Knowing it was Snape (was: What has Snape seen)

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 119023


SSSusan earlier:
>>> I admit that I assumed the teenage boy to be Snape, but I know 
some have wondered whether that is true, as well as whether the hook-
nosed man is Snape or perhaps Snape's father, with the cowering boy 
being Snape.  I would argue that we cannot be certain of any of it  
because it's all based upon Harry's perception, and we've been 
shown before that the narrator has "allowed" Harry's perception to 
be presented as fact previously, only to have it eventually be 
shown to be a misperception.  

For another example, just think of GoF, when Harry is preparing to
enter the Yule Ball with the other champions & their dates.  The
narrator says that Harry saw Viktor Krum with a pretty girl whom he 
did not know.  But of course he DID know her!  It was Hermione; 
Harry simply did not recognize her. <<<

Carol responds:
> The difference is that we're looking at Snape's memories, not the
> student body of Hogwarts. He has to be present in all of them. 
> Ergo, the lonely teenager zapping flies has to be Severus, as does 
> the boy on the bucking broom. Harry is therefore most likely right 
> in also identifying the small crying boy rather than the hook-
> nosed man as snape. He knows very well what the adult Snape looks 
> like and he knows whose memories he's viewing.

SSSusan:
Once again we're at cross purposes.  I don't understand why Snape 
has to be IN each memory.  I have all kinds of memories of people 
and places and events, and sometimes the pictures I have in my mind 
are of those *other* people and places:  my grandfather smoking a 
pipe; my mom & dad playing tennis; my brother graduating from med 
school.  I'm in the audience, as it were, and I don't believe that 
if someone accessed my memories they'd see ME; rather, they'd see 
those other individuals *as I saw them*, but I'd be nowhere in sight.

Carol:
> Who else would the teenage boy and the broom riding boy be but 
> Snape? 

SSSusan:
It's likely it is Snape.  My point was simply to suggest avoiding 
saying we *know* something, when it's only Harry's 
perception/recognition that we're trusting in drawing the 
conclusion.  Did Snape have an older brother we know nothing about 
and Snape watched him shooting down flies?  Who knows?  


Carol:
> If the death of his child and wife (whom the hook-nosed man 
> doesn't seem to love much) were the trigger that caused Snape to 
> leave the DEs, the little boy could have been no more than two, 
> and the hook-nosed man a 21-year-old Snape. There's no indication 
> that either the boy or the man is that young.

SSSusan:
This was Kneasy's theory, rather than mine, but I will say this 
much.  "There's no indication that [they are] that young" doesn't 
equate to "They weren't young."  This strikes me as such a leap:  it 
wasn't pointed out, so thus it must not be?  That's part of the fun 
of the exercises we engage in here -- what did JKR leave out and 
what did she put in... and what can be made of that?  One 
possibility is that it's not the "obvious" conclusion that Harry 
drew which is the truth.  

If there were corroboration -- Snape calling someone by name or 
being called by name in his memory or DD telling Harry that Snape 
had a horrendous childhood or a nasty father -- we'd have more to go 
on.  But as it is, we know *nothing* about Snape's background beyond 
what we've been told about his being up to his eyeballs in the DA 
when he got to Hogwarts, that he knew more dark spells than most 7th 
years [paraphrased].  So in my book there's lots of room to question 
and to wonder if JKR's schnookering us here.

Siriusly Snapey Susan