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

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 119246


Carol (quoting aomeone else's mis-spelling):
> 
> > Eliose:

(Eloise wonder if that's something like otiose <g>)

> >  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.
> 
> 
> Carol adds:
> And not to be obnoxious or run my point into the ground, 

Eloise: ditto

Carol:
but Harry's
> memories are not narrated in the first person even though they're 
from
> his perspective. There's not a single "I" in the narrative portions 
of
> the books. We have something like, "He was nine. He was being chased
> up a tree by a dog" (very bad paraphrase, sorry).

Eloise:
The verbatim version is in my reply to Potioncat's above quoted post.
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/119147)
I didn't say that they are grammatically told in the first person, 
but was clumsily failing to make the point that they seem to be 
narrated from the Harry's POV, told as he recalled witnessing them. 
That's why there's no inconsistency in his not being mentioned along 
with Hermione. He remembered seeing her, just as he remembered being 
chased up a tree.

 And it's true that
> we can't tell how *Harry* sees these memories, but it's quite clear
> that *Snape* can see both Harry and the dog.

Eloise:
Err, I believe that's the case, but I don't think it's spelled out.

Carol:
> In any case, I think the Legilimency spell works like the Pensieve 
in
> making the memories appear in an objective visible form, but not, of
> course, a three-dimensional one that can be entered. Even a 
Legilimens
> like Voldemort or Dumbledore would see them in this form, not from 
the
> subjective viewpoint of the person remembering. As Snape tells us,
> Legilimency is not mind-reading. The Legilimens doesn't know the
> person's thoughts; he only sees the memories in a form that he can
> interpret. And that would include seeing the person whose memory is
> being viewed in recognizable form, whether that person is Snape or
> Harry.

Eloise:
And that, basically is what I suggested. If you're viewing someone 
else's memory, you don't witness it from within the viewpoint of the 
person whose memory you are viewing. The whole point of pointing out 
that our description of Harry's memories, *as remembered by Harry as 
they were being summoned from him* and *not* as witnessed by Snape 
(as we don't have an account of them from his viewpoint)was to 
support that view and I'm completely flummoxed as to how I seem to 
keep being called as a witness for the opposition.


 (The Hermione memory is an odd exception and would probably
> confuse Voldemort if he were to see it!)

Eloise:
The way I read it, it's completely consistent and just goes to 
highlight the fact that Harry isn't remembering *his own* memories 
from what I would call a third person viewpoint, which as someone 
pointed out earlier in the thread would be a rather odd thing to do. 
Just to flog that horse a bit more, how Harry witnesses his own 
memories tell us nothing about how Snape witnesses Harry's memories, 
which I assume (although we are not told) is the same way as you 
assume he witnesses them, as a completely outside observer.

~Eloise