Snape as father figure

[tbernhard2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 130983

Amanda:
> And lastly, I think we are wrong to infer that Dumbledore knows
everything that happened with Harry, Snape, and the Pensieve.... I
think  Snape just went to Dumbledore and  said something like, "I'm
sorry, every time  I look at Harry I see James and I just can't handle
it, I can't keep teaching him,it's giving me ulcers." I can't imagine
Snape would want anyone to know any more about his private humiliation...

dan:
Regardless of what Dumbledore knows, the point is that we readers
don't know enough about why Snape put those memories into the pensieve
- they are hardly the most compromising one's in terms of Snape
alluded to spy role, are they? Unless they hide something like that,
or his spy role has to do with his rivalry with the marauders.

The idea of the pensieve is associated with shame in this case -
Snape's in the content and Harry's in the revelation about his father
and his father's friends and in the prying into on discovery by Snape,
and then Snape's again in that he is reminded that it was THIS memory
he set aside (not a spy memory, say) which of course just directs the
shame of both the original scene and the prying into it back on
himself again.

So, if Snape is "stern, implacable" father figure, the motivating
force and the connection with Harry seems to be shame.

Yikes.

dan