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

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 119147


> Eliose:
>  Letting us see 
> > Snape in the memories allows the information to be conveyed far 
> more 
> > economically and therefore, I think, more effectively. Likewise, 
> > Harry's memories are told more economically from the first person 
> > viewpoint; the narrative would be more cumbersome if he had to be 
> > described seeing himself in the action.
> > 
> 
> Potioncat:
> But we do see Harry in the action in his memories in the first 
> session.  Except for one memory and that one has no mention of 
> Harry.  It's just Hermione, covered in fur.

Eloise:
Hee. And I thought this was precisely what others were arguing that 
we don't see, hence my laborious explanations (Vivamus did it far 
more succinctly). Ah well.

But I think there's a difference. With the Snape memories, we see the 
action completely from the outside. We see a boy sitting alone in his 
room, shooting flies. We see a boy crying in a corner while a man 
shouts at a woman. We are given a description of him. There are no 
descriptions of Harry's appearance in the memories.

With Harry's memories,

"He was five, watching Dudley riding a new red bicycle, and his heart 
was bursting with jealousy...he was nine, and Ripper the bulldog was 
chasing him up a tree and the Dursleys were laughing below on the 
lawn...he was sitting under the sorting Hat and it was telling him he 
would do well in Slytherin...Hermione was lying in the hospital wing, 
her face covered with thick black hair...a hundred Dementors were 
closing in on him beside the dark lake...Cho Chang was drawing nearer 
to him under the mistletoe..."

All these memories are, IMO, told from Harry's viewpoint.
It's not of a case of "He saw himself as a boy of five, watching 
Dudley riding a new red bicycle and recalled how jealous he had 
felt...he saw himself at nine, being chased up a tree by Ripper...he 
saw himself sitting under the Sorting Hat and remembered the words it 
had spoken to him... he saw himself watching Hermione as she lay in 
the hospital wing... he saw himself beside the lake as a hundred 
Dementors closed in on him...He saw himself as Cho Chang drew nearer 
to him as he stood under the mistletoe..."

I'm quite sure that in all these cases, he's remembering the event as 
he experienced it, not seeing himself in the action, hence the fact 
that he's feeling the jealousy and hearing the Sorting Hat whisper 
those private words in his ear, something that no external observer 
heard.

I know it could be argued the other way, but I think this is the 
obvious interpretation; it's generally how we remember things. Isn't 
it? Or am I just odd?

If you're correct and some of those memories are told in the first 
person and some in the third, then it supports to my argument that 
JKR is not consistent in the way she depicts memories and therefore 
we cannot make an argument from the fact that we *see* a young person 
in Snape's memories (that most interpret to be him) that ergo it is 
*not* Snape after all.

~Eloise