Harry and Snape's Salvation (Re: No progress for Slytherin?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 173896

Magpie wrote:
A universe in which compassion is a more important virtue, I think,
it comes out quite differently, however. Sometimes the compassion
might scald a person, yes, but usually it's based on true empathy
and more importantly *humility* which is something Harry never ever
has to learn, because he's superior. <snip>

The story is not about Harry looking at his enemies and seeing
himself in them, seeing himself as no better than them, which is at
the heart of compassion, imo. It's Harry the Christ figure granting
absolution to inferiors, which for me keeps him from ever really
being a figure of any exceptional compassion at all. I think he's
far more about justice. Snape *earned* the way Harry feels about him
by spending a life protecting him and by loving his mother. Harry
didn't look at Snape and see himself in him and forgive him from
that position.

To me, the courage-based system vs. compassion-based system is just
very clear throughout the books and is very consistent, especially
in the way many of the villains are viewed and forgiven. Even in
death Snape owes his honor to Harry.

Sorry, that was negative again. I don't mean to put anybody down who
sees Harry as compassionate. I just don't think he is at all. He's
got other virtues, but compassion's not something I've really seen
him have to much develop. <sorry I couldn't find anything to snip!>

montims replied:
> you see, I don't believe Harry is "superior" - he has been selected
by the prophecy, and has to react to many different challenges because
of it.  But as he continually tries to explain, and Ron finally gets,
most of it comes about by luck, the help of friends, and DD's
guidance.  He is a good person because he has suffered as a child and
consequently has empathy for others who suffer.  But he's not
superior, and I think at the end would never claim to be superior.  To
what/whom?  Slytherins?  Muggles?  House elfs? Goblins?  LV? - well,
maybe.  But he sees too often how his initial judgements are
incorrect, and that people are not black and white as they might first
appear.  If he is superior, who is his inferior?

Carol responds:
First, I think I agree with montims but I'm not quite sure. Perhaps
you could follow up and clarify a little?

Second, I think that all of us (and I'm not referring to anyone
specific here though I am responding to this thread in general) could
stand to sit down and calmly reread the books without imposing our
hopes and preconceptions on them, and I certainly include myself in
the advice I'm so blatantly ignoring. :-) 

I think that, at this stage, especially, we should keep our
interpretations fluid. Aside To SSS from another thread: If JKR's
statements don't seem to fit the text, maybe we should accept that as
a clue that she's not fully aware of her own authorial intentions.
(Snape abandoning his post? Does the headmaster's office somehow agree
with McGonagall that he's "done a bunk" despite his having no choice
in the matter, not to mention what would have happened had he *not*
jumped through that window? Or has his name simply not yet been
cleared when Harry shows up in the office minutes after his death to
examine his memories? If JKR chooses to tell us that *Harry* will make
sure that Snape has a portrait, let him think it. At least she
believes that he merits one. The rest of us can choose to believe that
the office or the new headmaster or even reinstated temporary
headmistress McGonagall figures out that if Snape has "done a bunk,"
he had very good reason.) Anyway, these off-the-cuff responses aren't
canon and I don't think we should put too much stock in them.

As for Harry being in charge of Snape's redemption, which I think
Magpie is suggesting, I don't think so. Snape redeems himself,
expiating his sins, whether Harry acknowledges that or not. I agree
that Snape has *earned* his redemption, but it's important for Harry
to see that. And it isn't just a matter of forgiving the adult Snape,
it's understanding Snape as a whole, even identifying with him--Harry
and Severus and *Tom* as the "abandoned boys" who found their first
and only home at Hogwarts. It's essential to the plot, of course, that
Harry forgive Snape because had he not done so he could not have faced
Voldemort in the right frame of mind, self-sacrificial, with no desire
for vengeance even against Voldemort, who gets his chance for
redemption and turns it down. Yes, Snape earns his redemption, but
Harry must have an epiphany to understand that. And his compassion and
empathy and forgiveness are so tied in with what he's witnessing that
he's not even aware of them. There's no conscious admission that he
was wrong, not recognition that he forgives Snape, but that he has
done so is obvious from the public vindication and the name he gives
his second son.

But as far as repairing Snape's reputation is concerned, half the WW
sees him as McGonagall does, the murderer of Albus Dumbledore serving
Voldemort's evil ends, and only Harry knows the truth. Harry and only
Harry can clear Snape's name, which he does in front of everyone from
Death Eaters to the DA. I think it's wholly admirable of Harry to make
sure that Snape, his former enemy, is vindicated, and if it takes
Harry to make sure that Snape has a portrait in the headmaster's
office, so be it. At least he'll have one. And I can just imagine the
chats Portrait!Snape will have with Portrait! Phineas. (Didn't anyone
else find it absolutely delicious that Phineas Nigellus Black, head of
the Noble House Black, "worshipped" Headmaster Snape and took up DD's
old line of correcting "Snape" to "Professor Snape"? I loved it! And I
also loved Phineas near the end shouting, "And let it be remembered
that Slytherin House played its part! Let our contribution not be
forgotten!" (747). 

