Snape, Hagrid and Animals

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 143844

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

> Pippin:
> It's laid out in canon that Snape wasn't gunning for Harry from the 
> beginning. He doesn't even try to convince Bella of that. He claims 
> that wanted Harry expelled, but there isn't  much evidence even for
> that in the first book. 
> 
> Snape dislikes Harry at first sight, based on past factors, but is 
> that so unusual?

The strength and the persistence; yes, that's a little strange.  
Particularly from an authority figure in a position of responsibility 
to a clueless child.  I'd be deeply ashamed of myself (and rightly 
so) if I'd clung to the immediate impressions I formed of my 
students, because they tended to confound them and grow in very 
different directions.  But Dumbledore tells us at the end of book one 
that Snape's thing with Harry is pretty much about James--and have we 
ever gotten that denied?  Don't we believe Dumbledore? :)

I can't say that the arguments for how Snape's perception of Harry 
has evolved have ever convinced me, really.  I seem to recall 
attempts at L.O.O.N.y word patterning telling us nothing coherent; 
wishing for something textually explicit has been a vanishing dream.

I wouldn't disagree that there's a good deal of misevaluation going 
on here; but I wonder if there hasn't also been some accurate picking 
up on character, too.  I think of how she comments about how children 
are very aware (and we're kidding ourselves if we don't think that 
they are) of how people can abuse power.  I'm not saying that 
children aren't presented as having things to learn and needing to 
develop, but there *is* an innate moral sense at work in many 
situations, IMO, and Rowling associates it most strongly with 
Gryffindor.

-Nora shrugs and just thinks it's how Rowling prioritizes things