Harry's forgiveness of Snap(Was: Why down on all the characters?/ Dumbledore)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 179460

Shelley wrote:
> My point wasn't at all about the nature of forgiveness. My point was
the believability of it in the context of the story JKR wrote. She
spends a significant piece of the text having Harry mull over in his
mind his doubts about Dumbledore. She has a scene where Dumbledore
asks Harry's forgiveness. 
> Thus, in that written context, it's a natural for the reader to
agree with Harry's complete forgiveness of Dumbledore. But of Snape's
redemption, all we have are endless pages, 7 books worth, of the
tension between Harry and Snape, and suddenly, at the end, we are
supposed to do this quantum leap of Harry forgiving Snape? No, I think
it was Rowling's job to SHOW it to us, to make us understand why Harry
did it, why Harry changed his mind. It's unreasonable to me just to
say "well, Harry changed his mind, so just deal with it", because just
saying "Harry changed his mind somewhere" doesn't make for a
satisfying story, nor does it make for a GOOD story. The good author
makes you feel it in your soul, the words on the page drive you to
feel for the character, but in this epilogue, she does such a huge
leap that I was like "what? No way". That's how disconnected that line
was. She didn't show me Harry's thoughts, why he forgave Snape, she
didn't show us why Harry thought that Snape even deserved it. Thus
that forgiveness is very shallow and totally unbelievable. <snip>

Carol responds:

Of course, I can't speak for any reader except myself, and obviously
the Albus Severus scene doesn't work for you. But you seem to be
expecting JKR to *tell* us how Harry felt rather than *showing* it,
which is the reverse of good writing according to most editors
(including me). (And in fact, he does *tell* Albus Severus that Snape
was probably the bravest man he ever knew, which is presumably why he,
a Gryffindor who honors courage above all else, gave his son that name.)

JKR shows us Snape's memories and we experience them along with Harry.
We learn, as he does, that he befriended Harry's mother as a child of
nine or ten, that Harry's father sneered at him as a Slytherin without
Severus having ever done anything to him, that Severus's love for Lily
was real, as was his anguish when she died in part as the result of
his eavesdropping, and so on. I'm not going to go through every
memory, but there's also the doe Patronus, without which Ron could not
have returned to Harry and the locket Horcrux could not have been
destroyed. A reader who has believed that Snape was loyal to
Dumbledore all along will have a different reaction to these scenes
(especially Dumbledore's cavalier reaction to Snape's agony!) than a
reader who sees only Snape's "meanness" to Harry, forgetting his
saving Harry's life in SS/PS, his conjuring the stretchers in PoA, his
going off into great danger at the end of GoF and so on.

But, IMO, the memories allow *Harry* to see Snape as he really is for
the first time, with the blinders of his own hatred and preconceptions
removed. I felt a change in Harry's perception of Snape at the end of
that memory in the very subtle words of the narrator: "Snape might
have just left the room." There's no longer any hatred or desire for
revenge in Harry. But he doesn't even have time to think about his new
view of Snape because he's preoccupied with the news that he has to
sacrifice himself, to be, as Snape put it, a "pig to the slaughter,"
and with Dumbledore's perceived "betrayal." But we see Harry
identifying with Snape, and even with the young Tom Riddle, as one of
the lost boys who found a home at Hogwarts. Harry already "knew" the
young Severus as the HBP, and, IMO, he subconsciously finds him again,
and identifies with him, even as he's facing the inevitability (as he
thinks) of his own death. He has just seen Snape die terribly, giving
him those essential memories as his last act, and he has just looked
into Snape's eyes. And now he has seen those memories, which erase any
petty resentment he may have had of Snape's sarcasm and point
deductions, replacing them with an understanding of who Snape really
was as boy and man. Later, having survived what he thought would be a
fatal encounter with Voldemort, Harry voices his new understanding of
Snape, the man who loved his mother and protected him and risked
detection by Voldemort in the very dangerous mission of spying on him
and lying to him, the man who started out as a Death Eater and ended
up saving whatever lives he could, even if they were not directly
connected with Harry.

Regarding the scene with George's ear, mentioned in your previous post
(I think it was yours), my reading is that Snape risked his cover to
save Lupin, aiming at the DE's hand. The DE, hearing Snape's shout,
swerved away, causing the spell to hit George's ear instead of his
hand. True, the DE was not injured (fortunately for Snape's cover),
but Lupin's life was still saved.

BTW, in those "endless pages, seven books worth" of conflict between
Harry and Snape, many of us saw, almost from the beginning, that
Snape's loyalties lay with Dumbledore and that Snape was protecting
Harry without Harry's understanding what he was doing. "The Prince's
Tale" enables Harry to see what we saw all along, and then some. It's
not as if we skip from the doe Patronus to the epilogue. We have "The
Prince's Tale," the brief references to "poor Severus" in "King's
Cross," the very public vindication of Snape in "The Flaw in the
Plan," and Harry's off-page explanation to Ron and Hermione of what he
saw in the Pensieve. That he should go one step further and
demonstrate his understanding and forgiveness of Snape, and honor the
trait that he as a Gryffindor appreciates most--courage--in a man he
once hated and falsely accused of cowardice, is, IMO, not only
believable but moving. "Albus Severus" is perhaps my favorite moment
in DH.

Carol, who doesn't think that JKR needs to *tell* us about Harry's
change of heart or his forgiveness of Snape since she *shows* it
through Harry's words and actions and through the symbolic absence of
his glasses (he can see clearly now) in the "King's Cross" scene