Even if that contribution consisted solely of Snape's immensely
courageous final act, where would Harry and the WW be without it? But
we also have Snape's seventeen years of lying and spying and risking
his life for Lily (and, IMO, Dumbledore), we have Slughorn's belated
entrance into the battle (in his pajamas, IIRC), and Kreacher's
rallying cry of "Fight! Fight! Fight for my Mater, defender of
House-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus!
Fight!" (734). *Not* in the name of Harry Potter. In the name of
*brave* Regulus, Slytherin Qiidditch player turned Death Eater turned
hero and martyr and, finally, seventeen years after his unsung and
horrible self-sacrifice, getting his due. Either Harry or Hermione
will certainly make his story as well as Snape's known to the public.
(Kreacher will make it known to the house-elves.) And Kreacher, too,
is a reformed Slytherin of sorts, or at least the product of Slytherin
values turned into a hero. Not all Slytherins are Death Eaters, and
even Death Eaters--two of them--can be redeemed, as brave as any
Gryffindor. And love is the motivation in both cases.

What wrought the change in Kreacher from a cringing, cursing,
scheming, filthy little bit of apparent scum to an aging Boy Scout
among house-elves? Surely, it *was* Harry's compassion as he, too, has
a change of heart, a change of perspective, a new understanding much
like the understanding he gains of the dead Snape through the Pensieve
memories, only in this case, he can extend his understanding and
compassion to a living being. (I think the living Snape *did* want
Harry to understand him, but he certainly didn't want his compassion.)
To return to Kreacher, Sirius, the Gryffindor, treated Kreacher
abominably. Regulus, the Slytherin, died avenging Voldemort's cruel
treatment of him. Note that Harry, with his anti-Slytherin bias, at
first assumes that Regulus made Kreacher drink the potion (DH 196).
But even after he hears the story and understands Regulus's sacrifice,
he still orders Kreacher around and jumps on him to prevent him from
hurting himself. He still sees Kreacher as Sirius's betrayer. We can
actually see the moment when the light dawns on Harry that he dirty
creature in front of him, who has served the pureblood, Slytherin,
"Mud-blood"-hating House of Black, is what Dumbledore said he was in
OoP, "a being with feelings as acute as a human's" who is what
wizards, including Sirius, have made him. 

Hermione (who seems finally to have grasped the psychology of
house-elves) tells Harry that Kreacher is loyal to people who are kind
to him and echoes their views witout examining their logic or
validity, even if those people are Narcissa and Bellatrix, supporters
of the Dark Lord whom Regulus died opposing and betrayers in Harry's
rather simplistic view, of his beloved godfather (neither the Black
sisters nor Kreacher actually expected Sirius to show up in the MoM,
but never mind). Hermione says, "Sirius was horrible to Kreacher,
Harry, and it's no good looking like that. You know it's true.
Kreacher had been alone for a long time when Sirius came to live here,
and he was probably starving for a bit of affection. I'm sure 'Miss
Cissy' and 'Miss Bella' were perfectly lovely to Kreacher when he
turned up, so he did them a favor and told them everything they wanted
to know. I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat
house-elves. Well, Voldemort did...and so did Sirius." 

Harry has no retort. Dumbledore's words come back to him as he watches
Kreacher sobbing on the carpet, and instead of ordering him around as
he's done before, even after hearing his terrible story, he tells him
kindly to please sit up when he feels better. And then he gives him
the important mission of finding Mundungus Fletcher, overdoes things a
little (but all to the good) by giving Kreacher the otherwise useless
fake locket as a memento of Regulus. Harry's reward is a happy, clean,
obedient Kreacher (whose true allegiance is still to Master Regulus
but is willing to serve Harry, and serve him well, for Regulus's
sake--love, not principle, as the motive for redemption yet again).
IMO, the scene where Kreacher, our stand-in for Figgy, hits Mundungus
on the head with a saucepan is priceless. It's also his first blow in
the battle against Harry's enemy, the same enemy that Regulus died
trying to thwart.

