[HPforGrownups] Would Harry forgiving Snape be character growth for him? What makes it Snape's Worst Memory?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 164203

>> Magpie:
>> But the point is, if it's "evidence" that Snape is working for
> Voldemort
>> that he treats Harry badly in class and gave the Prophecy to
> Voldemort then
>> it's saying that someone being not nice to you means that they're
> working
>> for the bad guy, and that people can't change.
> <SNIP>
>
> Alla:
>
> It is showing who Snape **is**, yes, if it is what they are and you
> know, sometimes people indeed do **not** change, so I would say it
> would be the lesson of Snape not able to change, not people in
> general.
>
> As an aside, but it is sort of relevant. Couple months ago me and my
> friend managed to have a very long Harry Potter related
> conversation, like couple hours long ( he does not go on Internet
> discussing HP, so I consider his brains to be untainted by all the
> theories, lol)
>
> We discussed many topics and of course we talked about Slytherin
> house a little bit, so I figured I would play a little devil
> advocate and started saying, oh why would she even imply that there
> are could be evil eleven years old, unless she pulls the rug and
> shows us that Slytherin house is prejudiced against, etc.
>
> My friend looked at me as if I had a third eye or something and said
> that he met evil five years old and he was not joking. He thinks
> that character at eleven year old is fully formed and if there is a
> propensity to share that purebloodist ideology, it would be there at
> eleven. My friend does not think that they are all evil, but that it
> is not that unrealistic that plenty of them are.
>
>
> How is it relevant to Snape not changing? Well, just that as in case
> of Slytherin house, it is just possible that Snape has not changed
> **yet**, but that he may change at the end, to commit one redemptive
> act, but not because that he was DD!M all along, but because he
> would see Harry in new light. OR he may not change indeed because
> that is who he is.

Magpie:
Ah, the freedom of those untainted by fandom!:-)

But I don't disagree with the fact that just because people can change 
doesn't mean they all do, and I think there's plenty of Slytherins (or DEs 
from other houses) that could have been well on their way at 11. Bellatrix 
LeStrange would have been raised the same as Regulus and believed this 
stuff, and in her early 40s she's just as committed to it as ever. Lucius 
Malfoy might have been dreadful at 11 and is still dreadful now.

So I don't think Snape's having not changed would be a problem in itself. I 
don't think it's bad of Harry to say, "But what if he hasn't changed?"

I'm talking about a slightly different issue about Snape's being wrong in 
the past is *evidence* that he's LV's man now, and that Dumbledore must be 
ignoring this obvious piece of evidence while Harry is not. That's the thing 
that's too negative. Snape's basic personality changing, too, is slightly 
different. Your personality being formed by 11 is different than your 
beliefs necessarily being set in stone at 11. Certain strong elements of 
your personality are probably in place by the age of 2--but those elements 
can be applied to different beliefs or objectives at 15 or 25 or 90. I think 
Snape's personality has remained constant. In fact, I'd say JKR as an author 
relies on personalities being pretty constant.

The mystery with Snape is that while we do see his personality being 
constant, we haven't yet gotten what exactly makes him tick. Dumbledore's 
explanation that Snape felt great remorse over the Prophecy sounds flimsy to 
Harry--and understandably so, because Harry has never seen Snape show 
remorse for being cruel to anyone, certainly not a Potter. But I think 
that's why Dumbledore's hinted there's more to it--you have to understand 
Snape's whole situation and what's important to him, and Harry doesn't 
really get all that yet. He doesn't have the information to understand 
Dumbledore's view.

>
> Magpie:
> Not only are those fairly
>> superifical, they both seem to be themes that the author's
> specifically
>> working *against*. They're not evidence of Snape's loyalties
> anymore than
>> Fake!Moody's treatment of Malfoy shows he's anti-Voldemort.
>
> Alla:
>
> I do not see that author specifically works against of the evidence
> that someone who treats you like dirt in classroom is working for
> Voldemort.

