank' is revealed? I'm getting confused with lines from various fanfics where a moralistic James rails against Sirius for the attempted homicide.

I never paid the older generation much attention in my single pass through the books - I just automatically took Harry's part that Professor Snape was an evil git - so I'm finding the slant on Snape in this blog (*looks at montavilla*) quite interesting.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Can you point me at the place in the series where this is told/shown? That James is 'allowed to brag'?

Lily heard that James saved Severus from something-or-other in the tunnel. The source could only have been a Marauder or Dumbledore.

Snape, being prejudiced against James, might think that James was motivated purely to save his friends, but that's not really the case, is it? Is there anywhere in the canon where Jame's reaction to Sirius's 'prank' is revealed? I'm getting confused with lines from various fanfics where a moralistic James rails against Sirius for the attempted homicide.

Wasn't it? Especially now that we know he didn't change his own ways - still hexed people for fun, bullied Severus to get Lily's attention (SWM). The moralistic James was only believable as long as we thought the prank was after SWM. Anyway, according to Sirius Remus was the moralistic one, and we know how strongly he acted in his convictions...

I never paid the older generation much attention in my single pass through the books - I just automatically took Harry's part that Professor Snape was an evil git - so I'm finding the slant on Snape in this blog (*looks at montavilla*) quite interesting.

Hmm. Very early on I realized I didn't particularly care about that Harry person. The cool aspect of reading HP is to figure out what anyone else was thinking and what the adult characters' backstories were. Someone somewhere said the most important artifact in HP is the Pensieve because the real story takes place a generation previously.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

In terms of favoritism, the one thing I would think of that's official is that James was Head Boy despite his behavior post-Prank.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Can you point me at the place in the series where this is told/shown? That James is 'allowed to brag'?

As oryx leucoryx said, Lily knew what James had done but Snape couldn't say a word about what had happened or why. This is found in DH in The Prince's Tale. This is also where we see that SWM takes place after The Prank.

So either James was allowed to tell what he had done or he told anyway. For someone who feels dumped on, as Snape would have by then since it's pretty clear in the text that Sirius got little to no punishment for having lured Snape to the tunnel where he might have been killed or turned into a werewolf (he certainly wasn't expelled), it's easy enough to imagine that James was allowed to speak while Snape was hobbled.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Well, since you're looking at me... (I'm probably going to end up repeating stuff that other people tell you.)

I lost the "Snape is an evil git" slant way back when I first read PS/SS, because Voice of Authority Dumbledore stated that although Snape had hated James, he had been protecting Harry all year. That told me that a) Snape was not evil, and b) that Snape was a conflicted character.

As I read through the rest of the series, there was never anything in canon that lead me to revise that interpretation. Did he seem evil in HBP? Yes, but we already knew he was a spy and that was to be expected. I was surprised when he killed Dumbledore, because I thought the good guys would pull another Hail Mary, like they'd done in every prior book, but even as Harry was running after him, I knew that Snape had to have been acting under Dumbledore's orders.

So, having rejected the premise that Snape was "evil," everything else we are told about Snape becomes suspect. As a reader, you just have to question stories told by such obviously biased people as Sirius. Lupin's detachment fooled me, though. I tended to take his stories as objective--or, as we here in the US love to say, "fair and balanced."

Snape's Worst Memory, in OotP, is meant, I think, to turn everything we think about Snape and the Marauders upsidedown. Even Harry realizes at that point that Snape couldn't possibly have deserved being ambushed like that by TWO bullies. It's odder to me that people still kept thinking of Snape as a bad person after that point, when JKR seemed to be demanding we start looking at Snape/Marauders as a parallel to Harry/Dudley's gang.

On a personal/fan level, I spent two years arguing--like someone's life depended on it!--that despite having murdered Dumbledore, Snape was definitely on the good guys' side. That made me tremendously sympathetic to Snape in all things. Once you start down that road... it's like realizing that Dumbledore left Harry with the abusive Dursleys for ten years. You can't help but picking everything apart.

So... James. We don't know that James was "allowed to brag." We don't know that he did or didn't. We only know that someone told Lily about Snape nearly getting killed by... something... under the Willow tree. And that James saved him. This is because Lily uses that information to beat Snape with when he complains about James being as bad as Snape's Future Death Eater friends.