If Harry is a Christ figure (and I do think he is), it's not because
he shows compassion to everyone or to his "inferiors" (though we've
certainly seen him progress from virtual oblivion to the suffering of
others to compassion for Neville, a Gryffindor; to Luna, an eccentric
Ravenclaw; to Kreacher, the filthy and hostile house-elf he regards as
betraying Regulus; to Snape, the hated Slytherin teacher who
"murdered" Dumbledore. Harry's own suffering makes his compassion, or
his empathy, or whatever it is, possible. Harry has suffered loss in a
variety of forms (the death of Hedwig, along with the unlamented loss
of his Firebolt, is a symbolic final farewell to innocence and
childhood, occurring just before he becomes legally a man). He's lost
parents, friends, and mentors. He can empathize with the loss that
others suffer; he can reach out to save helpless strangers like Mrs.
Cattermole (the "saving people" thing, but this time there's nothing
personal involved. It's the right thing to do, for, IMO, the right
reason. And that compassion, that ability to reach out to the
suffering victims of Lord Voldemort and his minions, leads ultimately
to the Christlike sacrifice that he must make to destroy Voldemort.
Had he not known, himself, the pain of losing friends and loved ones
and mentors, how could he have made such a sacrifice? Lily's love for
her son is the universal love of a mother for her child (seen even in
Narcissa and, earlier, in Mrs. Crouch), but Harry must, in some
abstract and yet very real way, love the whole WW to sacrifice himself
for it). The closest analogy I can think of, though there are many
Christ figures in literature, is Frodo sacrificing himself (so he
thinks) for the Shire.

That does not make him Christ (he throws a Crucio in one of the most
disturbing scenes in the book, and, no, JKR's rationalization does not
excuse it for me). He doesn't bring redemption to the world or
anything of the sort any more than Lily did (though her sacrifice made
his possible). He defeats the enemy it was his destiny to defeat
(destiny being malleable and the product of our choices, not an
inevitable, predestined future), and then he becomes, to the extent
that it's possible, Just Harry, a husband and father working in the
job he always wanted. Yes, he's famous, but even to Ron, the eyes
staring at Harry's scar are a matter for laughter. Hermione, too, is
working to "do some good in the world." We don't know what it is. We
don't need to know. It's best left to the imagination.

And the Slytherins are not quite so stereotyped as some of these posts
imply, especially by the end of the book. They do *not* all look like
the stereotypical Jews of anti-Semitic literature (cf. the blond
Malfoys and the jolly, straw-haired Slughorn and the handsome Blacks,
not to mention young Tom Riddle) and are not all rich (cf. Severus
Snape and Tom Riddle) and do not all become Death Eaters (it appears
that unlike Draco, Crabe, and Goyle, neither Theo Nott nor Blaise
Zabini has joined the Death Eaters). Regulus and Snape are as brave as
any Gryffindor, Slughorn joins the fight for the right side,
Portrait!Phineas loyally serves Professor Snape and snidely imparts
valuable information without arousing HRH's supicion, the Malfoys show
that they are at least capable of shame or love or repentance. By the
end of the book, the Malfoys have come down in the world and are not
likely to trumpet the pure-blood supremacy ethic that brought them so
much grief. Draco is weak but he isn't evil; Narcissa performs an act
of courage based on love for her son which, selfish or not, helps to
save Harry. Admittedly, Pansy Parkinson would benefit from knowing
what sort of "glory" becoming a Death Eater earned Draco--perhaps
she'd keep her mouth shut--and the Slytherins sitting out the battle
cannot be considered admirable, but it's much better than fighting for
the wrong side, and as someone on the list pointed out, if they fought
for Harry's side, they might be fighting against their own families
and would certainly be endangering them if Voldemort won. After all
their indoctrination in pure-blood supremacy and the wonderful regime
Voldemort was going to bring about, it's surprising that only Draco
(motivated by revenge for his father's arrest) and apparently his thug
cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, became DEs, and only Crabbe is so ruined by
the Carrows that he actually tries to kill Harry, getting burned to a
crisp for his pains.

By the time of the epilogue, Voldemort is long dead; Slytherin is no
longer the House of budding Death Eaters. The Dark Arts, we can be
sure, will not be encouraged. With the DADA curse gone, kids might
actually learn what they are and how to fight them. If Harry wouldn't
mind (too much) having his son sorted into Slytherin, the criterion
must now be something other than blood status or cunning or interest
in the Dark Arts. Ambition, the only neutral trait we've seen
associated with Slytherin, seems most likely. Rome wasn't built in a
day. Progress *is* being made. Curt civility between Draco and Harry
isn't friendship but it isn't enmity, either. Draco does not need to
be reminded of his terrible mistake. I doubt very much that he'll
forget it. Perhaps he has nightmares about Crabbe. But at least he's
free, out of Azkaban and making, we can hope, some sort of
contribution to society, and judging from Harry's advice to his
children, the sins of the father (Draco) will not, we must hope, be
visited upon the son (Scorpius, who will probably end up changing his
name to Steve). <g>

When we read a book, whether it's by Austen or Tolkien or Rowling, we
cannot realistically impose our expectations upon it and judge it for
failing to meet them. Am author, unless he's a hack writing for a
specific market following a specified formula, is not writing what the
reader wants. He or she has no way of knowing our precise expectations
and could not meet them if she did because the author's imagination
and values and experience are her own. He or she must write the book
that is in her head and heart. It will never be exactly what it
started out to be and it will never be without flaws. Tales, like
posts, grow in the telling, and the writer sometimes loses conscious
control and the plot and characters take on a life of their own. Who
among us could have invented Severus Snape or rendered Kreacher a
sympathetic character? This is a work of the imagination, not a moral
tract. And JK Rowlimg, for all her fame and money, is just a human
being, just a writer telling the story that has lived inside her mind
for seventeen years.

