Freudian slip.

In anticipation, would you consider setting up a post on which we can all formally record our interpretations and predictions about some of the more compelling questions: Snape’s allegiance, Petunia’s secret, if Harry will cross the veil, if he will die, what the 7 Horcruxes are, how to undo a Horcrux, how Harry got his scar, which of the principals will die, who was present at Godric’s Hollow on Hallowe’en 1981, how Harry got his scar, who is Gryffindor’s heir, was Snape in love with Lily, was Lily in love with Snape, what form does Snape’s Patronus take, how Wormtail will pay his lifedebt to Harry, why Snape has a soft spot for Draco and Mom, who will kill Greyback, how Voldemort will die, why Snape AK’d Voldemort, and if anyone who has “died” will come back, to list my top 20.

It won’t be the first thing on our minds when we read book 7, but after a while we can come back and look at our predictions and laugh, or crow, or shake our heads.

But I always feel a little like we’re intelligence analysts at the CIA trying to decipher Fidel Castro’s intentions based a photograph of him smoking a cigar. My best guess is still that Snape has his own agenda, but there’s only as much evidence for that (perhaps a little less) than there is for anyone else’s guess.

The reason why I like conjecturing and speculating about Snape, Harry, Dumbledore, Voldemort and all the other characters is that 1. it is fun, and 2. it makes me think about – and sometimes question – my own belief and ethical principals about the opposites and shades of good and evil, love and hate, courage and cowardice, injuries and traumata, body and soul, as well as free will, responsibility, compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness, redemption etc. What is so special about the books is that 1. and 2. work together so very well.

My students love parenthetical asides, but can’t ever seem to get their in-text citations right…go figure…

So, we all conjecture about him as if we understand him in some fundamental way. But we know almost nothing about his motives. The “Snape’s Worst Memory” chapter in (i)HBP(/i) is important, but it doesn’t reveal all that much in and of itself; and there’s very little from other books to provide good, solid context for speculation, especially about Snape’s personal history. All we really know is that the Marauders picked on him, (i)apparently(/i) quite mercilessly, and that this is (b)a(/b) motivation for his treatment of Harry. Then, James saves Snape’s life at some point, (i)apparently(/i) making Snape’s hatred that much deeper due to a perceived debt. But, keep in mind that much of this comes from second and third-hand sources.

Think of it this way: The moment that Dumbledore invites Snape back into the fold as both a member of the Order and as a teacher at Hogwarts was probably a moment of great existential choice for Snape. And we haven’t seen a single second of that event. And there must be other instances of similar importance in Snape’s life, and all we get is a moment of bullying where the cool kids are picking on the nerdy emo kid.

I’m not trying to downplay that event, but that can’t (u)the one moment(/u) that defines Snape’s character. And the event is meant to shed more light on Harry than anything else.

He’s virtually blank in terms of concrete, clear, empirical details.

And a note on the Pettigrew family motto: bear in mind that “sun” and “son” are interlocking symbols in a lot of traditions, one often being a pun playing on the other. Read it as “Nothing without the (i)son(/i)”, and you get the perfect poetic paraphrase of Peter Pettigrew’s ethical dilemma. Both Voldemort’s and Harry’s place as sons to differing fathers, mothers, families, and traditions is a theme of primary importance in the books, and it plays quite nicely into Christian themes, as well.