Snape knows Harry's Chosen One? (was:Snape and Neri's old theory.)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 137427

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:

<snip>

> I think part of Snape's cover is to behave as though he thinks 
> Voldemort was mistaken and there really is nothing special or
> important about Harry. Hence the constant sneering.

This begs the eternal question: if Snape knows that Harry is the One, 
and is special and important, then why hasn't he done a better job at 
trying to instruct the kid?

I suppose the "Snape has to keep up a front to the Slytherins" card 
comes out now, and the need for Snape to have genuine emotions to hide 
behind.  Even still, that seems like a pretty weak argument to cover 
all of his behavior.  Surely if Snape is the perceptive man we want to 
give him credit for being, he'd have figured out that Harry's optimum 
learning style is not Snape's style of singling people out and 
accusations, but more of a co-operative Lupin style.

So why doesn't he do it when there's not public pressure on?  It's been 
proposed in the past that Snape is a damaged creature, genuinely unable 
to set aside some of his feelings.  However, the same interlocutors are 
usually happy to make the argument that Snape is an excellent spy and 
actor, and is almost always genuinely in control of his emotions at all 
time.  Which makes the argument look rather like "Snape is always in 
control of himself and acts with complete planning and deliberation, 
except when he isn't and doesn't."

That seems a little...weak, to me.  Thematically, too--Snape is the man 
obsessed with his past, the past, to a degree that no one else is.  I 
think that Harry thinks less about James in HBP than Snape does, 
really.  So why not make Snape a little more interesting, considerably 
more human, and allow him his foibles--he may know that Harry is the 
Chosen One, but he can't necessarily bring himself to genuinely believe 
it (on a deep level), and has problems acting like it's really true, in 
either an overt or covert way.

-Nora adds, on a tangent, that Dumbledore not being dead would be 
decidedly lame from the perspective of literary economy, and also make 
JKR a big honkin' liar about isolating Harry out to face his great 
obstacles alone (and no one's pointed out places where she's 
*deliberately lied* to us in interviews yet--Vampire!Snape, anyone?)