Choices/Snape as abuser, SKIP if not interested WAS :Re: CHAPTER

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 188594



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:
>
> Pippin:
<snipping much that I agree with>

> Harry ultimately transcends his hatred of Snape. He achieves a state in which he can imagine himself unscarred, undamaged, all his needs met and all his questions answered (except for the one he declines to ask). All despite his inability to console or heal  the  wounded child he once was (and which Voldemort will become.) 
> 

Montavilla47:
It's an interesting idea that the child might be Harry's own inner child. 
But JKR stated that it was Voldemort's soul there--not Harry's.


Pippin:
> Harry returned to the "real" world more sensitive,  more able to withstand the desire to return cruelty for cruelty, even when he was pierced by the (finger) nails of his adversary. Harry had no further desire to visit revenge  on the Malfoys or quarrel with them, or even force improvement on them, although they never thoroughly change their ways.  He has learned that Nemesis is a false god whose worship leads only to moral paralysis.  
> 

Montavilla47:
I would find that more compelling if the Fiendfyre scene had taken place
after Harry's return from the dead.  As the story goes, he started wanting
revenge on Draco long before King's Cross.  I couldn't even tell you when he
stopped wanting revenge on Draco--it could have been when he started
feeling for Draco (at Dumbledore's funeral), or it could have been after he
almost killed Draco in the bathroom.


Pippin:
> Dumbledore was unable to hold Grindelwald to account for his crimes because he believed he would then have to account for his own. It was only when DD realized his task was not to punish Grindelwald but to keep him from doing more harm that he was able to act. 
> 

Montavilla47:
I don't know about this realization, Pippin.  There's no real text evidence 
for it--nice as it would be if that had happened.  According to the 
dead and possibly imaginary Dumbledore, he didn't have any realization
about why he ought to duel Grindelwald--he was simply ashamed of 
procrastinating about it.


Pippin:
> I know this post is getting long, but I'd like to add something about the role of Snape and the surviving Marauders. It seems to me that each of them is stuck at one of the stages of grief and is able, through interaction with Harry, to move on to the next stage before his death. 
> 
> Wormtail is in denial. "I never meant for it to happen." He moves on to bargaining. "You owe me" Harry tells him. 
> 
> Snape is caught in bargaining, so his move to anger is actually positive, though Harry, caught in the crossfire, probably  would not think so. 

Montavilla47:
I like this idea--but I'm not sure how Snape is caught in bargaining.
Can you clarify that?

Pippin:
> Sirius is trapped by his anger. "I want to commit the crime I was imprisoned for" (My quotes are from memory here, so please forgive me if they're not exact.) In one of the saddest parts of the books, Sirius moves away from his anger only to find himself in the stage of despair at Grimmauld Place, and  does not get the chance to move beyond it. 
> 
> But that is why it takes courage to move through grief and recover from hatred. The path away from hate is a bitter one in canon,  rewarding in the end, but  there is no guarantee that one will survive long enough to reach it. Remorse, Hermione warns us, can destroy as well as heal. 
> 
>  It is only Lupin, who begins in despair and self-loathing, who is able to come to full acceptance of James and Lily's death. After recapitulating denial, bargaining, anger and despair in his little talk with Harry at  Grimmauld Place, he finally ceases to mourn the Potters, and when he gives his life, it is for the sake of his own son's future, not because he owes it to James. 
> 

Montavilla47:
I kept the rest of this because it's very interesting and I do
think you are on to something!