Lupin's resentment : An inside to Snape's resentment

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 94607

Alla wrote:
> Hi, Carol!
<snip>
> But that is not the issue for me. The issue is whether Snape had any 
> RIGHT reasons for not resuming Occlumency lessons.

I (Carol) wrote:
You said in another post that if Dumbledore knew that Snape had
stopped the lessons, then you would consider not blaming Snape for
letting Harry have the dream that sent him to the MoM. (Forgive the
bad paraphrase--if that's not your meaning, please correct me.)
> 
Alla responded:
> Well, not exactly. I guess I just wanted to emphasize that 
> Dumbledore  has a lion share of blame for this mess, IMO. Sorry for 
> being unclear.

Carol:
Okay. At least you don't wholly blame Snape. But I'm convinced that DD
would have made Snape resume the lessons if he thought it would do any
good at that point. Maybe Steve is rght that they were doomed to fail
for various reasons and DD recognized that they were, at this point,
an exercise in futility. Also the failed/abandoned Occlumency lessons
were only one of many factors causing or leading up to the events at
the MoM. Harry's thought that he will "never forgive Snape. Never!" is
an attempt to scapegoat Snape by throwing *all* the blame on him, when
in fact he did his best to rescue Harry and friends by sending the
Order (minus Sirius, who went of his own accord, against Snape's
advice). Surely that should count for something, even if it doesn't
exonerate him completely? I'm sure that Harry is *not* going to retain
that attitude into the next book. He has to gain a clearer and more
mature perspective. IMO, he also really needs to learn to work with
Snape, who (as you acknowledge later in your post) really does know a
lot about what LV is doing and what Harry needs to do to defeat him.

Alla wrote: 
> What am I getting at? Nothing new, I am afraid. He knew pretty well 
> how harmful will be to allow Voldie to enter into Harry's mind 
> consciously.

Carol:
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Snape wasn't trying to get Harry
to let LV into his mind. LV was already there. He was trying to get
Harry to close him out. If Snape played the role of Voldemort,
consciously entering Harry's mind himself, Harry would know what it
was like and fight him off. It was the only way to learn (and no doubt
the way Snape had learned Occlumency himself). Given the urgency of
the lessons, which Snape recognized, if there had been some other way,
he would have used it. 
> 
Alla wrote:
> I don't even see the end of the lessons as LESSER evil to choose. I 
> just see it as EVIL, period.

Carol:
I think you may be overrating this incident. As I said, it's only one
of the factors leading to the events at the MoM, and maybe the end of
the lessons was inevitable. They did some good, but not as much as
they would have done if they had started earlier, if Snape had been
free to tell Harry everything, and if Snape and Harry had trusted each
other.

I (Carol) wrote:> 
Note that the abandonment of the Occlumency lessons does not 
diminish Dumbledore's trust in Snape. Nor does he apparently blame
Snape stopping the lessons. Dumbledore could have ordered Snape to
"get over it" and resume the lessons, but he didn't. Why not? Might it
be that *Snape* sensed that they were doing more harm than good and
asked Dumbledore to let him abandon them? Was there something in that
Pensieve that it would have been extremely dangerous for Voldemort 
to see in Harry's mind? 
> 
> 
Alla:
> I a afraid I don't place much faith in Dumbledore's trust anymore. 
> Sorry! As I said before I am not so sure that dumbledore knew about 
> the end of the lessons right away.

Carol:
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. The evidence
as I see it indicates that Snape reported regularly to DD after every
lesson. he would know better than to withhold such important
information from DD. I do trust Dumbledore, but only to provide
partial information, not all the facts. But a straightforward
statement, repeated in every book, that he trusts Severus Snape has to
be taken as the truth, whether he's right to trust snape or not (IMO
he is). And if we believe JKR, Dumbledore is still the ultimate good
guy, Harry's mentor, who is subject to error like everyone else but
essentially wise and good. He's Voldemort's worst enemy as well. I'll
grant you that to some degree he must use Harry as a tool; there's no
other way to win the war. And I'll also grant that Dumbledore (through
Snape's discoveries) benefitted more from the Occlumency than Harry
did. He found out what was going on in Harry's mind. If you go along
with Kneasy's puppet master theory, you could argue that the
Occlumency lessons were an excuse for Snape to read Harry's mind and
report his information to Dumbledore, but that's not how I see it. I
think he would have benefited--if only the lessons had started sooner
and the mutual animosity had not interfered.
> 

Alla:
> You said that it would be dangerous for Harry to see another
memories  which Snape put into Pensieve. Could you clarify, please?
> Do you think that Harry would have wanted to look into Pensieve 
> again, if the lessons were continued?

