Harry's Vision and Snape (Re: Would Harry forgiving Snape be character...)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164282


> Jen:  Like Alla, I'm hoping for some clarification on one last point 
> in the latest Snape discussion, a piece of the puzzle that keeps 
> eluding me (and I can't seem to walk by an unfinished puzzle without 
> shuffling through the pieces again).  I'm throwing out the 
> hypothetical of ESE!Snape because I do believe Snape has been loyal 
> all along.
<snip>  
> 
> What we've never seen is Harry sustaining such a realization because
something always occurs at a pivotal moment and he slips back into
anger/resentment (or the feelings intensify).  The biggest unknown in
the equation to me is whether JKR is placing the burden for the cycle
on Harry, on Snape, or on both of them.  Answering 'who's to blame'
isn't crucial for my question, but it might help to know my
interpretation is that JKR is taking a middle-of-the-road approach, 
saying both have contributed to the ongoing problems in different  ways.
> 
> Okay, that's the set-up and now on to my dilemma.

> Some of us readers believe Harry and Snape have the cave and 
> tower in common, but the two of them can't connect with each other 
> long enough or deeply enough to see that (if indeed JKR sees the
cave and the tower as analagous situations).  
> 
> My impression is people who identify more with Snape and believe the 
> blame is Harry's also tend to believe Harry needs to realize he's 
> misjudged Snape's loyalty--his deeds and intentions--change his view 
> and by doing so, find forgiveness in his heart.  And Harry must do 
> this on his own because Snape is static and can't offer Harry any 
> incentive for dropping his myopic view in the present-day.  That 
> means Snape's backstory and the person Harry identified with as the 
> HBP will be the reason for Harry's more compassionate view and 
> forgiveness. 
> 
> Yet this same Harry who is responsible for the problem and the 
> solution has been deemed incapable of seeing current Snape for who
he is because hatred and resentment skew his vision.  That's the flaw
I've been reading about Harry in this thread, that he allows feelings
 to interfere with 'seeing' Snape.  This is the point where the 
argument gets circular for me:  How can do what's he's proven he 
can't do?  If he can't make this change himself, doesn't he need help
 to get there?  And if Snape can't help him, then....?
> 
> If the backstory alone will cause the transformation, how will Harry 
> sustain his belief of the truth about Snape in the face of a
scornful and derisive present-day Snape who doesn't appear to feel
remorse or pain and can't show it in a way that Harry finds
believable?  I understand that some of us readers saw Snape's pain
during the run across the grounds but Harry did not, and he's the one
who has to believe it in order for there to be a change of heart. 
Even if he can see pain & remorse in young Snape, how does he transfer
that to the current Snape?
<snip>
 I believe JKR set it up this way 
> because she is saving her big story, Lily, for the end.  But how do 
> others solve this dilemma, or if you don't see a problem, at what 
> point in my analysis is *my* vision skewed? <g>

Carol responds:
Great post, Jen. I had trouble deciding what to snip.

Let me first clear up what I think is a misconception of my views or
intentions. I confess to being Snapecentric, and to pointing out that
Harry's glasses may symbolize a figurative as well as literal myopia,
but I'm not *blaming* him for seeing Snape as he does. As I pointed
out in another post, Snape's treatment of him fits his preconceptions.
It doesn't help at all that his godfather, Sirius Black, didn't trust
Snape, either, and gave him that mirror to use in case Snape gave
Harry a bad time. Just as Harry thought, before he even knew Snape,
that Snape was causing the pain in his scar, he thinks that Snape is
deliberately causing him to open his mind to Voldemort. When he
overhears Snape talking to Draco in Death Eater mode, naturally he
shares Draco's view that Snape is a loyal Death Eater. Appearance,
coincidence, and Snape's very real animosity reinforce Harry's
preconceptions. Harry has never been a very good judge of character,
but he's learning not to judge based on appearances. It's just a whole
lot harder with Snape than it is with other characters because he
knows that Snape not only hates him but hated his "filthy father." So
it really does seem to Harry, based on incomplete and (IMO)
misinterpreted information (see my post 164244) 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/164244

that Snape is evil, especially after the Avada Kedavra on the tower
seems to confirm that view. It isn't Harry's *fault* that he can't see
DDM!Snape clearly, or at all, but it's essential, IMO, for Harry to
realize that his vision has been distorted and to forgive Snape, not
for Snape's sake, but for Harry's. Harry has to keep learning and
growing and progressing toward maturity, and above all, he has to
learn a lesson Snape himself has never learned, to let go of old
resentments, to let old wounds heal, to forgive.

As you point out, every time Harry and Snape come a step closer to
understanding one another (for example, when Snape learns that it
wasn't Harry and his friends who broke into his office to steal potion
ingredients) something happens to undermine that new, tentative trust
or confidence in the other person. Harry's glimpse of Teen!Severus in
the Pensieve causes him to see the basis of Snape's claim that James
Potter was arrogant and to feel compassion for him for the first time,
but that feeling weakened, not so much by Snape's fury as by Lupin's
and Black's rationalization of James's (and Sirius's) behavior. Worse,
Snape himself fails to see that Harry feels compassion for him (or
maybe the last thing he wants is Harry's compassion, which he would
see as pity for his "weakness"). Instead of contributing to mutual
understanding, the incident makes matters worse. Snape sees his old
belief that Harry is an untrustworthy rule-breaker reinforced, and
Harry goes comfortably back to hating Snape and seeing the worst in
him. And even when he trusts Snape enough to try to tell him via
Legilimency that Sirius is being held captive by Voldemort, and Snape
(after realizing that Harry and Hermione weren't coming back from the
forest and must have somehow gone to the MoM) sends the Order after
them, something again happens to undermine Harry's trust in
Snape--sirius Black is murdered, and Harry, for complicated
psychological reasons, chooses to blame Snape. Matters only get worse
in HBP; there's the whole Draco plot, in which Snape seems to Harry to
be implicated ("helping" DE!Draco in a sense other than protecting him
from committing murder or being murdered himself).

How, *how* can their preconceptions and misreadings of each other,
particularly Harry's view of Snape as an evil, murderous traitor, be
corrected? I can think of a few ways, among them Snape saving Harry's
life or that of one of Harry's friends through those intriguing
healing powers he demonstrated in HBP. Another possibility is memories
of conversations between Snape and Dumbledore viewed in a Pensieve
(maybe DD has bottled a few and willed them to Harry just in case).
Maybe someone more logical than Harry (Hermione or Lupin) will begin
to see that the pieces of Harry's story don't quite fit together, and
Harry is either missing something or trying to create the wrong
picture from them.

I don't think the missing link will be Lily (though I do think that
Snape regretted her death and tried to prevent it just because she and
Harry were innocent. I think he tried to prevent James's because he
didn't want James to die with the life debt unpaid and resents him to
this day for arrogantly refusing to listen to Dumbledore's warning). I
think it's more likely to be Regulus. (Or rather, that's my hope. I
certainly don't think that Snape made any Wormtongue-style bargain
with Voldemort/Saruman regarding Lily/Eowyn. Ugh.) And certainly,
Harry has to learn about the UV somehow, which can only come from
Snape himself telling his story as Lupin and Black tell theirs in PoA.
But something unexpected will happen, and new pieces of evidence will
show up. They have to because JKR has been preparing Snape's role in
Harry's story since Book 1 and has said in an interview somewhere that
he has a crucial role to play in Book 7.

Carol, not blaming a teenage boy for reacting to what he sees as the
plain truth but hoping that he'll develop the maturity and vision to
recognize Dumbledore's wisdom and Snape's loyalty and courage in DH