Harry IS Snape!

kiricat4001 zarleycat at sbcglobal.net
Mon Oct 3 12:24:14 UTC 2005


No: HPFGUIDX 141080

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, juli17 at a... wrote:
> Anyway, back to my theory, and to teenage Snape. We know that
> teenage Snape *loathed* James Potter. Really, REALLY loathed 
> him. He gave James no latitude, no free passes, nothing. Not  even
> when James saved his life. He dismissed that act as self-serving,
> even as a deliberate manipulation that put Snape in James's  debt. 
> I think we can say Snape would have been perfectly content  for
> James to die, and when James *did* die, it's doubtful he shed any 
> tears at all. In fact, he probably cursed James, as he tells Harry 
> with fury that James was too arrogant to listen to him. (Note that
> being content for James to die does not mean Snape wanted to
> murder James, just as Harry doesn't want to murder Snape--at
> least not in Chapter 8--just that each would be happy to see their
> respective nemesis's dead and gone forever. Or so they think.)

> The catch with Snape, of course, is that Snape never grew out of
> his hatred of James. A hatred that was always out of proportion to
> James's crimes. (Especially since it's reasonable to assume that
> Snape was as guilty as James in their back and forth cursing and 
> hexing attacks). James may have hexed and humiliated Snape, but
> he grew out of it. And even after that, Snape still insisted on  
seeing
> James as the same arrogant bully, despite the fact that James quit
> hexing students (probably including Snape), and was good enough 
> to be loved by a woman the caliber of Lily Evans. And despite  the
> fact that James fought and died protecting Lily and their son, an  
act
> that would have some mitigating effect on most people's  opinions.


Marianne:
As always, an interesting post.  However, where in this view of 
Snape, does Snape's tale of remorse come in?  If he has firmly held 
onto his hatred of James from school age through the present, (which 
I agree he has, like a barnacle to a hull) then it seems like the 
remorse he told Dumbledore about is a somewhat selective remorse, if 
indeed it existed at all. And for me, that still calls into question 
how much Snape can be believed. Of course, DD could have been 
selectvie when he told Harry that tale which implied that James was 
one of the people Snape felt remorse about. Maybe that was just a 
little, white lie. :-)








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