CHAPDISC: HBP24, Sectumsempra

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 161233

> Carol:
> 12. Harry apparently feels only anger and resentment as he 
undergoes 
> his detention, with no thought of the reasons why Snape assigned 
it. 
> What has happened to Harry's horror and remorse? Has he forgotten 
his 
> own wrongdoing? What, if anything, might Snape have done to make 
this 
> detention (and its sequels) more effective?
> 
> Ceridwen:
> I don't think he's forgotten his horror or remorse.  I think this 
is 
> his way of protecting himself against overwhelming feelings of 
> guilt.  Having Snape assign the punishment made this easier, but I 
> think he would have used this defense mechanism no matter who set 
his 
> detentions.

a_svirn:
It just occurred to me that though it *should* have been easy for 
Harry to channel his guilt into resentment after Snape assigned that 
particular detention, somehow it wasn't. Paradoxically enough Harry 
simply couldn't counter Snape's spitefulness, because he knows 
pathetically little about his own parents. He should have been able 
to say (if not out loud, at least to himself): no one but yourself, 
*Sir*, remembers my father's childish misdemeanors; it is by his 
other deeds he is best remembered. Yet what does Harry know about 
James, except that he was an excellent flyer and, let us say 
diplomatically, a troublemaker at school, and joined the OOP 
afterwards? Virtually nothing. (And even less so about Lilly). In 
HBP he even indulges in a strange form of escapism fantasizing about 
James and inventing him as HBP instead of trying to learn about the 
real man. And Harry had had an ample opportunity to ask any question 
he liked in OOP, since he had spent his all vacations with Sirius 
and Remus. He hadn't, though. He doesn't know anything about his 
father's profession, his character, his hobbies, he even seemed to 
be unaware of the fact that James was pureblood. When in POA Venon 
clamed that James was unemployed and Marge apostrophized him as 
a "good-for-nothing lazy scrounger" Harry was "shaking all over" 
from anger, but does he know differently even now? It seems almost 
as if he doesn't want to know.