The (Mis)Education of Harry James Potter - Part II
Here's the other half of my monster post on Harry's moral education and Severus as moral teacher.
Part I is here.
(I've never hit the word limit for a single LJ post before!)
( Read more... )
Part I is here.
(I've never hit the word limit for a single LJ post before!)
( Read more... )
But you have convinced me he WAS addressing that, just from a poor position to make a difference.
Because you're right, there was no reason to give Harry that specific detention except in hopes of reaching Harry with a needed lesson.
One thing you missed: the significance of Severus overseeing Harry's detentions HIMSELF.
Which, you will remember, teachers don't always do. Sometimes they assign students to a detention supervised by a colleague.
So. Excuse me? Events are hurtling towards Snape's hated appointment to kill Albus. Draco is a loose cannon who is getting desperate. Severus expects at any moment to leave Hogwarts under a cloud, believed by all to be a traitor, never to return except as the Dark Lord's supposed tool...
And the VERY BEST use Severus can find for hours of his vanishing time under these circumstances is to oversee Harry Potter's copying out of old detention notices?
Er, right.
So, why NOT leave the detentions to Filch to supervise?
Obviously, because the third-best-in-the-world Legilimens needs to watch his target to see if his tactics are WORKING.
And Severus must have been pretty damned depressed at the results, as Jana-ch and others have pointed out.
Indeed, the only hope for redemption for Harry, if Severus still could cling to hope, was that the boy continued to find his father's and Sirius's exploits, as detailed in those cards, neither heroic nor funny.
Stop now to register that SIRIUS's reactions to those cards, or JAMES's, would likely have been a stream of fond reminiscenses. Bertram Aubrey? Ha, ha--that was one of our best gags! He was so UPSET when we swelled his head; it was hysterically funny,really it was, Harry!
But not even Harry's long exposure to the Weasley Twins' sense of humor can make him accept such treatment of a random bystander. Someone he hasn't previously written off.
But then, Dumbledore did claim that Harry was more like his mother. Who demanded, "What has he ever done to you?" when she spotted James torturing Severus.
And who retired, content to let the abuse continue, once Snape had provided something Lily could accept as retroactive justification for James's mistreatment.
Reply
Because, if he's as internally bent out of shape about how he fucked up and is struggling with moral questions the way we generally read him as being, then I can't see how Severus - in his sincere desire to help and protect the kids - is going to be utterly indifferent to that side of things. Be able to separate moral from physical danger so easily. After all, one of the most immediate and agonizing examples of the dangers that are out there that he personally knows firsthand is both physical and profoundly moral. The LAST thing he'd want is for one of his Slyths - or any other kid - to follow anyone with a charming lie and start wrecking lives. Like he did.
And his harsh strictness, his repeated insistence on giving the kids nasty consequences for things, reads to me like someone who's never been shown an example of calm-assertive authority and guidance doing his best to poke his charges into thinking before they act with whatever tools he's got available. And, rather than trust only his own proven-to-be-faulty judgment as the source of authority, he looks to rules. Something explicit and known and (supposedly) fair. To guide himself, too. Because he's flying by the seat of his pants here, but he can't bear, or afford, to just give up on them.
He knows exactly what happens when you do that. And they don't end up safe in any sense of the word.
Unfortunately, he is, yes, in "a poor position to make a difference." Exactly. And nobody's ever given him the full set of tools he needs to do the job properly. He's got a hammer and paint scraper to build this house with. And he's got some nails and some things that look like nails but are really rather resistant to being dealt with like nails, and a bunch of other stuff to figure out, and his own wits and desperation.
And once he notes that coming down like a ton of bricks at least tends to get results of some kind, gets them to pay attention...
All right, I'll stop ranting. XD But yeah, this essay kind of pulled together some threads I'd been playing with for a long time.
One thing you missed: the significance of Severus overseeing Harry's detentions HIMSELF. [...] why NOT leave the detentions to Filch to supervise? Obviously, because the third-best-in-the-world Legilimens needs to watch his target to see if his tactics are WORKING."
Oh, very good point, thanks for catching that. Yes, everything in his life is spinning its way out of control and he's spending his Saturday mornings watching Harry Potter furiously resent having to face consequences for nearly killing someone. Because yes, he wants to see if he's able to teach the boy anything at all...
But not even Harry's long exposure to the Weasley Twins' sense of humor can make him accept such treatment of a random bystander. Someone he hasn't previously written off.
But then, Dumbledore did claim that Harry was more like his mother. Who demanded, "What has he ever done to you?" when she spotted James torturing Severus.
And who retired, content to let the abuse continue, once Snape had provided something Lily could accept as retroactive justification for James's mistreatment.
Ouch. Oh. Yes.
I do imagine Severus was indeed rather depressed with the results. And, if he was thinking about things on the level I suspect he was at that point, probably wondering if, in following Albus' lead for so long with the boy while he struggled to write his own guidebook, he hasn't made another of his big mistakes. If he'd abandoned playing the villain early enough, tried new tactics sooner, would he have got through to the kid? Or would Albus have undone all that anyway in his kamikaze training program?
Oh god, the more I think about this the more I just want to hug Severus.
