Whose man is Snape -repost ( by Derannimer)/ Nope, no consensus on Snape

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 142606

Colebiancardi:

> whereas I think that Snape's behavior is not acceptable, I do think 
> that Harry threw the Snape is on the Good Side belief out the 
window 
> at the end of OotP.  Harry, despite DD's assurances that Snape was 
> working for the Order and did all he could have, WANTS to hate 
Snape -
>  Harry knows it is wrong, but he feels better about it.  Even in 
the 
> beginning of HBP, when Snape escorts Harry to Hogwarts, Harry's 
> hatred for Snape is overwhelming.  Harry is quick to think the 
worse 
> of Snape, regardless of what DD tells him.  He thinks the worse of 
> Snape at Christmas time, when he snoops on Snape's and Draco's 
> conversation - the first thought in Harry's head is that Snape is 
> still loyal to Voldemort.  Whereas Ron, Hermione, Arthur and Lupin 
> all state the obvious, which Harry refuses to see.
> 
> colebiancardi(who thinks that Harry & Snape's grudges towards each 
> other are about the same size by now)
>

Alla:

I think that is what Sherry meant - that Harry believed or tried to 
believe that Snape was on the side of good till the end of OOP. After 
Sirius' death Harry does hate Snape, no question about it.

I have to agree with Sherry - I remember Harry disliking Snape, but 
even when he thought that Snape was a villain, I do not remember 
Harry outright HATING him. Thinking that Snape hates Harry, yes, 
hating Snape - no. Of course I may forget something in canon and it 
may turn out that Harry indeed hated him earlier, but so far I don't 
remember it.

I have to agree with Sherry - I think in general Harry demonstrated 
more maturity towards Snape than Snape EVER did towards him. I am 
talking about cumulative behavior in all six books of course.

Oh, and of course it looks to me that everybody else missed the 
obvious about Snape, not Harry, but that is just me of course.

I think it will be a very good place to reintroduce  the post I was 
looking for a very long time.

Turns out it is in recommended posts. I should have known. :-)

For some reason I thought Annemehr was  the one who wrote it, but  it 
turns out that Derannimer is  the one.

The post was called " Whose man Snape?" The message number is 69563

In the beginning of the post she predicts that Snape was  the 
eavesdropper in Hogsmead ( me too :-)) and that Harry is going to 
react to this piece of news very badly. :-)

And here is a big quote from Deranimmer's post, which could be 
relevant.

"Harry's relationship to Snape at the end of OOP as basically a 
return to the
status quo,
it really represents, IMHO, a huge, bad change in Harry's attitude. 
Because
Harry
never really has *hated* Snape before. He's never really actively 
wished for his
ill. (Or
*wanted* him to be much worse than he was. C.S. Lewis once, 
chillingly,
described
hatred as ". . . to wish that black were a little bit blacker.") But 
I'd say
that Harry does
hate Snape now. And JKR really hits us over the head with it, doesn't 
she? "He
was
never going to forgive Snape, never?" I think she's clearly setting 
that up for
something Big; and I don't think that a gradual process of coming out 
of denial
is very
Big.

Or. . . Bangy.

So I started trying to think of possible reasons JKR really wanted 
Harry to hate
Snape.

1. The books are still too episodic to allow a big change in Harry 
and Snape's
relationship until Book Seven, and the end of the series.

I've seen this general idea expressed, but as I

A: Don't think it's accurate -- Harry and Snape's relationship *has* 
changed.

and

B: Don't want it to be accurate -- c'mon, JKR, surely you can do 
better than
that!

I am going to discount it for now.

2. JKR wants the reader to retain the ability to distrust Snape.

Eh. She surely could have done that more easily by just giving him a 
suspicious
subplot in a future book, wouldn't you think? And anyway, by 
*flagging* that
Harry
hates Snape, she makes us *less* likely to trust Harry's judgements 
about Snape,
not
more so. Or she does me, at any rate.

Which brings us to

3. It's a clever double bluff. The first four books she fooled us by 
having us
trust
Harry too much; now she's going to try and fool us by having us trust 
Harry too
little.
In other words, Severus Snape Is Ever So Evil. Harry's going to spend 
the whole
book
-- Six or Seven, take your pick, but I'd pick Six, if I had to pick 
one of them
-- but
anyway, Harry's going to spend the whole book being suspicious of 
Snape, and we
readers, or,

<Derannimer shoots another nasty look at Darrin.>

or *most* of us anyway, will be spending the whole book yelling at 
Harry to get
over
it already, Snape's not the bad guy, and Harry just thinks he is 
because he,
Harry,
hates him, Snape, a fact that JKR will have made very careful to 
continue
hitting us
over the head with.

Then it will turn out that Harry was right.

(And Darrin.)

Whoops.

(You think Derannimer is shooting nasty looks at Darrin *now*? Boy. 
You wait.)

I hate this explanation, needless to say. And it *does* seem a tad 
convoluted,
so
hopefully it may turn out not to be true.

4. JKR doesn't care so much about the readers retaining the ability 
to mistrust
Snape;
but she very much wants *Harry* to retain the ability to mistrust 
Snape.

This one is fairly self-explanatory, I think.

5. JKR is setting up Snape as a big moral challenge for Harry at some 
point in
the
series."

Alla:

Now, I cut large enough piece at the end too - not because I want to 
give anybody a wrong idea  about Derannimer's views - as she says she 
is not an ESE!Snape fan at all, on the contrary.

But simply because the main reason I quoted her post is to point out 
to her number 3 prediction.

I think it is the right one, personally. :-)



JMO,
Alla,
who thinks that Snape grudge will always be larger in size because he 
had more years to develop it, but wholeheartedly wishes that Harry 
would move past Snape and never looked back.