Would Harry forgiving Snape be character growth for him? Re: CHAPDISC: HBP 29,

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164185

Magpie wrote:
> <snip> Harry wouldn't be wiser than Dumbledore. He's based his
belief that Snape is working for Voldemort not on wisdom but on anger.
Understandable anger, but anger that makes him *unwise.* It makes him
look for evidence that supports what he wants to be true, and it
doesn't come from his heart or the still portion of his mind, but his
angry desire for Snape to be wholly evil. <snip>

Alla replied:
> But that is what I am trying to say and obviously not saying well.
If Harry is right about Snape, he does not need to go and look for 
additional evidence, the evidence is right  there, in front of him, 
starting from Snape treating Harry like dirt in the classroom and 
escalating to Harry learning ( he did not go looking for this one 
either, it came to him, lol) that he gave Prophecy to Voldemort and 
going to the peak of it on the Tower. So, I guess I disagree that
Harry based his belief that Snape works for LV based on anger. Oh, as
we all know Harry is really, really, really angry with Snape, but he
is angry because of what happened, so I am trying to say that Harry's
wisdom in this situation may be shown as **seeing** clearly of what is
happening around him in this situation. Not that he has those
extraordinary powers of perception, just that he does not close his
eyes to the obvious, as Dumbledore did, if Snape is not loyal to him.
 
Carol responds to both:
And yet Harry's belief that Snape is working for Voldemort begins in
SS/PS when he believes, based solely on his dislike of a mean teacher
and some partially overheard and misinterpreted conversations, that
Snape is trying to steal the Sorceror's Stone. He thinks (perhaps
rightly, perhaps not) that Snape hates him, but he doesn't yet hate
Snape. He certainly doesn't yet feel the anger and the desire to blame
Snape for everything that we first see in OoP, the result, as far as I
can see, of Sirius Black's death. (I won't go into why he focuses on
blaming Snape, but he finds it satisfying to do so, much more so than
examining the situation objectively and acknowledging his own role and
Black's, or blaming those who are primarily at fault, Bellatrix,
voldemort, and Kreacher.) But in SS/PS, he's assuming that Snape is
after the Stone, and that Snape tried to kill him, based on
appearances and a general suspicion of Slytherin House. (He does the
same thing, with more excuse given Draco's remarks about Mudbloods,
with Draco Malfoy in CoS when he assumes that Draco is the Heir of
Slytherin.) 

Harry is not yet angry, and he suffers no lasting harm or even
resentment from Snape's exposure of his ignorance in the first Potions
lesson. (Fortunately, the part about Bezoars remains in the back of
his mind!) but he assumes, wrongly, that Snape made his scar hurt, and
that Snape's favoritism of the Slytherins somehow makes him
Voldemort's man. (Hagrid's misleading remark that all Dark wizards
come from Slytherin is partly to blame here.) Harry assumptions are
not based on wisdom or on natural superiority to Dumbledore in judging
character. He completely misreads Quirrell, smiling encouragingly to
him in the hallway. When Harry learns the truth, he seems to forget
Quirrell's words ("Of course he hates you, but he doesn't want you
dead!") or something to that effect and remembers, not that Snape
saved his life, but that Snape hated his father and his father saved
Snape's life, to Snape's lasting resentment, when they were boys.
Dumbledore's simplistic explanation, that Snape worked so hard that
year to protect Harry because of the debt he owed James, is apparently
sufficient from Harry's perspective. Harry seems not to realize that
Snape continues to protect him, trying to prevent him from going to
Hogsmeade, for example, and conjuring the stretchers to get him and
his friends off the grounds, away from werewolves and Dementors, in PoA.

I don't think that Harry's near-sightedness, symbolized by his
glasses, is merely physical. He really has trouble seeing what's in
front of him, whether it's a DE disguised as a friend (Crouch!Junior)
or the strange similarity between the Hog's Head barman and Aberforth
Dumbledore, the Order member in the old photograph. Nor does he figure
out the obvious candidate for the identity of the HBP despite having
had him as a teacher for six years. (He's not the only one, of course;
Ron is blind to his attraction to Hermione for almost six books. Not
being able to see what's in front of us is a natural state for most
people. "Bind, Trotwood! Blind!" says Aunt Bestsy in "David
Copperfield," and she, old and crotchety though she is, turns out to
be right.)

