Harry's rapport with the HBP

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 162855

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sherry Gomes" <sherriola at ...>
wrote:
>
> Carol:
> > And all the time, throughout the book, there's the parallel motif of 
> > the Half-blood Prince, who improves Potions and invents clever spells 
> > and reminds Harry of Snape's lesson on Bezoars, an unknown teenage
boy 
> > whom Harry sees as a friend, who helps him out in many ways--and
turns 
> > out to be Snape. But at the end of the book, all Harry sees is Snape 
> > as murderer of Dumbledore.
> 
> Jen: I believe Harry identifies with that boy and that will be
important for
> his own compassion, but it says more about who Snape was & what he lost,
> imo. 
> 
> 
> Sherry now:
> 
> I actually want to take this thread in a different direction.  I was
very
> uncomfortable with Harry's attachment and fascination with the half
Blood
> Prince, up to the time we discovered the prince's identity.  I was right
> there with Hermione, distrusting the Prince and the book very much.  My
> reactions had nothing to do with the potions part of it all.  I was
> concerned with the way Harry reacted.  The trying out of the jinxes on
> unsuspecting people and all that.  

wynnleaf
The first thing that struck me about the Prince was that this was the
first time we were seeing a student really acting with very strong
creativity in actually *changing* the "established" methods of magic
and creating new and better methods.  Of course, I mean in potions. 
The fact that Hermione disliked that basically made me suspicious of
*all* of Hermione's opinions about the HBP notes.  In other words, I
got the impression that not only did she resent Harry getting credit
for work that was not her own, I felt she was jealous of someone else
(the HBP) achieving so much better results than *her* when she
followed the instructions to the letter and this other unknown person
was being innovative.  So basically, when I first read the book I
thought Hermione was jealous of the Prince and therefore had an
ulterior motive for criticizing the notes.  So I just didn't care too
much what Hermione thought of the Prince.

As for the spells in the book, Harry was learning lots of benign
spells like levicorpus or Muffliato.  And the jinxes and hexes were
pretty innocuous, too, like the one to grow toenails.  I mean, the
kids did far worse than that in the corridors, so creating one's own
mild jinx didn't seem to me bad at all.  I just thought that here were
more examples of this person's extreme creativity and innovation.

Sherry
I felt like the real Harry was slipping
> away, being swallowed up by the Prince.  I didn't think the
fascination was
> healthy and I didn't see the Prince as a good friend or good
influence on
> Harry.  

wynnleaf
I didn't see the Prince as either a friend or an influence (although
Harry liked him), nor did I think of Harry as being taken over by the
Prince.  That would be more like Ginny and the Riddle diary in COS. 
But with Harry, what I was most conscious of was that he was trying to
take the Prince's work and pretend it was his own.  This really
bothered me.  It wasn't so much the cheating aspect (getting good
marks for work that wasn't his).  It was the stealing from another
person without acknowledging their work -- even if he didn't know the
real name.  It wasn't, to me, like the Prince was swallowing Harry,
but more (if one used that metaphor), like Harry was trying to swallow
the Prince.

Sherry
The discovery of the identity of the Prince didn't make me think any
> better of Snape at all either.  It made me feel that Snape wasn't a very
> nice person as a boy, anymore than he is as an adult.  Didn't anyone
else
> feel uncomfortable with the effects the absorption in the book had on
> Harry's development throughout the book HBP?

wynnleaf
Since mostly what Harry did was steal from the Prince's innovative,
creative and mostly very useful work, I didn't think of the Prince's
notes as negatively affecting Harry.  To me, it more was a revelation
of just how far Harry might be willing to go -- even to the point of
stealing the work of someone else for his own benefit.

When I realized it was Snape's work, I *did* think better about Snape.
 Not so much new knowledge about Snape -- I would have assumed he was
that creative/innovative.  But I liked seeing it confirmed.  Plus,
Slughorn was making so much mention of how much "Harry's" work seemed
like Lily's that I was feeling throughout the book that Lily might
have known the Prince.  Once I found it was Snape, it was just a nice
added weight to the possibility that they had known each other as friends.

Sherry
  The feeling Harry had for the
> prince, till he learned his identity, does not make me think any
better of
> Snape, because the Prince seemed to be pretty unpleasant.  

wynnleaf
Except for Sectumsempra, I don't get this at all.  Toenail hexes
sounded like the Prince must be bad?  Muffliato? Levicorpus?  Sorry,
it sounded pretty benign compared to the kind of stuff even the Trio
was willing to do to others.  

Sectumsempra was clearly labeled "for enemies."  It was pretty obvious
that even the Prince thought of it as extreme compared to his other
spells, as he didn't label the others in that way.  Further, while it
*is* a Dark spell, who did he actually use it on in Hogwarts?  He may
have used a small controlled version on James in 5th year.  But do we
have any reports of Snape causing the kind of injury to anyone like
Harry did Draco?  McGonagall seemed to think injuring a student with
that sort of spell was an offense worthy of expulsion.  Did Snape use
it on anyone at Hogwarts?  Seems doubtful that he did anything as
injurious as Harry did with it.  For whatever reasons he had created
it, it doesn't seem like he was going around Hogwarts slashing people
to ribbons or he'd have been expelled.

Sherry
It also helped to
> resolve some issues about James for me, because it didn't seem that
Snape
> was an innocent victim, being bullied and picked on by mean old James.
> Looked to me as if James  and Snape gave as good as they got to each
other,
> and nobody really comes out looking too good.  

wynnleaf
Well, we have not yet seen the evidence of whatever Snape supposedly
did to the Marauders that was "as good as he got."  We didn't see it
in the pensieve scene and we were not told of any Snape detentions in
Filch's detention files.  Yes, he *may* have given "as good as he
got," but so far there is no real evidence of it.  Like I said, if
he'd used Sectumsempra, in the manner Harry did, on anyone at Hogwarts
he'd probably have been expelled.  What other spells that he created
would "give as good as he got?"  Growing James toenails long?

Sherry, I'm very curious about *why* you thought the Prince's work
(excluding Sectemsempra) indicated an unpleasant person??  I assume
that you would *not* consider the Trio unpleasant, yet throughout the
books they have used much less benign or innocuous spells on other
students, than the ones Snape created as a teenager.  So what was in
about the Prince's work you found so objectionable?  Obviously I don't
mean Sectumsempra, but I gathered from your comments that you felt
that way well before that spell was revealed.

wynnleaf