Snape = Love

Okay, so, I wish I were coherent enough and had read the books recently enough to do a character study of Snape and everything about him and Lily and Harry and the...Holy Crap Dumbledore is a Manipulative Bastard that ran through my head throughout the last movie.

Harry Potter....

I'm going to the midnight showing of the last Harry Potter film.

I am both YAY! and NOES! about it, for obvious reasons. *sniffle* The ending (before the epilogue) is going to KILL ME.

SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

god I love Alan Rickman.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1

I *FINALLY* got to go see it. I like it - it was funnier than I remember the book being and the scene where they're destroying the horcrux? Much sexier than I recall. I'm going to have to go back and reread the books once this is all said and done.

Unrelated specifically to the movie, however, I think Dumbledore, in retrospect, was a bit of a manipulative bastard. It's been a while since I've read the books so I'm just going from memory here.

Snape was in love with Lily. Like, sort of crazy in love with her. Yes, he went and did a bad, bad thing and joined Voldemort, but he never stopped loving Lily. It's like...like he was emotionally stunted. If Snape had been an emotionally healthy person it might have just been a crush that came and went and he'd have gotten over it, but he wasn't and it didn't. Harry, in spite of being James' son, is the last piece of Lily left on earth. Snape can, to a certain look at Harry and see his Lily. As I recall, Harry has Lily's green eyes.

So Dumbledore has Snape, who has had this horrible attack of conscience and returned to Dumbledore's side. He's got the whole emotional blackmail thing going on there in the first place and then he takes what's left of the love of Snape's life and takes him away and hides him. I'd bet that Dumbledore used weeHarry as some sort of carrot somehow for Snape. Like...I can keep him safe, keep what's left of Lily alive if you'll just help me with this, do this, etc.

Then when Harry finally came to Hogwarts Dumbledore started playing his two 'champions' against one another. He encouraged the James-like quantities in Harry. Harry'd come from a place where he had nothing. Where he was nothing. And don't tell me that Dumbledore didn't *know* how the Dursley's treated him. And then he comes to Hogwarts where he's treated as sacred and special and allowed to get away with anything he does just because he's him. Dumbledore was encouraging him to think of himself as the chosen one, as the golden child who was destined for glory. And there's Snape, watching that little bit of Lily do reckless things that will get him killed - that will wipe her out of existence once and for all.

Harry was the stalking horse for Snape. If everyone was focused on the Boy Who Lived and how *he* was the one who would kill Voldemort once and for all, then no one was looking for the dagger in the dark. Dumbledore not only used Harry to control Snape, but used him as bait to keep everyone (on the dark side) from looking at Snape with suspicion.

Mmm...there's more here, but I should probably do some work since I'm at work.