[the_old_crowd] Re: A BIAS in the Pensieve: A Batty Idea About Snape

[susiequsie23]

Pipin:
> And as you say, Mel, she seems to enjoy faking people out. I 
> thought that was fun in OOP, like the phony deaths in Star Trek, 
> The Wrath of Kahn. Everybody knew that a character was going 
> to die, so why not run with it?

Mel:
Well it was overkill. It was fine when we all thought it was Arthur,
but these "close calls" just kept coming. The scene with McGonnogal
read like it was inserted just for that reason. By the time Hermione
got it all I could think of was "fool me once..."


SSSusan:
I disagree somewhat, Mel.  While I won't lie and say I didn't think each of those false alarms was the real thing, they *did* serve a purpose, imo.  The Arthur one's obvious -- Harry found out he was seeing something *accurate* in his mind.  

The McGonagall one may not be so obvious, but I also think it was important to the plot and to Harry's development.  Look at how he reacted:

"Dumbledore had gone, Hagrid had gone, but he had always expected Professor McGonagall to be there, irascible & 
inflexible, perhaps, but dependably, soundly present."

IOW, I think this was one more step on the way to Harry's believing he's On His Own.  DD's gone.  McGonagall's now at St. Mungo's.  Snape's not to be trusted, of course (in Harry's opinion).  Sirius has been... ahem... "uneven" during this year.  Harry really is going to have to handle things without the aid of one of the adults he thought he could always turn to.  The stunners showed this to Harry *and* ensured (unfortunately) that Harry would take off for the DoM to save Sirius, since there was no trustworthy adult left at Hogwarts to talk him out of it.

Siriusly Snapey Susan




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