Reply
It hadn't been a stupid strategy, given Harry’s reaction to SWM. Harry had brushed aside Snape’s criticisms of James and Sirius, but when he saw an example of their actual behavior it appalled him-not least for forcing him to admit (temporarily, at least) that Snape had been right.. So the detention notices were supposed to demonstrate that SWM had not been a one-off-that had been the Marauders’ standard M.O. Moreover, it was important that Harry see that Snape was not the only victim, since Harry might decide (especially, er, soon) that Snape deserved what he got from them.
But it didn’t work. First, reading about James and Sirius hexing other kids for no reason didn’t have the same visceral impact as watching them do so. It gave Harry an unpleasant “jolt” each time, but no more than that.
Secondly, Harry could always tell himself that even if they were arrogant bullies at fifteen, they both died courageously. Heroically. So Harry the proto-hero might tell himself they were still good role models.
Thirdly, the lesson is undermined by almost all of Harry’s house. Not directly by Minerva this time, and not by Hermione (although “But you can’t call that Sectumsempra spell good, Ginny-look where it’s landed him!” [emphasis mine] shows, er, an interesting moral sensibility). But including, quite explicitly, Ginny-if Severus had read in Harry’s eyes the warm glow he felt remembering Ginny calling Sectumsempra “something good up his sleeve,” he’d have good reason to want to keep Potter away from the girl as much as possible. As a bad influence. As for the others, the Gryffs under Minerva have apparently NO moral compass at all-they explicitly regard Harry’s missing Quidditch as more important than his almost killing someone with what Harry himself considers “horrific dark magic.” And once assured that his punishment hasn’t lost them the Quidditch Cup, they are more interested in his romance than in his crime.
Fourthly, the lesson that Harry should not model himself on James had already been undermined before it started, because for six years Dumbledore has been encouraging Harry to do just that. Dumbledore himself has been reinforcing the agreeable-to-Harry belief that James was worthy of emulation. Who are you going to believe, Harry, Dumbledore or your lying eyes? Much less, Snape’s assurances backed up by a paper trail….
But finally, the lesson that Harry shouldn’t emulate James HAD to fail, because James wasn’t the one Harry was actually following sixth year. James (or selected traits) was the role model Dumbledore had selected for Harry, yes, and the one Harry believed he might be following. But Harry did not start entertaining himself by hexing passersby “just because he could.” He didn’t turn his friends into a baying pack, ganging up on someone “ for existing.” No, Harry was using jinxes on, and curses marked “for enemies.” Getting them back. While sneaking around after the worst, trying to prove that he should be expelled. And anything Harry did was justified because his targets deserved it. Well, almost anything. He didn’t mean to go too far-
The “guide and friend” Harry was explicitly following was the Half-Blood Prince. And even when the Prince led him into inadvertent almost-murder, Harry didn’t want to give up his guidance.
Well. There is an extremely easy way to persuade Harry that he doesn’t want to take the Prince as his role model, after all. And doing the reveal after Dumbledore’s murder will make the shock to the boy-and hopefully the effect-all the greater.
I mean, it was obvious even on the first reading-okay, for me the second reading-that Snape was trying to teach Harry in the “Flight of the Prince” scene. However hampered he may have been by his Death Eater audience.
As Severus couldn’t have counted on that opportunity, I expect he left an author’s note in the book itself, so Harry would get the shock when he went back to the Room for his beloved cheat-sheet.
Reply
So you think he knew the book was in the Room and got access to it, but left it for Harry to find with a note? I suppose I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Sev knows all about that Room, yes...
Good catch on the Gryffs. Ugh.
Reply
If Severus had not known of it from his own days as a student, he would have learned about it in Potter's fifth year, when it was publicized that the DA had been meeting in a secret room on the 7th floor. And the house elves knew exactly how it worked; Dobby had no problems getting in to warn Harry. So anyone in authority could ASK. Draco figured it out, enough to use the room as his almost-impregnable base of operations from the start of year six; if Severus couldn't figure out where the Room was and how to operate it, with over a year to work on the puzzle, I'll... well. Let's just say I can't see it.
In which case he was probably poking about in there spying before Potter's use of it, trying to figure out what precisely Draco was up to.
But--well, needle in a haystack. And you don't even know if it's a needle you should be looking for.
But the potions text was different--a defined object hidden there, and his OWN. I should imagine Severus could cast a spell to locate his OWN book, covered with his OWN handwriting, easily enough.
Back to "Flight of the Prince"--this also gives an internal explanation (the external one, of course, is that Jo's a bit of a hack) for the staginess of that part of the dialogue. Snape had been groping for how to introduce the topic without blowing his cover. (He should seize the chance if he could, as Mr. Potter learned far more effectively from direct witness than by reading and exercising his imagination on what he'd read--Severus had just wasted several weeks establishing that.) So, Harry gave him the opening, and Severus went off into a mad-villain rant--"You dare to use my own spells against me? It was I who invented them--I, the Half-Blood Prince!"
The Gryffs. As you say. Ugh. If we accept scripture that "by their fruits ye shall know them," Minerva has a heckuva lot to answer for.
Reply
Leave a comment