Emotions on their sleeves (WAS: Harry's emotions his strength or his weakness?)

[zeldaricdeau]

No: HPFGUIDX 141555

Alla wrote:

<SNIP>

> "Controlling his emotions" is a question of degree, IMO and
> actually I don't remember Snape saying that Harry should control
> his emotions, more like shutting them down, if I remember the gist
> of what he was saying during Occlumency lessons and I don't think
> that "shutting emotions down" is the way to go for Harry. Be a bit
> more in charge , maybe? Being cold and emotionless, I seriously
> doubt it.


Carol wrote: 

> > And Snape may not understand Harry at all, but he understands
> > Voldemort and the Death Eaters and what is needed to defeat
> > them. He is not asking Harry to operate on cold intellect, which
> > would be completely out of character. 
> <SNIP>


Alla responded:

> Sorry, after Snape speech in OOP I think that is precisely what he
> asked Harry to do. "Fools who wear their emotions on their sleeves"
> (paraphrase). 

<SNIP>

> so far I get the impression that Snape is asking Harry to get rid
> of them completely.


zeldaricdeau now:

I'd like to put forth my own take on Snape's advice to Harry. 

Snape's words are:

"Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot 
control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow 
themselves to be provoked this easily--weak people, in other words--
they stand no chance against his powers!" (OotP pg 536 American 
Deluxe Edition)

Apart from the fact that Snape is showing his own hypocrisy here--
after all, Snape, himself, is just as guilty as Harry of each of 
these things (IMO, of course)--I think the turn of phrase "wear 
their hearts proudly on their sleeves" is a significant one. To wear 
your heart on your sleeve is to let your feelings be plainly 
readable to anyone. In and of itself it implies that what Snape is 
warning Harry against is not the *feeling* of emotion but the 
*parading* of emotion. The latter is an act that may legitimately be 
a dangerous one when done around someone like Voldemort whose 
primary weapon, I would say, is his ability to discover and exploit 
people's emotional or psychological "weaknesses" so that he can 
manipulate them. 

In fact, to get pretty nitpicky and perhaps a little obtuse :), the 
verbs Snape chooses in this speech would seem to support 
the "control, not suppress" interpretation. 

1.) "wear" -- here used to imply displaying something out in the open
2.) "control" -- the actual word "control" is used
3.) "wallow" -- implying a selfish excess of emotions or self-pity?
4.) "allow" -- a word filled with connotations of passive acceptance

To my mind, none of these equate to "having or feeling emotions is a 
weakness" but rather to a kind of "laying all your emotional cards 
out on the table is just inviting people like Voldemort to come and 
manipulate you." Snape might as well be giving Harry advice about 
playing poker: you have to be careful about what you reveal and you 
can't "wear your cards on your sleeves."

In fact, I would say that Harry, through the course of HBP, began to 
learn this lesson on his own. Harry seems a bit like myself in how 
hard-headed he can be when it comes to advice. He has to be bitten 
by the snake before he will really trust that it is dangerous. I 
think that the experience of Sirius's death led him to unconsciously 
gain a bit more of this control, to the point that he is actually 
able to do a little manipulation of his own on Slughorn in order to 
obtain the unaltered memory.

Not that I hope Harry will become Snape. Favorite character of mine 
Snape may be, but he's not what I would set forth as anyone's role 
model :-).

I agree that it will be love and Harry's immense capacity for it 
that will defeat Voldemort in the end, but in what form? Perhaps 
love in the hands of a Harry with a better sense of self-control and 
a will strong enough to direct it will be a deadlier weapon than 
love unbridled. Could love directed by will be the connection 
between love and choice, two of JKRs main themes?

-ZR