My Review of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

[Carol]

md earlier: 
> > Harry doesn't trust Snape, knows he's working with Malfoy and states earlier that even Dumbledore makes mistakes It all adds up to Harry SHOULD NOT trust or listen to Snape.
> 
Carol earlier:
> I'd put "knows" in quotation marks there as I assume that Snape is protecting Draco and trying to find out what he's doing in the film just as in the book. 

md again: 
> In both book and film Snape knows Draco is to kill DD, the how is the only question. There are 2 scenes in the film where Harry states he doesn't trust Snape and backs it up by stating that DD has made mistakes before. He hears Snape very clearly tell Draco he's taken the Vow to protect him and Harry knows the price to break that vow is death, so Harry knows at the tower that Snape must first look after Malfoy or die himself. He also knows from the conversation between Draco and DD that Draco must kill DD or die, so he knows that Snape must make sure Draco succeeds or he will die from the vow. 

Carol:
Yes, but you said that *Harry* knows that Snape is working with Draco, or at least that's how I read your post. That's why I said that I'd put "knows" in quotation marks. He doesn't know (any more than Draco or the audience members who haven't read the books) that Snape is DDM.

Harry only *thinks* that Snape is helping Draco with his mission when in fact he's trying to figure out what Draco is up to (he doesn't know about the Vanishing Cabinet) and discourage him from being too reckless (as in trying to use the opal necklace). Of course, Snape knows that Draco is supposed to kill Dumbledore, and, yes, he's made an Unbreakable Vow to protect Draco (and, as Snape doesn't tell Draco, at least not in the book, to "do the deed" so Draco won't have to and for a variety of other reasons). But Draco (in the book) thinks that Snape is trying to "steal his glory," and Harry seems to share that view. Whatever evil deed "Malfoy" is trying to do for Voldemort, Snape, he thinks, is trying to help him do it. So I'm just saying that Harry doesn't *know* what Snape is up to. He only thinks he does.

I agree, however, that what he thinks he knows gives him a more than plausible reason not to trust Snape. And in the book, that information (while countered by the lives Snape saves, which Harry, hating Snape and wanting to believe him guilty, ignores) is intensified by the discovery, crucial to the books, that Snape was the eavesdropper--how they'll cover that omission in DH is anybody's guess!).

However, I'm not sure that Harry's knowing that Snape has to protect Draco or die from the Unbreakable Vow is the same as knowing that Snape has to actually "do the deed." In the book, the fresh discovery that Snape was the eavesdropper adds to the emotional intensity and irrationality of Harry's hatred and makes DD's freezing him all the more necessary. Imagine the carnage and confusion if Snape had entered the tower while Harry was fighting Death Eaters.

But in the film, as far as I can tell, Harry doesn't "know" anything about Snape. He only overhears and misunderstands the conversation between Snape and Draco.

md:
EITHER WAY, HARRY KNOWS so it makes no sense that he listens to Snape or stands there idly. The writer and director screwed up.

Carol:

Although I haven't seen the film, I entirely agree with you, not because Harry "knows" that Snape is working with Draco but because he *thinks* he is. Even without the additional motivation to distrust Snape provided by Trelawney's revelation that Snape was the eavesdropper, Harry has always hated Snape. He knows that he's a former DE (revealed in GoF, film and book) and that he's protecting Draco. He *thinks* that he's helping Draco do whatever he's trying to do, which Harry knows by the time Snape shows up (at least in the book) is kill Dumbledore. There's no way that Harry would stand there and watch DEs threatening DD (or did they leave that out?) or Draco's pitiful attempts to kill him, even before Snape shows up to shush him, and he certainly wouldn't have obeyed Snape.

I'm not arguing that the scene was well handled. Far from it. I agree that the writer and director messed up badly, not only because the scene is out of character for both Harry and Snape but also because it diminishes the dramatic impact of the original.

Carol, whose point was simply that Harry didn't *know* what Snape was up to; he only thought he did
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