Magpie:
It's not that, exactly. Lucius Malfoy's a jerk in his private life and works 
for Voldemort. There's not really many pleasant DEs that we've met (none 
that I can think of). But the issue is one having to be linked to the 
others. As Sirius says, the world isn't made up of good guys and DEs. 
Umbridge wasn't a DE, and she's even worse than Snape. Filch isn't a DE. All 
DEs may be unpleasant people, but not all unpleasant people are DEs. 
Regulus actually was a DE, but may turn out to be the first person to have 
tried to do what Harry's trying to do to destroy Voldemort.

Alla:>
> It may not be so, but I think that it is way too early to say so
> with certainty.

Magpie:
Not with certainty, no. I think JKR's working hard to avoid that!

Alla:
>
> Sure, Fake Moody treated Malfoy badly and he is Voldemort servant,
> but Lupin treats everybody nicely and he is not Voldemort servant (
> unless you are Pippin of course ;))

Magpie:
Hee! Yes, true. But that's the thing, one's demeanor and how one treats 
Harry in particular doesn't necessarily tell you how loyal they are to 
Voldemort. She does, as you say, deal with everyone individually, which is 
why although Snape *could* be a DE, the fact that he's mean to Harry isn't 
obvious evidence of it that everyone else has ignored. Quirrel states this 
outright in PS: he hated you, but he never wanted you dead. Lucius tells his 
son to hide his dislike of Harry. (His son doesn't or can't, yet of the two 
Lucius seems clearly the crueler of the two.) Crouch doesn't seem to have 
any dislike of Harry as a person, and he's fanatically loyal to LV.


> Magpie:
>> Harry spent the whole first book thinking Snape is trying to steal
> the Stone
>> because of Snape's behavior and he wasn't right. He made
> assumptions based
>> on Quirrel's demeanor vs. Snape's (with Snape's behavior towards
> Harry as a
>> starting point). Dumbledore knew that Snape gave the Prophecy to
> Voldemort
>> back then--and Snape still wasn't trying to steal the Stone.
>
> Alla:
>
> The possibility is that JKR showed to us that Harry was seemingly
> wrong, wrong, wrong about Snape for six books and oooops, he really
> was not. :)

Magpie:
Well, that's where we are right now. Everyone now thinks Snape is a bad guy, 
just as Harry thought. It didn't seem like it came across as much of a 
turnaround in the story, maybe because Harry's passing doubts about Snape's 
loyalties were usually just part of Snape's being a jerk.  It doesn't even 
change all those times in the past where Harry thought Snape was out to get 
him and was wrong, because Snape's being LV's man now doesn't make him the 
one who went after the Stone, or the one who put Harry's name in the Goblet, 
or the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets, or the one helping 
Peter/Sirius Black or the one who got Sirius killed or the one who got the 
DEs into the castle.

Alla:
> And Snape may have been doing exactly what he tells Bella and
> Narcissa in Spinner end, no?

Magpie:
That's a possibility--though Harry himself has never put together that sort 
of plan for Snape or asked the questions Snape's answering in that scene. 
(And of course the one thing Snape doesn't answer in that scene is why he 
alerted the Order to go to the Ministry, which is what defeated the 
DEs.Bella knows the Order showed up, but doesn't accuse Snape of calling 
them iirc.)

>>> Magpie:
>> But Harry isn't seeing things others are not. Everyone sees how
> Snape treats
>> Harry, including Dumbledore. Only Dumbledore has more information
> and has a
>> view of Snape that incorportates him being on DD's side and being
> a jerk to
>> Harry at the same time. Harry doesn't seem to have put quite as
> much
>> reasoning into his own view of Snape being guilty. He's never
> approached the
>> problem strictly rationally, and considers the idea of
> Dumbledore's version
>> to be impossible based on his own limited interactions with Snape
> when those
>> interactions don't cover Snape as a whole person.
>
> Alla:
>
> There is information missing for sure, but we do not know that
> Harry's interactions with Snape do not cover Snape as whole person.
> I remember the argument being made in the past that Snape does not
> spend nearly as much time thinking about Harry when Harry is not in
> front of him, as Harry thinks about Snape.
>
> I think now we had been given a possibility that Snape may have been
> doing just that - thinking about James and Harry if not all the
> time, but a lot of time.
>
> I think it is completely possible that all that it there to be would
> turn out about Snape's grudge and everything went from there. IMO of
> course.

