"Our new celebrity" (Was: On Children and the "Other" )

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 169637

Alla:
> 
> I do not see the relevance of this paragraph. My point is that Snape
insinuated Harry enjoying his celebrity status and that he had no 
right whatsoever to do that, if he had any decency in him or any 
remorse, that's all.

Carol responds:

Just a teeny little point since I agree with Pippin and there's no
point in repeating her arguments. "Slander" <snipped> seems a bit
strong here, as does the "vicious dog" metaphor. I don't think Harry
saw it in those terms. He only teached the conclusion that Snape hated
him, as opposed to merely disliking him, after the whole class was
over (Neville's melted cauldron, the unfairly docked point,  and all).
I'm not sure that he would have arrived at that conclusion based on
the questioning alone. (And I agree with Pippin that his response was
cheeky; Slughorn would have liked it, but Snape doesn't tolerate cheek.)

But to get to my point: Snape does have reason to believe that Harry
is enjoying his (unearned) celebrity status. He has just observed the
opening feast, at which the whole of Gryffindor stands up and cheers
for Harry (as for no other student). 

"'[Harry] was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in
Slytherin, he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer
yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigourously, while
the Weasley Twins yelled, "We got Potter! We got Potter!" " (SS Am.
ed. 121-22). 

Regardless of Snape's motives, the questions established that "our new
celebrity" was just as ignorant as the rest of the class, Hermione
excepted, and may well have spared Harry the burden of being followed
around by a herd of adoring Colin Creeveys in his first year.

It seems to me that Harry's preconceptions about Snape and Slytherin,
shaped by his encounters with Draco and by the comments of Hagrid and
Percy, not only colored his perception of this first class (and
Snape's class in general) but led him to mistake the motives of both
Snape and "p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell." And, for
both Harry and some readers, those preconceptions seem to be
strengthened no matter how many times Snape protects Harry or saves
his life.

Carol, who thinks that Snape's sarcasm in the classroom hurts him more
than it hurts Harry, who quickly develops a near-immunity to it