Harry's "arrogance" (Was: Evil Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154263

Pippin wrote:
> > No, it's not deliberately misleading, but it's still arrogant and
wrong. Crouch Sr. didn't think he was putting an innocent man in
prison when he sent Sirius off to Azkaban without a trial. He was just
so certain of his assumptions that he didn't see any point in letting
them be questioned. I'm sure that is  part of the point Rowling is
getting at: that many  more people do evil by carelessly assuming they
are right than by deliberately setting out to do wrong. 
<snip>
> >
Renee responded:
> You're right, Harry's wrong to misrepresent Dumbledore's words, but
I still fail to see why this is arrogant. Harry ignores the
possibility that he's missed something, that Dumbledore's assessment
of Snape was correct, not because he's an arrogant prick who thinks
he's always, right, but because he insists on believing the worst of
Snape. I'd rather call this bias or prejudice. Harry is also
judgmental (and not just in this scene) and needs to learn to reserve
judgement until he's got all the facts. But to me, that's not the same
as arrogance. I've looked up a dictionary definition of the term, and
I don't think it describes Harry Potter:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/arrogance
>
Carol notes:
True, that definition doesn't describe Harry. It sounds more like the
young Sirius Black, or his cousin Bellatrix at her sentencing. But how
about this one, from Merriam-Webster Online: "a feeling or an
impression of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or
presumptuous claims"?

Surely Harry is making "presumptuous claims" about Snape here and
elsewhere, just as he blames Snape (to himself) for "goading" Sirius
Black into going to the MoM? That same presumption that Snape is
guilty and evil goes back to SS/Ps. It should have been eradicated by
Snape's attempts to thwart Quirrell and by his saving Harry's from
Quirrell's countercurse, but it wasn't. (Not that Snape isn't guilty
of arrogance himself. His words about James Potter, "Too arrogant to
believe he might be wrong about Black," are ironic in context given
that he's the one who's wrong, at least about the identity of Black's
intended victim in PoA.) 

No one is calling Harry a "prick" or even a "berk" like his father,
but he's guilty of the same sort of presumption, and here I *would*
call it arrogance, in refusing to listen to Hermione when she tells
him how unlikely it is that LV would be torturing Black in the MoM at
five o'clock in the afternoon. His scar hurts a little, he just had a
vision like the one he had of Mr. Weasley, which saved Mr. Weasley's
life; therefore, he must be right and Hermione's logic and common
sense must be wrong. And though he isn't "doing evil" through his
absolute certainty that he's right and his unwillingness to listen to
Hermione, he does bring his friends into great danger (after
arrogantly assuming that Neville, Ginny, and Luna would be
useless)--he realizes when Hermione lies struck by Dolohov's evil
spell that he will be at fault if she dies--and he does indirectly
bring about Sirius Black's death when Black decides to join the rescue
mission. No, he didn't kill his godfather or want him dead, but if
he'd listened to Hermione instead of arrogantly assuming that he was
right, his godfather would still be alive. Harry knows this, but he
can't bring himself to believe it, so he arrogantly (or
presumptuously, if you prefer) blames Snape.

Harry is learning, a year at a time, to be less judgmental and
presumptuous (he's made huge leaps with regard to Neville and Luna),
but he's still assuming that he's right and Dumbledore is wrong with
regard to Snape. I think the incident in which Harry misreports what
DD has told him about Snape's repentance (and, yes, I know he's
distraught, but he's also blinded by prejudice and preconceptions) is
 there for a reason. We're supposed to note his inaccuracy, just as we
can't help but see that he's wrong about Snape torturing him into
insanity (a blatant misconception that's shoved into our faces).

Arrogant or not, Harry assumes that he's right, a tendency that may be
strengthened in Book 7 by his partial correctness about Draco and his
seeming correctness about Snape. The evidence of Snape's guilt seems
overwhelming--but so did the evidence against Sirius Black, and Harry
himself was presumed guilty of Petrifying Justin Finch-Fletchley and
even of somehow killing Cedric. I have a feeling that he's going to
learn one last valuable lesson about the presumption of guilt and the
assumption of evil, about the certainty that he's right and Dumbledore
is wrong. He's gone a good distance down the road toward Wisdom, as I
said in another post, but he's not there yet.

Carol, who doesn't want the word "arrogance" to get in the way of the
point that Harry needs to stop assuming that he's always right and
start listening to other people, rather than ignoring them when they
say what he doesn't want to hear