Forgiving Snape / was Re: Harry's potential father figures /Religion in HP

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 131124

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> 
> But if Harry cannot get past being humiliated until Snape
> acknowledges that he was wrong to do it, then Harry is going to
> have a rather tedious Snape-like life, even if Snape complies.
> There are always going to be people who are less than 
> impressed with the importance of Mr. H. Potter, after all.
> 
> I would rather have Harry understand that criticism
> you don't deserve is part of life just as  praise you
> don't deserve is, and not an occasion for revenge.
> 
> It would be just to let Snape suffer as much emotional and physical
> damage as Harry has suffered, but it seems that he already
> has. 


Tonks:
I agree with Pippin and want to add that if Harry is the better man 
and forgives Snape that does a number of things: 

1. It allows Harry to move on with his life and not be bound to 
Snape because of his anger towards Snape. Harry can let it go for 
his own sake. This is good mental health. As the saying goes the 
best way to get even with an enemy is to live well. 

2. It is also possible that if Snape has any ounce of humanity in 
him, and I think that he does, being forgiven by Harry would be 
heaping coals of fire on his head.  If I behaved like Snape I might 
at least at some level know what a jerk I had been and when the kid 
forgives me, it would just eat me alive. So that is one way of 
having your retribution, if it is retribution that you want.

Personally I can understand the rage, not mere anger, but *rage* 
that would drive someone to want retribution and to see the other 
suffer. However, I think that this lowers us as humans to the same 
level as the perpetrator. It is difficult to take the higher road, 
but it makes one a better person for doing so.  I have seen parents 
whose child was murdered, in a most horrable fashion, able to 
forgive the murderer. I have seen a group of people whose dearest 
friend was killed pray for the killer and really mean it. It was a 
shock to me at the time, over 25 years ago, but I have come to 
understand how this is the better thing. I think that Harry has it 
in him to be this type of person who can forgive not only Snape, but 
LV as well.

Tonks_op