A comment I made in someone else's journal about Snape an Harry that I kinda liked
I think I'm somewhere in the middle where it comes to Snape and Harry, to be completely honest. Harry gets away with a lot of crap because he is Harry Potter, Dumbledore even admits he favors him at the end of OoTP. Remember the House Cup first year that should rightfully have gone to Slytherin? Not to mention the fact that he got, what, some detentions for nearly eviscerating another student. And don't forget, he even complains about that, like he shouldn't have been punished for some reason. Perhaps because he's Harry Potter and he's used to getting away with the things he does on impulse?
It's the nature of the series, actually; a lot of the time, Harry gets rewarded for, yes, breaking the rules, plunging into something headfirst without thinking, and getting lucky, a lot of the time getting so lucky because of something his mother gave him, not even something he earned on his own. And I think this system is disconcerting to a lot of readers, because it doesn't reward hard work (I'd argue that Draco is the hardest working student in the book because he works so hard in both academics and athletics; Harry's quite possibly one of the laziest) or intelligence, it recognizes this sort of arbitrary trait that Harry happens to have received as an infant.
And I think that Snape is sort of the anti-thesis of this. He's a completely self-made man; he came from a very poor background and through hard work and intelligence, earned recognition from the most powerful man in the WW, 2 most powerful men if you count Voldemort. Nothing was ever just handed to Snape the way that a lot of things have been handed to Harry because of who he is, and I think that this is sort of what clashes when they clash, and that this is what really needles a lot of readers. And it's where a lot of respect for Snape comes from and a lot of disdain for Harry as a hero. Which, you know, I'll admit, I did like the last scene in HBP where Harry just got completely knocked on his ass by Snape. He charged in without thinking and he paid for it. It was extremely silly and rather arrogant of him to think that he could beat a wizard like Snape on sheer magical ability alone, and the lesson there was that, no, just being Harry Potter isn't enough sometimes, sometimes you've got to think, you've got to strategize, you've got to go against your first impulse.
I'd never really thought about it, but I guess there is some arrogance to the idea that your first impulse is always correct, that you don't need to plan or anything like that. Interesting.
It's the nature of the series, actually; a lot of the time, Harry gets rewarded for, yes, breaking the rules, plunging into something headfirst without thinking, and getting lucky, a lot of the time getting so lucky because of something his mother gave him, not even something he earned on his own. And I think this system is disconcerting to a lot of readers, because it doesn't reward hard work (I'd argue that Draco is the hardest working student in the book because he works so hard in both academics and athletics; Harry's quite possibly one of the laziest) or intelligence, it recognizes this sort of arbitrary trait that Harry happens to have received as an infant.
And I think that Snape is sort of the anti-thesis of this. He's a completely self-made man; he came from a very poor background and through hard work and intelligence, earned recognition from the most powerful man in the WW, 2 most powerful men if you count Voldemort. Nothing was ever just handed to Snape the way that a lot of things have been handed to Harry because of who he is, and I think that this is sort of what clashes when they clash, and that this is what really needles a lot of readers. And it's where a lot of respect for Snape comes from and a lot of disdain for Harry as a hero. Which, you know, I'll admit, I did like the last scene in HBP where Harry just got completely knocked on his ass by Snape. He charged in without thinking and he paid for it. It was extremely silly and rather arrogant of him to think that he could beat a wizard like Snape on sheer magical ability alone, and the lesson there was that, no, just being Harry Potter isn't enough sometimes, sometimes you've got to think, you've got to strategize, you've got to go against your first impulse.
I'd never really thought about it, but I guess there is some arrogance to the idea that your first impulse is always correct, that you don't need to plan or anything like that. Interesting.