Carol:
Sorry to be unclear. No, I don't think Harry would have wanted to look
in the Pensieve again or that Snape would have given him that
opportunity. But I think that Snape had lost all trust in him and
feared what he would see if he tried again. He may well have been in
panic mode when he found Harry in the Pensieve because of whatever the
other memories were that he might have seen. Dumbledore makes it sound
as if the memory Harry saw was the cause of Snape's reaction, but I'm
not so sure. Like Kneasy, I think that the other two memories had
nothing to do with Harry and everything to do with Snape's opposition
to Voldemort. Whatever they were, it would have been disastrous for
Snape (and Dumbledore) for Harry to see them. I think that DD
respected Snape's fear and knew it would be disastrous--or
impossible--to continue. (I agree that Harry wouldn't have looked in
the Pensieve again, but try convincing Snape of that after all the
rules Harry has broken and all the times he's been out of bounds.)

Another possibility is that Snape thought that the lessons were doing
more harm than good, opening up Harry's mind to Voldemort at exactly
the wrong time, and he asked DD to allow him to discontinue them. DD,
with his usual penchant for half-true explanations, put the blame on
Snape's inability to let old injuries heal. (Whatever the explanation,
I don't think that's the real one.)

I (Carol) wrote:  
JKR has told us to watch Snape carefully and not to judge him by
appearances. The Occlumency lessons and their abandonment are 
examples of the sort of scene into which we can easily read too
much--or too little. Even if Snape is wholly at fault (and I don't
think he is), his decision to end the Occlumency lessons no more
caused Harry to go to the MoM than Harry's going to the MoM caused
Sirius's death or his saving Peter caused Voldemort's return. It is
one event in a complex chain of events, one decision among many. And
it should also be weighed against Snape's other actions and decisions.
One mistake--if it was a mistake--should not be grounds for condemning
a character who in other circumstances shows great courage and loyalty
to Dumbledore. At the very least, we should reserve judgment until the
end of Book 
7.

Alla wrote: 
> Yes, it is one event and of course I can change my judgment about 
> Snape plenty of time (and I suspect I may), but it is just too big
of the event for me not to draw negative inferences, so to speak.
<snip> I will be very very happy to be proven wrong. Usually Snape
type hero is my favourite character in the book, that is why I still
have some hopes for him, but my patience is running thin. :o)

Carol:
Even though he sent the Order to the MoM? Harry and his friends would
have died at the hands of the DEs without him. To me, that makes
ending the Occlumency lessons pale by comparison. But if I haven't
convinced you by now, I never will.

The thing about Snape is that he's so complex that one single incident
can't be the basis for our judgment. We can be absolutely certain
about some of the characters being evil--Voldemort, Malfoy, Bellatrix,
Macnair. Others, like Quirrell and Kreacher, even possibly Barty Jr.,
are simultaneously victims and villains but ultimately the choice to
do evil is their own. But Snape is such a mixture of hero and
villain--a Death Eater risking his life for the side of good, a
"horrible" teacher who is also the righthand man of The Only One He
(Voldemort) Ever Feared, that I just can't understand anyone wanting
to label him or pin him down before we've finished the series--this
one act somehow makes him evil. Surely ending the Occlumency lessons
is not on a par with murdering your father or betraying the Potters or
even placing Tom Riddle's diary in Ginny's cauldron? those were truly
evil acts, whether they were performed for revenge or ambition or
cowardice. But angrily giving up in frustration because the kid you're
trying to teach has violated your privacy and seen what he should not
have seen? A mistake, maybe. A wrong decision, maybe. But a wilful act
of evil that "caused" Harry to go to the MoM? I just don't think so.

Carol, giving up now because she's exhausted all her arguments :-)