Occlumency

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191674


> 
> Alla:
> 
> Could you please suggest another term then, I am really not stuck on the term only on action - what would you call "deliberate and not consensual violation of somebody's private thoughts"? I certainly do not want to offend anybody, but  that is what I consider Snape's *actions* to be. The definition stands for me, the term could be anything, but I honestly think that the analogy was quite close and sure, I absolutely agree with you about the definition of real life rape.
>

Pippin:
There's a  word for gathering private information that someone does not want you to have:  espionage.  We can call it mind-spying if you want to make it clear that it's the particular method  that you object to. 

Harry, though, has been aware since the episode with the Mirror of Erised that Dumbledore was keeping an eye on him when he did not know it, and he did not see any evil in it. Harry also knows from the beginning that there are staff  keeping watch on the students, and though he considers it the duty of every right-thinking student to  hate them, especially Mrs. Norris and Filch, he also considers them a normal part of  student life.

As Dumbledore explained to Tom Riddle, "All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws." Harry knows that the rules are on Dumbledore's side (and Snape's) when it comes to catching rule-breakers, and that he has, in entering the WW, given his consent to this state of affairs. 

Harry himself  never expected anyone to believe that Snape was evil because he was always sneering at Harry -- it made Snape unpopular, as Quirrell reported, but it didn't make anyone, even Harry's staunchest supporters on the staff, think that Snape was working for Voldemort. And Harry knew if he brought it up it would be dismissed out of hand as mere bias on his part. 

The reasons  Harry * thought* he had for thinking Snape was still evil are far more powerful.  

Hating  Lily and showing no remorse for  his previous service to Voldemort

Using the occlumency lessons to soften Harry up for Voldemort

Not being sorry that Sirius was dead

Offering  help to Draco 

 The murder of Albus Dumbledore.  

And those reasons were all disproved or given benign explanations in canon.

Now, those of us who decided as we opened our brand new copies of CoS that JKR would never, never ever get us  to fall for Harry's Snape crap again have a cognitive advantage -- we never believed that Snape was guilty of any of that stuff. 

Those who did believe it, OTOH, are most likely stuck with a cognitive bias which they can do nothing about: a part of their minds is always going to behave as if  Harry's beliefs about Snape were true. 

(I can't feel superior, since I fell for Harry's Dumbledore crap. Note to self: epitome of goodness does not mean embodiment of goodness. <g>)

The interesting thing is that Harry should have that cognitive bias too. But as we know, Harry  overcame his sense that Snape deserved his hatred  and that Dumbledore was a god that failed, so much so that he could give their names to his second son.

That was, IMO, a gutsy move on JKR's part,  leaving her readers with a boatload of cognitive dissonance and not telling them how Harry dealt with it.  One way to deal with it is to simply disengage. Or of course, to decide that JKR resolved her story in an unrealistic way or didn't resolve it at all. 

But IMO she gave us a clue.  "Albus" and "Severus" are not the names that Harry used for these men in life, so maybe to Harry the name "Snape" still brings up the thought "murdering traitor" but "Severus" is "the bravest man I ever knew."

Pippin