Yeah, my friends and I have speculated that it's highly unlikely that Snape could possibly end up being bad simply because it would mean that Harry had been right to dislike Snape at first sight, and that's very much not the way she's writing these books. I was guessing that there was a vow of some sort involved in there--at the very least, Snape killed Dumbledore with his--'permission', I suppose--foreknowledge that it might be necessary, something like that. And I believe that Dumbledore would have prefered to be killed by Snape before making a child, even Draco, either kill him or suffer for his continued life.
I've remarked to a few friends that one of the very coolest things that Rowling is doing is taking these black and white characters--Voldemort and Harry's Dad, for example--and making them gradually more grey--Voldemort was orphaned and never treated especially well (we'll ignore the fact that he didn't seem to merit better treatment for the case of this discussion) and Harry's dad was a bit of a bully and a show off. Nothing earthshaking or anything, but gradual underminings of the idea that good guys can do no wrong and bad guys are just plain evil.
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Date: 2005-07-21 02:50 pm (UTC)I've remarked to a few friends that one of the very coolest things that Rowling is doing is taking these black and white characters--Voldemort and Harry's Dad, for example--and making them gradually more grey--Voldemort was orphaned and never treated especially well (we'll ignore the fact that he didn't seem to merit better treatment for the case of this discussion) and Harry's dad was a bit of a bully and a show off. Nothing earthshaking or anything, but gradual underminings of the idea that good guys can do no wrong and bad guys are just plain evil.