Snape, Harry and the Pensieve WAS Re: Pensieves objectivity

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 79833

msbeadsley:  No excuse needed.  Just human nature.  (OT note:  
statistics show that a large percentage of guests peruse hosts' 
medicine cabinets out of curiosity; kids are even snoopier <snip>

Pen Robinson:  Just to nitpick a bit, I'd say that equating between 
snooping in the Pensieve and nosing through someone's medicine 
cabinet is a bit generous.

I did say "kids are even snoopier" (than just looking in someone 
else's medicine cabinet).  However, I'll admit my tone was somewhat 
cavalier.

Pen Robinson:  What Harry did equates more nearly with a guest 
reading his host's personal journal/diary.  If a guest *did* do so, 
would the guest (or anyone?) think it unreasonable for the host to be 
mightily peeved?

Does it?  Harry's one previous experience of the Pensieve made it 
appear almost like a file cabinet for historical documents.  Do we 
have canon that Snape used the Pensieve as a journal?  (I thought it 
was more like a therapeutic tool here, a thing Harry could not have 
known.)

And I never said Snape was unreasonable for how he felt; it's how he 
expressed it:  violence and a refusal to go on with something 
supposedly vital to the cause?  If Harry had made magical Xeroxes of 
what he found in the Pensieve and posted them all over school (my 
boggart doppelganger is delighted at this notion), *then* I could 
understand Snape's reaction.  (Anyway, isn't "mightily peeved" the 
state Snape exists in whenever Harry is in the vicinity? <g>)

Pen Robinson:  Particularly if the diary was a truly *personal* 
document detailing the writer's feelings.  I don't think it matters 
if the diary was left on a desk in the living room while the host 
went to answer the door, or whatever - the guest has *no right* to 
open it.

That's a big IF.  Another one:  if my host was someone I couldn't 
escape who seemed to delight in tormenting me, you bet I'd be on ANY 
clues about that, the split-second opportunity presented itself.  I'd 
consider it a matter of self-preservation.

Pen Robinson:  In the circumstances - a violation even worse than 
reading someone's diary - Snape's emotional reaction is not 
surprising.  Certainly as a responsible adult he *should* have better 
self-control, but Harry Potter has just done something well-nigh 
unforgiveable.  I can't bring myself to classify it as mere 'bad 
manners'.

I don't see how we got from "(p)articularly if the diary was a truly 
*personal* document detailing the writer's feelings" to "a violation 
even worse than reading someone's diary."  Anyway, it *is* closer to 
merely bad manners; "well-nigh unforgiveable" according to canon 
would amount to barely short of Imperius, Cruciatus, or AK. <bg>

OT but germane:  People do read other people's diaries.  (It's 
happened at least once to everyone I know who keeps a journal.)  No 
one has a *right* to do it; many years ago when it happened to me 
with a boyfriend I had specifically warned off this behavior I 
was "mightily peeved" for months; BUT, having said that, I also have 
to say that I had expressed a willingness to that boyfriend to tell 
him whatever it was he thought he might be able to find out behind my 
back.  And he was much, much older than fifteen (but not much 
additionally older when I dumped him).

BTW, to anyone who might say that Snape's reaction was based on what 
he projected Harry doing with what he'd found, I applaud your 
perspicuity:  that is entirely valid.  Since Harry showed up Snape 
has been reacting to who he thinks Harry is and what he thinks Harry 
would do; Snape has never bothered to check his assumptions.

Harry was starved for information at the time; I understand what he 
did.  (As a matter of fact, the appropriateness of the behavior aside 
for a moment, if Snape hadn't caught him and gone so very out of 
control, what Harry found in the Pensieve might have gone a ways 
toward enlightening him and making him more understanding of Snape.)

Sandy, aka "msbeadsley"