good and bad Slytherins/Disappointment and Responsibility

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 175435

Nora wrote:
<snip>
> She's responding to the last bit of your argument--she's saying that
she's seen *the argument* that it was a forgiveable mistake because
Snape was under a lot of stress.
> 
> I can't speak for Alla's perception, but I find Carol's post here to
certainly be readable that way:
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/172726
> 
> "...and the worst memory has to be, as the LOLLIPOPS people have
always argued, because he slipped and called her a Mudblood and she
refused to forgive him even when he slept outside the Gryffindor
common room and abjectly begged her to do so."
 <snip>

Carol responds:

For the record, this is an early interpretation of mine. The revised
version can be found at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/173304

For the record, I am still formulating my interpretations of this book
and I hope that others are, as well. I am also attempting to be
objective, so I concede SSS's point in another thread that love for
sirius black helped Harry to overcome voldemort's possession of him in
the MoM. I was, however, thinking of the contributions of the living
Sirius, which, unfortunately, included subverting the Occlumency
lessons and helping to increase Harry's distrust of Snape. 

As a plot device, Black's death served mostly, IMO, to increase
Harry's hatred of Snape, paving the way for the "murder" at the end of
HBP, when Harry's desire for vengeance focuses on Snape as much as on
Voldemort. His blaming of Snape for black's death surely parallels
snape's blaming of Black for the Potters' death. Neither wants to
admit his own share of the blame. And, before anyone jumps on me, I am
not comparing Harry's foolishness in believing Voldemort's planted
vision to young Snape's revelation of the Prophecy to Voldemort. One
was a mistake, the other a crime. What is similar, IMO, is the
scapegoating of an enemy to relieve the overpowering guilt and
self-recrimination.

Snape's memories, I think, help Harry to see the many similarities
between himself and Snape, and, as SSS said in the "Of Sorting and
snape" thread, "With Snape giving Harry so much -- so much more than
he 'had' to -- he gave Harry the full story, the truth, something that
Harry had been **craving** throughout the story. It's part of why
Harry was so angry with DD -- all those things DD did not share, did
not show or tell him about, the truth lacking parts of itself. But
here was Snape, of all people, giving Harry All Of It."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/175370

FWIW, I made a similar point in my posts on Harry's cleansed
perception and Harry as Seeker posts. 

Regarding Snape, I see him as a flawed human being and not the saint
I've been accused of seeing. He has a great deal in common with Sirius
Black, but even more, I think, with Harry, as Harry realized when he
viewed the Pensieve memories. The key point, I think, is not his
failings, including becoming a DE in the first place and revealing the
Prophecy to LV, much less any petty vindictiveness on the part of a
bitter man who was his own worst enemy, but his atonement, his
redemption, and Harry's forgiveness and understanding of a man he once
had hated.

Since I'm out of posts for the day, I'll mention something that
doesn't really belong here but which is on my mind, anyway. DH is the
first HP book ever in which I have identified and empathized with
Harry--not, of course, in his desire for vengeance on Snape, which,
IMO, he had to lose before being willing to sacrifice himself for the
WW, an act not of vengeance but of love, but with his self-doubts and
his momentary delusion that the united Hallows were the answer, and
his doubts of Dumbledore and his moments of compassion, especially for
Molly Weasley when she gave him Fabian's watch. Those human moments
made me care more for him than I ever have before, much more than I
ever cared about Quidditch matches or Harry the celebrity being
alternately lauded and censured by the whole school or even the WW at
large or his detentions or point dockings or monsters in his chest or
his various fallings out with Ron or Hermione.

Carol, whose post was interrupted by a phone call and who has now
completely lost her train of thought