The Powerful Slytherin (Re: Snape/Harry coincidence?)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 140669

(Replies to Saraquel and Betsy Hp here)
Saraquel: 
> Harry has not yet understood, as DD has understood, the power that 
> resides within him and its uniqueness.  Yes, Jen, no need to 
> wonder where I'm going back to on this one :-)  I think that you
> are right about the examples of power that have been in Harry's 
> life and his rejection of them on the one hand, but resorting to
> those same dark magic powers on the other when he is threatened or
> feels powerless.  Because, I don't think he dares to trust to 
> love, and has no concept of what love really might be, or what its 
> power might be.

Jen: We've devoted ourselves to an entire threads on the power Harry 
has, and it's more confusing than ever. Now I know how Harry feels! 
Dumbledore seemed to be saying Harry has never been tempted by evil, 
so there must be something still to come--what would Harry's 
weakness be, his anger toward Snape? The dark curses? You get the 
feeling he has something left to overcome because he *doesn't* 
understand love.

<Snipping here about the tower scene because I agree and can't add 
much. Very well said. Harry's anger *and* fear are stoked now.>

Saraquel: 
> There is only one place that Harry is going to be able to see the 
> power of love in action and understand what it is, and what it
> means and that is GH. <snipping> But in a sense, Harry already
> knows what happened, he knows that his mother's love caused an AK
> to rebound, but he cannot have any real concept of how or why it
> happened. <snipping> I think that the protection of Lily's love is
> an actual something that is in Harry, and that Harry will see that
> power enter him when his mother dies. This is the only 
> place he will be able to get proof that love alone saved him from 
> the AK.

Jen: This is really lovely. Sometimes I forget how our abstract 
feelings can have a magical equivalent in the WW. Lily must be the 
remaining person who has something very important to teach Harry. 
I'm tending toward her over Snape now, because of what you said 
here. The outcome will relate to Snape, but perhaps the learning 
part won't.

Saraquel:
> Having power is such a scary thing.  To have power without love,
> and no sense of good and evil, is to have power without
> responsibility, which is what Voldemort has and it leads only to
> pain.  I must admit, that I have always found it somewhat
> unbelievable that Voldemort has any followers whatsoever, the way 
> he treats them.  We have yet to see Voldemort, showing anything 
> other than cruelty.  As Riddle, we saw him exert his charm, but
> that seems to have gone now. 

Jen: More than an insignificant number of DE's still believe 
Voldemort's agenda is purification of the WW. Dumbledore and Harry 
know it's actually his obsession with immortality, but I think many 
see him as a vehicle for their own agenda. Dangerous if they ever 
figure out his real quest.

Saraquel: 
> For Harry, who has a very deep sense of responsibility, power is a 
> very frightening thing.  To wield power, is to make decisions
> which have consequences.  We have already seen him struggling with
> this.  
<snipping>
> Harry was terrified of the use of his power with the sectumsempra 
> spell.  His remorse was palpable. And here we are again, back to 
> choices!  Harry has to learn to trust his own judgement.
<snipping>
> But we are watching Harry edging towards taking out 
> Snape.  Even if you believe Snape is ESE, does that give Harry the 
> right to pass judgement on him and take him out at the next 
> opportunity? For most of us Snape is ambiguous.  

Jen: No, he absolutely can't take matters into his own hands here. 
He'll come to that, it's just who he is. We may be back to what will 
tempt him though, and it looks like righteous fury. Harry *so* has 
the right to want to see Snape dead, especially after he found out 
about his parents. It's a dead-end though, it's what would tip the 
scale and move him down the path....gosh, you know what I just 
wondered? I started to say he would move down the same path Snape 
did, and caught myself wondering, why *did* Snape move in that 
direction? He and Harry weren't so different when Snape was the HBP. 
Something changed for him--was righteous fury his motivation as well?

Betsy Hp touches on this, so I'll cut her in here:
> Betsy Hp:
> Which is doubly strange when contrasted with his view of the half-
> blood Prince.  When has Harry *ever* connected so completely with
> a book?  He follows the Prince's advice in everything.  Even when
> one of his spells nearly leads to Harry murdering a classmate,
> Harry defends the Prince.   
> 
> To tie this back in to the parallel between Snape and Harry that 
> the books seem to have drawn, I wonder if Harry doesn't see 
> himself in Snape and not like what he sees?  Hmm, I might be
> taking things too far but...oh what the hell <g>.  