We have no record of what James's reaction was to the prank, except for the fact that he saved Snape. All we know is that some time after the Prank occurred, he felt no qualms in attacking Snape (in order to entertain Sirius) in a very public setting. (So, he had no fear that any teachers would come and get him in trouble.)

The idea of James coming down on Sirius for playing the Prank is pure fanfic (or fanwank, in the case of essays). It's logical to assume that he would do that, so it's not delusional.

So, why did James save Snape? We really don't know. We're free to assume the best or the worst of James at that moment in his life. The only thing we can't assume is that James was changed into a better person because he realized the Marauder's recklessness nearly killed somebody. Unless that change happened long after the fact, which is possible, but makes little dramatic sense.

Does that help?

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

ARRRGHH! I don't believe it! I had a nice long entry all typed up and then bloody Chrome lost it! Sheesh. I blame Snape. :-)

Does that help?

Yes it does, thank you.

I never had much interest in Snape when I read the books - I reserved my 'passion' for Hermione :-) - all I knew was that he was something of a b*st*rd, a nasty bloke. Picking on schoolchildren, hating Harry for superficially looking like James and so forth.

And there's no disputing that Snape was a bad guy back in the first war - dark magic, that Death Eater thing.

Still, I always assumed that Snape was on the good guys' side the second time around, although Rowling's writing and plots got too thin for me to really be engaged by the time it got to the last two books. Snape led a tortured existence, suffered under the returned Riddle as a double spy for years, all due to his memories of a girl who'd not only spurned his 'love' 20 years earlier but also married his worst enemy and borne him a son? Snape never weakened once, was never attracted to another woman, never had a moment where he caved? This was the sole reason why Dumbledore trusted Snape with the lives of everyone in the Order? Yeah, right. Rowling didn't write the Snape side of all that with anything like enough depth for me to believe it.

Her setting up the other 'side' was equally vaporous. Everyone in the Order trusted Snape because "Dumbledore says so". Snape kills Dumbledore. OMG HE'S A BAD GUY! Ugh. I just couldn't get 'into' the series by that point; the idea of Dumbledore running the show single-handedly, trusting no-one with any information, was just asinine. Rowling had some good ideas at the start but she just wasn't up to finishing what she started with any sort of competence.

Unlike others I never had much doubt as to Snape's true allegiance at the end of HBP; I was pretty sure he was a good guy. A nasty, bitter bloke but still toeing Dumbledore's line. Although, as I said, the reason for his motivation through all this, when finally unveiled in DH, rang quite flat.

I never picked up on the details of Snape's early days with the Marauders much when I read the books, and that's where the discussions here and your post just now have been quite useful, thank you. But while James turned out to be a bully - and I guess there's room to argue that he never 'changed into a better person', then, if it's only biased folk like Lupin who tells us this, is that the idea? - Snape still was the one who decided to go bad back then, you know, despite Lily urging him not to. Still, it's clear that he *had* turned into a better person by the end of the series, which is something I didn't really realise or care about until recently.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Snape, being prejudiced against James, might think that James was motivated purely to save his friends, but that's not really the case, is it? Is there anywhere in the canon where Jame's reaction to Sirius's 'prank' is revealed? I'm getting confused with lines from various fanfics where a moralistic James rails against Sirius for the attempted homicide.


I must say that Dumbledore doesn't help James' case when later in POA he compares Harry's saving Peter to James saving Severus when he tells Harry that James too wouldn't have wanted his friends to become murderers. Because here, even as Dumbledore knows how Severus turned out he tells Harry that 16 year old Severus didn't deserve to live more than 33 year old Peter, who had betrayed his friends and was already on his way to bring Voldemort back, that all that mattered was that Sirius and Remus not become tainted with murder. Essentially confirming Sirius' 'served him right'. So whether this was James' motivation or not, Dumbledore believes it was and stands by it.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

...she was the good looking a-lot-of-the-boys-like-her life of the quidditch team. Their first kiss...

This ends a line in my browser and brought all sorts of... interesting... pictures to mind before I got to the part about 'their' being Harry and Ginny and not Ginny and the Quidditch team.

