Slytherins come back WAS: Re: My Most Annoying Character/Now Rowling's control

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 180341

Carol earlier:
> > <snip> ("Seemed" is a clue that what Harry thinks he sees isn't
necessarily accurate. Remember "They didn't see what they thought they
saw," Sirius Black's description of his "murdering" the Muggles and
Pettigrew? Remember the Hufflepuffs thinking they saw Harry egging the
conjured snake on to Justin? Remember Harry seeing Snape "murder" 
Dumbledore and DD pleading for his life?
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Yeah.  I also remember the very clear cut, unambiguous reveals.  
Where is the big reveal showing us that the folks Harry thought were
adults were actually fellow students as well? <snip>

Carol responds:
I agree that there's no clear-cut, unambiguous reveal, but we're never
told exactly what happened in many other instances, either. The
closest we get here is "Slytherin played its part" in the battle
itself, which can't refer solely to Snape, whose loyalties and earlier
actions Phineas knows but whose last act of giving Harry the key
memories is known only to HRH, nor can it refer to Regulus, whose
sacrifice he's unaware of. Nor does his exultant claim that "Slytherin
played its part" seem justified simply because Slughorn joined in the
battle, bringing a crowd of reinforcements whose identity Harry
guesses in the midst of chaos. Both Phineas's remark and Harry's later
attitude that it's okay for his son to be sorted into Slytherin make
sense only if Slytherin students returned to the battle.

The "big reveal" in DH focuses on Snape, who is still "the man he
hated" as Harry watches him die, unable to recognize his own feelings
other than shock at the way Snape died and the reason for his death
(which, BTW, is a step toward the understanding and compassion he will
later feel--at least he isn't feeling vengeful and vindicated as he
watches Snape die). We get "The Prince's Tale," to which we don't see
Harry reacting directly, other than identifying with the young Snape
(and Tom Riddle!) as a fellow "lost boy" who felt at home at Hogwarts,
because he's caught up in Snape's message that he, Harry, has to
sacrifice himself (a message Snape could not have delivered if he'd
been AK'd for openly opposing Voldemort). Harry's view of Snape,
shared by the Order members and RH and the Hogwarts staff (except,
apparently, Slughorn and Filch) and the DA, is shown to be mistaken.
He publicly vindicates Snape, privately reveals all the details of his
Pensieve visit to Ron and Hermione, and names his son Albus Severus.
His perception is cleansed, as symbolized by the missing glasses in
"King's Cross," which can only mean that he now sees clearly (except,
of course, that he still needs them when he returns to the living
world, his physical as opposed to symbolic myopia not having been
magically cured). It's interesting, BTW, that Harry appears to be
*near*-sighted whereas Trelawney is *far*-sighted (her spectacles
magnify her eyes) since Harry sees most clearly those who are close to
him (Ron, Hermione, the Weasleys) but doesn't see Snape accurately
until his excursion into the Pensieve, and only gradually, from the
Sectumsempra scene onward, comes to see Draco clearly. (In the RoR, he
starts out thinking that Draco is as corrupted as Crabbe and really
wants to hand him over to LV; in the end, he saves Draco and
Goyle--Crabbe, of course, reaping what he has sown.) Trelawney, in
contrast, is comically far-sighted; she sees the portents in the cards
and the crystal ball but (usually) reads them incorrectly, or doesn't
believe what she sees (she keeps shuffling and reshuffling the cards
in HBP).

At any rate, the examples I cited earlier show that misperception is,
if not a theme, certainly a frequent motif in the HP books, with Snape
as the key example throughout the books, highlighted with his own
chapter ("The Prince's Tale") in DH and Harry's public vindication of
the man against whom he's intended to exact revenge since the end of HBP.

Note that HRH's impression that the detention Snape assigns to
Neville, Ginny, and Luna (working with hagrid in the Forbidden Forest)
is "cruel" is never corrected, either, but the reader is supposed to
see the limitations of Harry's pov and read that detention as a clue
to Snape's true character. Not everything has to be explained to a
reader who can think and interpret for him or herself.

Carol, quite aware that DH is flawed and conceding that the ending is
rushed, but finding the key to her own interpretation in Harry (and
Harry's glasses), with *Harry's* (not Ron's) attitude toward Slytherin
(and Snape) in the Epilogue as the clincher