Magpie:
Oh, I think Harry is completely right about some of the aspects of Snape 
that he does see. Most of what we do see of Snape I take at face value. I 
don't agree that Snape doesn't really spend much time thinking about Harry 
or hating James--I think he does and that it's a guiding force of his life. 
The twist isn't that Snape doesn't really hate Harry because he does hate 
Harry. It's what Snape's hatred of Harry makes him want otherwise that's 
hidden.

>>> Magpie:
>> I suspect she's going for both by having Harry not trust Snape
> based on
>> Dumbledore's word, but later coming to agree with him through his
> own
>> experience.
>
> Alla:
>
> Possibly, or it would be Harry seeing who Snape is and still
> learning Dumbledore's lesson of second chances, without closing his
> eyes to who Snape is, without believing his spinning tales, just
> seeing his reasons for doing things and still forgiving it.

Magpie:
I admit I have a harder time imagining Harry getting to that place. I mean, 
he's at that place now in terms of feeling he's been proven right about 
Snape and he doesn't seem to blame Dumbledore for giving him a second chance 
because he's protective of Dumbledore's memory. He's primed to look at that 
situation as Dumbledore being just the best guy in the world and Snape 
taking advantage of him. Snape's the guy he sees as the bad guy here, not 
Dumbledore, who's dead and whose memory must be spoken of with the greatest 
respect. (He's furious when Dumbledore criticizes Sirius' actions and 
suggests they in any way contributed to his own death in OotP.) Thinking it 
was nice of Dumbledore to give Snape a second chance wouldn't really lead 
Harry to think it was the best thing to do.

> Magpie:
>> Not trusting people based on what others say is fine--but it's not
> a lesson
>> Harry can learn because he's never done it. It's more like
> everyone else
>> having to learn they should trust Harry's instincts over
> Dumbledore's. But
>> if Snape's nastiness in class and his prior bad acts are evidence
> that
>> anyone should have seen to know that Snape couldn't be DDM, that's
> a rather
>> closed-minded view of human nature, and one that's not really true
> in
>> reality--or in the books.
>
> Alla:
>
> Sorry, but I disagree. How is it closed minded? There are evil
> people in the world, there are people who do not change, there are
> people who change, there are people who really really try to change
> but fail eventually ( maybe Snape is one of them)

Magpie:
Like I said earlier, it's not that it's closed-minded to accept the fact 
that there are people in the world who are evil and who do not change, or 
try to change and fail. (Tom Riddle at least is clearly in the first 
category.) What's closed-minded is seeing someone's having done wrong in the 
past as *evidence* that they are wrong now, because those things just don't 
always go together. It's understandable to consider them (if one person used 
to be a thief, and something gets stolen, that person's going to be under 
suspicion because they were a thief), but it's not any kind of proof that 
they have to have been the thief now.

It's also wrong-headed to consider someone being unpleasant to you 
personally as evidence that they must hold certain beliefs that are 
different from yours, because things just don't always work that way. Snape 
could certainly still be LV's man, but his dislike of Harry Potter doesn't 
have to lead to that. It can be an independent part of his personality.

Alla:
> If Snape is an evil git or just the one who honestly wanted to go
> back to light, but some sort of temptation stopped him from it, how
> is it close minded if Harry sees it?

Magpie:
It wouldn't be closed minded of Harry to see it, but Harry hasn't seen it-at 
least not yet. If that's what happened to Snape then Harry didn't see it at 
all, he just happened to wind up on the same side that Harry thought he was 
on all along.