Snape's deciding to become a murdering Death Eater was still something of a teensy overreaction to Lily's attraction to James, though, you know.

Yes, which is why it's fine that I think Lily was just a major deterrent to his joining - when she's removed from the equation, he joins - while her rejection was not the reason he joined. It's okay for a character to be a stupid idiot when he's young as long as he learns his lesson, grows and changes. That happens enough in RL. Too bad the heroes never get to go through this.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

This ends a line in my browser and brought all sorts of... interesting... pictures to mind before I got to the part about 'their' being Harry and Ginny and not Ginny and the Quidditch team.

Oh my goodness!!! :-) :-)

While I'm no fan of Ginny and I dislike quite a lot her 'serial dating' - she was defined largely as the-girl-who-would-date-and-then-move-on in book 5 - I'm not suggesting that she dated the whole Quidditch team!

I mean, some of the members of the team were *girls*, after all ...

:-)

It's okay for a character to be a stupid idiot when he's young as long as he learns his lesson, grows and changes.

Which Snape actually does!! Learn, grow, turn over a new leaf and all.

I quite missed that in my one read of DH ... it was pointed out to me only recently in a Fiction Alley forum discussion. The big point (for me) was that we're led to believe that Snape was doing all this - spying for the Order, protecting Harry - because he was driven by his 'love' for Lily (or to make amends for betraying her?).

Now, I think that was a lousy sole reason, and can't believe that Snape would be so driven for all those years. I also don't believe that he truly 'loved' Lily; it was more like lust or greedy fascination.

But the point is: one of the memories that Harry views shows Snape's shock when Dumbledore tells him that Harry is destined to be sacrificed. Snape's horrified by this; his sole goal, up until that point, was to protect Harry (in Lily's name). But then his universe was turned upside down - Harry is to be KILLED says Dumbledore.

If there was ever a time for Snape to turn, to go back to his old ways, it would have been then, with his major/sole reason for joining the order - to protect Harry, for Lily - removed.

But he didn't; he stayed on the side of the good guys. It was only for part of a year, I think, but still it shows that Snape did, indeed, evolve during the series.

Well, this view was an eye-opener for me, anyway.

Snape was still heavily flawed, bitter, twisted and nasty, though, you know.

Too bad the heroes never get to go through this.

Well, if you can stomach the epilogue, you've got the whole 'Albus Severus' thing, although I think that's a horrible decision of Harry's myself. But it shows that Harry, too, did evolve/mature by the end of the series?

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

I also don't believe that he truly 'loved' Lily; it was more like lust or greedy fascination.

That's certainly the way it's set up--although it's hard for me to think of an eleven-year-old boy as "lusting" after a girl. But then, I was never an eleven-year-old boy. Do boys that young lust? Don't they "crush" instead?

I mean, it's weirdly written. Almost like JKR wants it to start out as lust, but without even making it lust. Or maybe it's like the lust of a guy who knows he has absolutely zero chance? Like, he seriously freaks out when Lily mentions James (when they are 15 and presumably lust could be more of a factor), but neither Lily nor Snape will admit that there's any sexual undertones to their relationship. They never even hold hands.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I used 'lust' too flippantly, you're right. A 'crush' turning into a strong desire to possess/have Lily, that's what it was. It's my assumption, I guess, that Snape found Lily sexually attractive and that 'lust' was mixed in along the way. As you point out, there was no sign of teenage sexual attraction ... not the slightest hint of a Rowling chest monster anywhere! :-)

(But Snape was clearly jealous of James, don't you think? And jealousy was practically the only emotion that Rowling used to signify the depth of her primary teenage romances. Chest monster jealous of Dean, Ginny jealous of anything female, Ron and Hermione using other people to make each other jealous and so forth. It seems to be the only way that Rowling knew to portray the romance, and what makes her beloved OBHWF pairings so desperately sad and loathesome. So maybe Snape did find Lily sexually attractive. It's an easy assumption to make.)

But it wasn't true love. If you love someone you want the best for them, you want them to be happy, even if it might go against your own desires, even if it kills you. If Snape had truly loved Lily then he would have wanted to rescue ALL of the Potters; not only her but also those whom she loved the most, her husband and baby boy.