At any rate, Harry tends, even in HBP, to judge by appearances, and in
HBP, appearances seem to confirm his judgment for the first time in
the books. However, HBP is only the first half of a two-part book, and
I'll be very surprised if Harry, who has been wrong so often, turns
out to be wiser than Dumbledore from the age of eleven, and to have
learned nothing about judging people and things based on more than
appearance in seven books. 

Alla:
> 
> Yes, what I said as well – certainly not extraordinary powers of
perception, but just not closing his eyes and um, of course if Snape 
treated him differently Harry would not have thought about him that
way. He would have no reasons too. Observe fake Moody, certainly Harry
did not see his evilness because of Moody treating him nicely. There
was no **obviousness** in Fake Moody behavior IMO, and who knows maybe
in case of Snape it would be obvious.

Carol responds:
I doubt it, simply because Snape is anything but obvious in his
loyalties. If he were genuinely ESE, he would conceal his antipathy to
Harry and try to get close to him as Fake!Moody did. If snape gained
Dumbledore's trust intending to betray him, wouldn't it make sense to
gain Harry's trust, too? (Snape can be surprisingly polite and
considerate when he wants to, as we see in "Spinner's End" with
Narcissa.) I see no advantage in an evil Snape letting his dislike of
Harry show so blatantly. But DDM!Snape can show the Slytherins,
especially the DEs' children, from day one that the Boy Who Lived is
no Dark wizard in the making for them to rally around, just an
ordinary Muggle-raised kid who knows less than they do about magic.
(It's a strategic advantage to have the other side underestimate your
strength.) which is not to say that he doesn't get pleasure out of
needling Harry, as he certainly does.
> 
Alla:
> In fact, members of the Order looking like total idiots (IMO) with 
> theirs we trusted him because DD did, may hint IMO that JKR really 
> wants Harry not to be like them in years to come, IMO of course.

Carol:
Or they may turn out to have been right because Dumbledore was right,
in which case, they're "total idiots" for losing faith in Snape (and
in DD's judgment) so quickly. (Of course, they have Dumbledore's death
and Harry's version of events to seemingly corroborate that view, so
it wouldn't really be idiotic, just natural, but it would still be
wrong if Snape is DDM.
> 
Alla:
> Having said all that though, I must say that IF Snape is not fully
DD!M and Harry would be at least partially right about his nature, I 
strongly suspect that JKR would not place much importance on Harry 
being wiser than DD or something like that. I think that would be
shown as unfortunate thing, that is just happened and Harry forgiving
that Snape too. And Harry would be shown as accepting DD lessons in
forgiveness and/or mercy LOL and giving the bastard third or fourth
chance.

Carol:
I'm quite sure that Harry is right about Snape's not being a nice
person and not always being fair in his point deductions and
detentions. But that has nothing to do with his loyalties, which I
think are the key to Harry's forgiveness of Snape. If Snape killed
Dumbledore *for Dumbledore*, because to do otherwise would have been
disastrous (dead Dumbledore, dead Snape, dead Draco, dead Harry, DEs
running unchecked through Hogwarts, Voldemort victorious), Harry will
not be giving Snape a third or fourth chance (again, I think you're
confusing mercy with forgiveness) but letting go his own resentment
and desire for vengeance our of understanding and compassion.

BTW, I realize that Dumbledore is not Gandalf and Harry isn't Frodo,
but Gandalf remained wiser than Frodo even after Frodo completed his
quest (with some help anticipated by Gandalf but not by Frodo
himself). I think that Dumbledore, though dead, was wiser than any
seventeen-year-old boy is capable of being, however heroic and
courageous and dedicated to completing his quest. Harry's head is not
the strongest part of him. Maybe he needs to start seeing not just
Snape but the whole WW with his heart. I don't mean that he should
"love" or even like Snape, only feel compassion for him and for all
the others who have suffered, or committed wrongs that they would not
otherwise have done, because of Voldemort. And that includes Draco
Malfoy as well as Snape.

Carol, hoping that Harry will learn to see Snape clearly as both a
victim, like himself, and an enemy, like himself, of the real villain
of the book, Lord Voldemort

P.S. List Elves, I've lost count of my posts today because of Yahoo's
slowness but am planning to delete a near-duplicate when it appears
and reduce the count by one.