The Pensieve (again) (Was: Unfortunate!Peter)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 118375


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sharon" <azriona at j...> wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
> <justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> > Carol responds:
> > A few quick points: 1) If the Pensieve distorted memories 
> > subjectively in favor of the person whose memories they are, Snape 
> > would have had no reason to hide this memory from Harry. Clearly,
> > he found it humiliating, in no way favorable to himself even
though to us (and to Harry), he appears to be an innocent victim. 
> 
> But Snape does have a reason to hide this memory from Harry, 
> regardless of whether or not it's been distorted - it was
humiliating to him, and he didn't want Harry to find it.  Period.  It
wasn't because he didn't want Harry to see how horrible James & Sirius
were as kids; it was because Snape didn't want Harry to see the extend
of the humiliation towards himself.

Carol again:
True. You're missing my point, I think. I'm saying that the memory
hasn't been distorted to fit Snape's subjective view. If it were
favorable to him, he'd have no reason to hide it. It *does* reveal
that he's the innocent victim, but that, in his mind, does not
compensate for the humiliation that it also reveals, so he doesn't
want Harry to see. We agree on that.

It's only your view that the memory *subjectively favors Snape* that I
disagree with. As I've argued in many other posts, the Pensieve
memories are almost certainly objective records of what really
happened, over and above what the person whose memory it is actually
observed or consciously remembers. Those memories certainly can be
distorted by a person's preconceptions or predilections, which is why
the Pensieve is such a useful tool for someone like Dumbledore; it
removes the memory from that subjective context. (Snape is using the
Pensieve for a different purpose, but that doesn't make the memories
he removed any less objective than Dumbledore's memories of the
trials.) But I covered those arguments in the post you're responding
to, so I won't repeat them here.

Carol