Chapdisc CoS 6 / Snape and Harry and Legilimency / Chapdisc Cos 7

[Catlady (Rita Prince]

No: HPFGUIDX 188956

CHAPDISC

Megan Real discussed CoS Chapter 6 in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188838>:

<<5. What was your initial impression of Justin Finch-Fletchley? >>

I liked him from the moment he spoke; I thought he was a nice kid who wanted to be friendly with everyone, or else maybe I'm just a snob and liked him because of his accent. But it has often struck me as a problem that Draco is portrayed having the same accent as Justin; that had to be done so that readers would recognize that Draco is upper class, but with the separation between wizarding and Muggle worlds, the wizarding upper class would have some quite different accent than the Muggle upper class. So the wizarding-raised students wouldn't have noticed that Justin wasn't just another Muggle-born. 

Considering the way wizards cling to their old-fashioned ways (like wearing medieval and renaissance robes), their upper-class accent would be an old-fashioned accent (with some weirdnesses that had crept in during the centuries of isolation). Where old-fashioned accents survived into the early twentieth century, when they could be recorded on Edison cylinders, they survived among relatively isolated rural working class people. So it's likely that the wizarding upper class accent would strike Muggle-raised students as a jumbled fake accent by the actor of a rural lower-class character in a farce. That's another thing that would irritate snobbish pure-bloods: Muggle-borns look *down* on their upper-class accent.

Pippin wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188842>:

<< [Lockhart] shows that amorality isn't necessarily wedded to a lust for power or the practice of the dark arts. Gilderoy isn't seeking world domination and he couldn't curse his way out of a paper bag. He just wants to be famous and sell lots of books. >>

There was already a character doing that job: Rita Skeeter.

Altho' various listies have speculated that Memory Charms ought to be regarded as Dark Curses.

SNAPE AND HARRY

Alla wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188895>:

<< if you are saying that Snape KNOWS about [why Harry arrived late with a broken nose], well, then he used a legilimency on the student without his permission, which I thought Snape did not do. >>

To me, Snape would not have been out of line to use Legilimency to find out why Harry was late, but if he did use Legilimency on Harry, then he knew that the accusations he actually made at Harry were false, the accusations that Harry was deliberately late on purpose to make a grand entrance, that Harry was trying to get attention, and so on. I hate deliberately false accusations.

If Snape wasn't using Legilimency, and wasn't very closely observing Harry's body language, pulse rate, and so on like a living polygraph, then I figure he didn't intend the accusations to be false. Snape believes a number of bad things about Harry that happen to be false, such in the recent thread of Snape believing that Harry approved of the Pensieve scene of his father bullying Snape. 

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188954>:

<< He could, however, have said that he was sorry for entering the memories that Snape obviously didn't want him to see, for, in essence, sneaking and snooping, but he doesn't have the opportunity and it's unlikely that Snape would have believed him given his view of Harry. >>

and Pippin wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188937>:

<< The sad thing is that Snape never gave himself a chance to know the real Harry, and never had a chance to let Harry know who he really was (Dumbledore's man and Lily's friend) until the moment of his death. >>

"Snape's view of Harry" = "Snape believes a number of bad things about Harry that happen to be false." = 'Snape never knew the real Harry."

One would have thought that Legilimency would have revealed to Snape that there were some errors in his view of Harry. It's so sad that even Legilimency doesn't help people understand each other.

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188951>:

<< Snape has no way of knowing that Harry, whose life he has yet again protected (the MoM) blames *him* for the death of the man he (Snape) told to remain at 12 Grimmauld Place. >>

Well, he *could* have known by Legilimency. I know that Snape said a Legilimens can't choose which thought to look at, but this particular thought was right at the top of Harry's mind during that encounter. But I separated this comment from the two above, because I think that seeing that Harry blamed Severus for Sirius's death would have made Severus even angrier than more patient with Harry. 

Zara wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188928>:

<< What act do you suppose Draco committed, to earn his Dark Mark? It appears he was already marked before the start of the school year in HBP.... >>

He had already committed to letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts to kill Dumbledore, and it appears from Narcissa's pleas to Severus that he had already committed to killing Dumbledore himself. Either way, he participated in a conspiracy to commit murder. In the US anyway, conspiracy is a crime even if the conspiracy fails.

CHAPDISC

Geoff discussed CoS Chapter 7 in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188914>:

<< 1: What was your impression of Colin Creevey when he first appeared? >>

I felt worse about how Harry treated Colin, trying to avoid him, than about how Colin treated Harry. It's not Colin's fault that he took a picture when Lockhart was there to shove into it and Draco was there to mock: Colin didn't know Lockhart and Draco. I wish Harry could have brought himself to be friendly with Colin; when Colin got to know him as a real person, he would get over the hero-worship, just like Ron did. I understand that Harry, growing up bullied by all, has never learned the social skills of starting a conversation, drawing a person out, and making the person into a friend (I don't know how either, and I don't have his excuse, as well as being much older and allegedly grown-up), but it would have been nice if Harry (and Ron and Hermione) could have kind of mentored the Creeveys.

<< Why do you think that JKR decided to introduce his character? >>

JKR needed a student with a compulsive camera to be not quite killed by the basilisk. Why she gave him a younger brother in the next book is what I don't understand. They both were so brave and so enthusiastic about magic that I really expected them to have a role in the megaplot.  

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188953>:

<< It was certainly unfair that Harry was given a superior broom in SS/PS (and put on the team rather than being punished for disobeying a teacher) >>

Okay, Harry should have been punished for disobeying a teacher, but it would have been unfair if he were punished and Draco wasn't. But that he got a place on the Quidditch team and a broom is not unfair. First, it was already established that the team was looking for a Seeker, and that there had been players as young as Harry in the past (a mere century ago!). Second, every player on each House team got a decent broom. I think Harry's Nimbus 2000 was paid for with money from his own Gringott's vault, not paid for by McGonagall or Dumbledore.