It's like if you think of a Snape fan who interprets all his actions as 
being secretly nice. If Snape turned out to be DDM, that person might be 
correct in that they "saw" that he was on Dumbledore's side, but they 
wouldn't have necessarily have "seen" the way Snape really was, or what he 
was going through. It would be more like they loved Snape, so always wanted 
him to be in the right, and in this case he was. Same with Harry in that 
case.

Harry would be learning that he was wrong about Snape if later he learned 
that Snape did *try* to change, but it doesn't seem to fit the way Rowling 
usually writes, imo, because it's got Snape going through changes we've no 
way of seeing and don't seem to depend on the story we've read, that we just 
hear about in retrospect even though they happened during the story (as 
opposed to hearing what Snape went through before we met him that made him 
who he always was to us). You'd have to hear, "Snape was on DD's side up 
until OotP, when he flip-flopped offscreen. It seems like it would wind up 
being a cautionary tale for the good guys, somehow linking them to Snape's 
fall.


>> Magpie:
>> I think she'd have to explain how Dumbledore was tricked--the DEs
> were
>> right, apparently, and he's just a sucker for a sob story (which
> doesn't
>> seem IC based on what I've seen of DD).
>
>
> Alla:
>
> Why though? I could never understand that. Giving people second
> chances is good, I could never never consider it to be DD mistake.
> Whether he was fooled or not, it is great that he believes in second
> chances. It is the fault of the fool who does not appreciate being
> given second chance IMO. I would not blame DD one yota for that, if
> Snape fooled him. I would sympathise with him even more.

Magpie:
Do you mean why do I think it's OOC for DD to fall for a sob story? It's not 
because I think it would be OOC for Dumbledore to be wrong-he's been wrong 
before. It's that I think DD is also shown to be a shrewd judge of 
character, one who doesn't judge poeple based on what they say about 
themselves. So if Dumbledore has been wrong about Snape, I think he will 
have been wrong the way he's been about people in the past. He won't have 
been suckered in by what sounds like a transparent act. (It's also hard for 
me to imagine Snape being a great enough actor to pull that feat off. I 
think he's a successful spy on the DEs because it goes more naturally with 
his personality. Most people in these stories are bad actors, perhaps so 
that young readers can see what's going on clearly when they read in 
retrospect. I remember for years people complained that the rare times 
people wrote about Peter they made him too much like the rat he turned out 
to be...and then JKR wrote him the same way in the Pensieve.)


> Magpie:
> It's only with the Slytherins there's an issue of Harry disliking
> the person
>> intensely, and being disliked in return, and so seeing them as the
> most
>> likely suspects in crimes that sometimes have nothing to do with
> them.
>
> Alla:
>
> Sometimes, yes and sometimes the crimes do connected with them :)

Magpie:
Yes--but when the crimes do connect to them that's clear through things 
other than their being a general jerk. Even with Malfoy, for instance, 
Harry's suspicion of him included some empathy and understanding of his 
individual nature. It wasn't just that he had to be the culprit because he's 
Malfoy. I don't think it's a coincidence that the one time Harry is right 
about Malfoy it's the book where he's understanding Malfoy's motivations 
personally.

Cat McNulty:
My contention is that it was his embarrassed outburst, that was meant to get 
back at James, actually insulted Lily (someone that he liked/cared about). 
Her hurt verbal reaction actually closed the door to any future friendship 
between Snape and Lily. That IMO was the worst part of the memory for Snape 
... the loss of Lily as a friend and her using the name Snivellus.

Magpie:
Originally I thought getting pantsed is enough to make it Snape's Worst 
Memory--which is good because it's all we've got to go on in OotP. I still 
think it wodl be, but since HBP I have started to think along the same 
lines, that Lily's role in the scene makes it all far worse. I do we could 
be seeing the death of a Snape/Lily friendship in that scene when he calls 
her a Mudblood.

Though I wouldn't say his "Mudblood" comment was meant for James and 
accidentally hurt Lily. I think it was chosen to hurt Lily because her 
intervention had made him feel furious at her in that moment (I think due to 
the combination of her having to save him and the incident obviously being 
part of a mating game between her and James).

-m