But no, Snape was concerned only about the object of his own desire, without thinking at all about what *she* wanted. Not until Dumbledore prompts him - "you sicken me", was it? - and Snape says okay, save them all then (not that I care about the male Potters).

So it wasn't love. It started out nice, with Snape and Lily as kids - as a H/Hr man I applaud the trope of best friends going on to discover that it can get even better - but, sadly for Snape, it didn't end up that way.

Snape turning back to Voldemort

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

If there was ever a time for Snape to turn, to go back to his old ways, it would have been then, with his major/sole reason for joining the order - to protect Harry, for Lily - removed.

Actually, there's a fanfic with that premise: when Albus tells Severus that Harry has to die, Severus turns his loyalty again, tells the Dark Lord that Harry is a Horcrux, and offers to bring Harry over to the Dark Side as an alternative to killing him....

Warning: WIP! "The Infinitely Curious Woman"

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4561100/1/The_Infinitely_Curious_Woman

Re: Snape turning back to Voldemort

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

What a neat idea! Sticking with his original motivation/loyalty - protecting Harry because of Lily - and doing so by telling Voldemort that he'd be destroying one of his precious horcruxes if he killed Potter. Nice! Thanks for the referral.

[oryx_leucoryx]

What makes you think it was Lily's attraction to James that sent Severus to Tom's circle? How about Dumbledore's betrayal when he basically told Severus his life wasn't worth preserving? (Or are you following Rowling's extra-canon about him trying to impress Lily?)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I don't recall Rowling's interview factoid at all; and I don't regard Rowling's post-publication propaganda as formal canon in any case.

All I know is that Snape became a Death Eater after Lily rejected him (and I'm fuzzy even on that; did Snape become a DE while still at school? Or only fall in with the Slytherins bad guys?). While I think we can assume that the fair Lily would have kept Snape on the straight and narrow path - and so her absence made it easier for him to turn to the dark side - you're right, Snape was learning dark magic and fraternising with the bad guys even before Lily became history.

[oryx_leucoryx]

What we know is as following: Severus was friends with Mulciber and Avery by the time of the Shack. Around that time Mulciber played some Dark Magic prank on Mary Macdonald outside of Severus' view. Severus thought it was funny, Lily thought it was evil. Sirius played a Dark prank on Severus. Sirius thought it was funny, Remus may have been somewhat troubled after the fact but not by much.

Severus invented Levicorpus, which everyone thought was hilarious as long as they weren't on the receiving end (and didn't know who the source was). Severus invented or found Sectumsempra. At the time of SWM James claims to Lily Severus' 'crime' was existing, not 'being into evil stuff' so I don't think Severus used Sectumsempra or anything stronger than what most students did until that day. Later that day Lily accuses Severus of wanting to join Voldemort.

We do not know when Severus or any of his friends actually joined in.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Or what precisely they actually thought they were joining. (Not that it could be seen as a GOOD thing objectively, but what did they actually expect would happen and what was the context?) Sirius' family, an influential socially-acceptable family, apparently thought Voldie 'had the right ideas.' Regulus Black (whom one would expect to be more knowledgeable about such things than a poor half-blood living in a Muggle town) thought that at most they would be ruling the Muggles, not slaughtering people en mass.

RE Muggleborns, given how little we see them participating meaningfully in wizarding society during the books and the fact that major families could openly be prejudiced without losing status: it's doubtful that the pro-equality view is the social default.

And every single person in the WW that we see thinks it's perfectly ok to treat Muggles as lesser life-forms. It's merely a question of degree: it ranges from 'don't torture them unnecessarily, but it is fine to mind-wipe them for our convenience,' to classifying them as animals that can be hunted. Ruling over them openly is perhaps a bit towards the latter end of the spectrum there, but not that extreme compared to the social default in the WW. And it's never claimed that Voldie was considered particularly dangerous by the Ministry for his views on blood, merely his views on who ought to be running things and his methods for achieving that (terrorism).

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

Severus invented Levicorpus, which everyone thought was hilarious as long as they weren't on the receiving end (and didn't know who the source was). Severus invented or found Sectumsempra. At the time of SWM James claims to Lily Severus' 'crime' was existing, not 'being into evil stuff' so I don't think Severus used Sectumsempra or anything stronger than what most students did until that day. Later that day Lily accuses Severus of wanting to join Voldemort.