Jen: I don't think you're going too far ;). If JKR truly does like 
Jung and incorporates his work in HP, then I see Snape as being 
Harry's Shadow-self, the part of himself he rejects and projects on 
to Snape, mainly. Harry truly hates Draco and sees few redeeming 
qualities because they are so different, but he and Snape aren't so 
far apart. They are both different from the other students, both 
understand what it feels like to be bullied (canon from OOTP), both 
know what an emotionally impoverished home feels like (assumption 
there), and most important, both are trusted by Dumbledore. The HBP 
wasn't so different from Ron & Harry--weren't most of those potion 
enhancements and spells 'pretty cool' more than scary or evil? 
Personally, I think Hermione was wrong about the HBP and 
doesn't 'get' him. We've seen her do this with Quidditch, too, there 
are things she dismisses because she doesn't understand their value.

Betsy Hp:
> And, from the first book onward, two adults Harry unquestionably 
> trusts (and even loves, I think) tell Harry that Snape is one of 
the 
> good guys, and Harry utterly dismisses them.  Even the weight of 
> Dumbledore's and Hagrid's opinion cannot shake Harry from his 
> conviction that Snape is the sum of everything wrong in the WW.

Jen: I forgot about Hagrid, although his loyalty to Snape is a bit 
questionable seeing as he thinks DD can do no wrong. Still, he's 
maintained his same stance for 6 books now and had the most doubt 
about what happened in HBP.

Betsy Hp:
> Snape's contempt for Neville is rather matched by Harry, I think.  
> Harry has always (up to the end of OotP, anyway) seen Neville as 
> somewhat pathetic.  I wonder if part of his anger at Snape's 
> treatment of Neville isn't based partially on his own desire to 
> shake the stupid off the boy.  Snape expresses frustration at 
> Hermione's know-it-allness; the very same frustration Harry often 
> feels. Harry thinks Snape is far too attached to the dark arts,
> but Harry seems to be having his own little love affair with the
> Crucio curse (if at first you don't succeed?).  Harry worries that
> Sirius may be loosing it, Snape quite helpfully proves that he is.

Jen: This is curious to me. I see elements of what you say here in 
Harry, maybe not to the same extent you do, but it makes me wonder 
again why their paths diverged so radically. I *really* don't see 
evidence in the books that Snape's love of the dark arts was the 
primary factor leading to Voldemort. If so, JKR wouldn't have had 
Hermione compare Snape's opening day DADA speech to Harry's DA 
lessons! If she wants us to see their differences, why give us so 
many similarities? I'm sure that's a rhetorical question for you :). 
Well, unless she really is going for the idea Snape took that road 
and is still *on* that road, and Harry's Herculean task will be to 
keep from following.


> Betsy Hp:
> Perhaps, once Harry sees Snape as a whole, sees the good side to 
the man, he'll recognize the good side to himself?  I'm probably not 
> making any kind of sense, but if Snape represents everything Harry 
> fears about himself, maybe confronting those fears will provide 
> Harry with a new understanding of himself.  If he finally sees 
> Snape with Lily's eyes (as you spoke of, Jen, in the part I 
> snipped) maybe he'll finally see himself through his mother's eyes
> too.  And that might be where that "power the dark lord knows not"
> resides.  Especially when you see how Voldemort treated *his*
> father figures.  Couldn't kill them fast enough, it seems.  And if
> he couldn't kill them, he ran from them.

Jen: Maybe I've jumped too quickly into the "Harry left behind his 
father figures" boat, because this rings true for me. Harry will 
either see the good in Snape, or the dark in himself, or both at 
essentially the same time. What you're saying here relates to 
Saraquel's thoughts above, I think. 

(Well, thanks you guys for helping me sort this out a bit! I'm sure 
some other sparks of thought will keep this going for another what, 
year and 9 months or so?!?)

Jen