Harry's hatred of Snape

[chrusotoxos]

No: HPFGUIDX 153836

Hi!

I think that line was farmore general than you take it.
The first half is factual (You're determined to hate him) and true - well, Snape has done his 
bit to be hated by Harry, but as we see very well in Book 6, Harry sees the world in black 
and white, and this is dangerous...he was right for Draco Malfoy, but even Sirius said (and 
Umbridge is the proof) that we can't dislike people just because they're different from us.
The second part is general (You've inherited it from your father) meaning, according to 
me, something like this: James too rushed into things, and he loved or hated without 
measures and without reason. James would learn to be an Animagus to help Lupin, and 
believe his friend Peter when not even DD had faith in him, but he would also torment and 
hate Snape even two on one (like in the lake episode). So the idea is not "you have a weird 
genetical legacy against him", but "you're acting like your father", which, as Harry has 
understood, is not always the best option.
As for his hate for Snape...I think it was well constructed from the start, and I'm sure that a 
duel with Snape must precede the final duel; and in his first duel Harry HAS to understand 
that hatred will take him nowhere: through this duel he'll learn to pity Snape or die at his 
hands, because in the end he'll have to pity Voldemort. Harry will win through love, not 
through hatred; remember how DD was interested after Merope's story, when he asked 
"Would it be possible for you to pity Tom Riddle?". That's the key, IMO.





--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kateydidnt2002" <kateydidnt2002 at ...> wrote:
>
> If this has been address already specifically I apologize and would 
> ask if anyone would be so kind as to point me in the right direction. 
> 
> One of the things that bugged me most in *Half-Blood Prince* is the 
> conversation with Lupin around Christmas ( I believe that was when it 
> was) where in Lupin says something to the effect of "You're 
> determined to hate Snape and you inherited it from your father." 
> (Sorry my book is not with me at the moment.)
> 
> WHAT?!?!
> 
> How on earth does this line make sense at all? Harry was 15 months 
> old when his father died. His one memory of his father was the night 
> he died. Other than the physical genetic inheritance he got from his 
> father, he couldn't get much else from him because he doesn't 
> remember him! There is no such thing as a genetic predisposition to 
> hate person X. Harry later learned of the animosity between Snape and 
> James at the end of book one in his discussion with Dumbledore. Note 
> this: Harry's dislike of Snape started about ten months earlier.
> 
> Harry did not in any way inherit James' dislike of Snape--Snape 
> managed to engender that all on his own. The only thing Harry 
> inherited from his father with regards to Snape was *Snape's* hatred 
> of anything Potter--not the other way around as Lupin seems to be 
> saying.
> 
> Added to this conundrum of why this line in particular is in the 
> books is that one of the overarching theme of the whole series of the 
> is the importance of choices. As Dumbledore says in book two "It is 
> your choices, far more than your abilities that determine who you 
> are." Even in book six Dumbledore berates Harry for putting too much 
> faith in the prophecy--emphasizing that it is Harry's choices that 
> make the prophecy what it is, *not vice versa*. Notice the people who 
> are obsessed with traits, rather than choices,  being the determiner 
> of worth are Voldemort (I am Slytherin's heir, therefore I must be 
> evil), his Death Eaters (all muggles, muggleborns, and muggle lovers 
> are bad), and Snape (I hate all things Potter).
> 
> So why was this line put in?
>