Nor do I think we can put too much stock in JKR's inconsistent
commentary about her own work. (You were right, Alla. It wasn't just
that the "Today Show" snippets were edited down so that they seemed to
contradict the full interview on "NBC Dateline," the chat really does
seem to show a different, more favorable, view of Snape than the
earlier, more neutral, remarks.) I don't think we should judge her too
harshly for that. It's unlikely that she can fully state her
intentions, other than to write a gripping story with Harry as hero,
Dumbledore as mentor, and Snape in a key role kept secret to the end.
Certainly, some motifs and symbols are deliberate (such as the
symbolic journey into the "underworld" in most of the books,
foreshadowing the "King's Cross" scene in DH). But many intentions are
unconscious. Others change or develop in the process of writing. And
no author can really state, much less realize in the sense of fulfill,
her intentions. It's like knowing what a newborn baby will become and
controlling his growth and development to make sure he's exactly what
we've foreseen.

Did JKR intend to make Harry the "savior" of the WW? Savior in what
sense? Does it matter? Did she intend him to be viewd as
compassionate? If so, did she succeed? Did she intend to make
Slytherin synonymous with evil despite saying that it represents
aspects of the self that are less than desirable? Does the text
support that interpretation, whether she intended it or not? Whatever
her intentions, did she fully realize them (in the sense of making
them real), showing in the text *exactly* what she intended to show?
Of course not. Books have a habit of getting outside their author's
conscious control, and they contain things the author doesn't know
that they contain, reflections of values that the author takes for
granted. And words never exactly express our thoughts. The most
carefully crafted sentence never exactly conveys the intention behind
it, and the larger the work, the more likely that the reader and the
author will interpret it differently, just as no two readers interpret
a book in the same way though they're reading identical editions.
Words are human inventions, subject to interpretation by other human
beings, who interpret them differently based on their own experience
and value systems and ways of thinking.

I do understand the impulse to criticize the books because JKR's value
system seems inconsistent. I see that as clearly as you do, and I
never liked having certain characters, especially evil or unpleasant
ones, described as looking as if they had Troll blood (isn't that a
form of prejudice?) or resembling toads (stereotyped ugly bad guy).
But the main characters and some minor characters are exceptions to
this rule. (HRH, fortunately, are all just ordinary-looking kids.
Beautiful or handsome characters fall on both sides of the moral
spectrum. Tom Riddle and G. Grindelwald start out handsome; Bellatrix
starts out beautiful and Narcissa remains so. (Were it not for Draco's
plight and Lucius's punishment, she would have remained a Voldemort
supporter to the end.) 

In any case, before judging the books as a whole on the depiction of
Slytherins or any other percieved moral failing, I think we should 
look closely at the individual scenes and their meaning and at
individual characters. Surely, Harry has made some progress in his
perception of Slytherins in general, not just Snape. Surely, he has
come closer to seeing them as flawed human beings like himslef--not
Umbridge or Yaxley or the Carrows, but Snape and the Malfoys and
Slughorn and Regulus and Kreacher. (And the reader can appreciate
Phineas Nigellus, even if Harry can't. Wonder if Harry still lives in
12 GP and Phineas still visits him?) And, surely, someone in the WW
besides Harry has learned from this experience or benefitted from it.

After an anguished first reading, a careful rereading of important or
favorite passages, and several attempts at rereading the whole book
but finding myself distracted, I'm finally settling down to a
leisurely rereading in which I can both enjoy and pay attention to
what I'm reading. I already see flaws in the book--gaps and
inconsistencies and lapses in logic and even JKR's abysmal math, not
to mention the confusion caused by the whole Hallows subplot--and I
expect to find more in subsequent rereadings. But I also expect my
perceptions and interpretations of the book to change, in response to
the book itself and to what other readers are saying. None of us
expected the book to be what it is. And we should have known that it
would not be what we would have written had we been JKR. 

Please, everyone who's unhappy with the book because we expected
"better." Let's reread it and see what's really there, not what isn't
there that we expected to see. And let's realize that even when we
read what's really there, we may not see what JKR expected us to see
or feel what JKR expected us to feel. Our responses are, after all, as
individual as ourselves.

Carol, apologizing for the long post and the sermon and changing out
of her vicar's robes now