Pure speculation:
* He might have invented Levicorpus as either a trial flying spell, or to catch-up people following him with some means he couldn't fathom (like a spelled map).
* I wonder if he invented Sectumsempra to injure werewolves in particular, but the timing is probably off, too soon after The Prank.
* I think Lily accusing Severus of wanting to join Voldemort might have been guilt by association, i.e., his being in Slytherin with Slytherin friends. He doesn't deny it, but he really doesn't have a chance to say much and he's rather inarticulate as an adolescent. In any case, it's probably pure conjecture on Lily's part, since I doubt he brags about wanting to join Voldemort to her.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I came across this interesting post that put a whole new slant on his reasons for joining Voldemort's side:

http://terri-testing.livejournal.com/27644.html

Have a look, it's a short read, but I thought it was very thought-provoking.

It made me wonder- do we actually know the Death Eaters back when he was at school was anything like what it was during the height of the DE terrorizing the wizarding world or what it's like during the HP books?

Tom probably didn't advertise it as 'join and you can rape and murder worthless mudbloods and throw around Unforgivables with impunity', he was supposed to be this charismatic person who pulled the wool over everyone's eyes and made them see him as this charming, intelligent young man with a promising future. He was a decent leader that had a knack for drawing people around him, right? It's easier to see the original group as a bunch of people discussing politics and their vision for their world, a version of the Slug Club except cooler, before it went anywhere near the 'only evil prejudiced psychopaths need apply' status. [Their leader splitting his soul probably didn't help]

It's just that it's clear how much Snape cared about Lily, even after she hurt and rejected him, and while I can see him joining a group to salve his wounded pride, I don't think he would've signed up knowing it meant he'd be torturing and killing people. They were probably just the first ones that actually valued his talents and made him feel welcome. DEs only have a bad rep in modern times- back when Tom first started collecting people, it would've been seemingly innocent. [Like Gryffindors and such joining the DA or something]

And I'll stop babbling now. ^_^ I just adore Snape too much not to defend him where I can, even if I am putting on rose-colored glasses to see the best possible interpretation.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem of trying to define the DEs and their proper niche in the Potterverse is that Rowling never settled down and figured it out in the first place. She'll have a character make a broad statement in one book, and then a book later she gives us information that totally contradicts it, then in the following book contradicts herself again, apparently without the slightest awareness that she is doing it. Consequently they dwindle into nebulous nasties who are merely "the enemy".

On the strength of HBP you can draft out a more-or-less coherent reading wherein pretty much everything we'd been told to that point was a testament to authorial misdirection and excessive subjectivity and propaganda on the part of the characters--because it is obvious from the info we were given in HBP that Tom and his DEs were outlaws from the get-go, and there was no way that he was *ever* given any degree of public support any more than Al Capone was.

And then she turns around and hands us Reggie Black's fanboy scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings. Give me a break. Since she'd already more than jumped the shark by that point I simply gave up on the book, and never even tried to make sense of it. It isn't worth it.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not game to try and make any sense of the jumbled mess of history she came up with. I'm strictly a reader, not a theorist. Working my through your intriguing musings atm. ^_^ So much to read, whee!

Death Eaters in the Seventies

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed that one. I did have a very long post in which I tried to put together the evidence for what the kids joining the Death Eaters thought they were getting into....

http://terri-testing.livejournal.com/10552.html#cutid1

Re: Death Eaters in the Seventies

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I really do love that essay, it's my go-to whenever people are hating on Snape or making assumptions about being an evil, black-hearted Muggle-raping murderer, and I'm like, BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT, KTHXBAI. Our perception of the DEs as they are now may not necessarily be what it was like back then, we don't know that, and JKR keeps changing her story, so who knows?

Certainly if I'd been in Slytherin, I'd be joining groups just for protection, especially with a gang of Gryffs persecuting me. I would really, really hate to be in Gryffindor, you know.

Thanks for the link, I shall check it out! I had a brief scan-through just now and it looks absolutely wonderful, I love those kind of analytical essays that really make me think and question the text. *squishes*