Attitudes formed in childhood tend to cement and become more ingrained, not less--especially those based on intense emotions. Harry's loathing of Severus is repeatedly reinforced at a crucial time in his psychosocial development: adolescence. The fact that all this occurs atop the struggle with Voldemort would merely exacerbate and reinforce his opinions, particularly if your complying with HBP.
Adults can hate people. That doesn't make them any less mature. You can loathe someone with every fiber of their being and still recognize that they are a valid individual. Just because someone dislikes someone else doesn't mean that they can't understand and appreciate them on varying levels. In fact, you're more likely to react negatively to someone whom you understand on a deeper level simply because they're more emotionally evocative. We often see ourselves and our fears reflected in the people we can't stand.
The nature Harry's loathing for Severus may change over time, but I find it unrealistic to believe that he'll reach a
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Thanks for your in-depth, psychological explanation. I'm glad that your interpretation seems to fit with the way I'm portraying Harry in this story. I still find hard to see it, though. Maybe because I'm not like that. I stopped hating the people I hated when I was a child very early, and now I don't really hate anyone.
I think vain's right. You can't hate someone all-consumingly and be a mature soul, I don't think. But even if you can see that they love their dog and treat their wife well, you can still despise that person for other reasons.
I don't disagree. But I don't think when the Snarry shippers say they want to read a story where Harry and Snape hate each other they are thinking of this serene kind of hate!
Hate is a funny little "emotion", isn't it? I guess you are lucky enough to never really hate another person with that kind of passion. For Snape and Harry, I think it's a matter of first impressions sticking (and they often do stick very well with us despite how little social and affective information they can actually offer about the target). There are also years of social and power inequity between the two (though who has the upper hand differs from time to time and it seems to continue very much so in your fic, lol). I don't think people can be just one thing or another. People are various things all at once: mature and immature, smart and stupid, etc. And I have been reading Schola Obscura (you make the history/anthropology geek in me happy xDD) and I think the interaction between the two of them are fine.
I guess to bring this back on track and to end my rambling. What exactly is your definition of a "believable mature!Harry"?
As I was telling Vain above, perhaps my problem is that I stopped hating people very early in my teens, and now I don't deeply hate anyone. Maybe that's why I think Harry's hate is not a mature feeling. Oh, of course, if someone is pestering you, you better hate him/her, it's a self-defence feeling, but what Harry feels for Snape is too deep for me to understand.
Yay, I'm glad you're reading Schola. I'm also glad that, although I can't really empathise with this Harry, he seems plausible to you.
I stopped hating people very early in my teens, and now I don't deeply hate anyone.
Wow, you are very lucky. I'm guessing there was never anyone close to you that hurt you deeply enough to make hatred stick. It took me nearly three decades of life to stop hating my father -- although I loved him, too. That only makes it even more difficult. It's why there's a name for a love-hate relationship.
I'm not saying Harry has any love for Snape, but Snape's contempt and ill treatment of Harry gouged into the same wounds already cut by the neglect and contempt of the Dursleys. Then he murdered Harry's only father figure in cold blood.
Well, my father... never was my father. I met him for the first time when I was 26. He said he didn't want to abandon me, but that life forced him to do that. I think my life was marked by what I perceived as a rejection, but that was more than compensated by my mother's love. Anyway, maybe the lack of a paternal figure near me made me emotional... immune to some kinds of feelings.
I can understand why Harry hates Snape. I just think when a person gets older, if he/she doesn't come to terms with that kind of feeling, it's because this person is not really mature. But I agree with you that this hate may transform into a kind of despise or dislike.
Snape is petty. He IS immature. So the hate for Harry I can totally see. As Harry grows up, I can see him coming to have a grudging respect for Snape. In a way that while he doesn't LIKE Snape, he doesn't hate him either. To me, as Harry grows up, Snape is just kindda there. So Harry's feels go from Hate to Impartial. Where he doesn't really have a thought about the man one way or another. He would know he used to hate Snape, but now it wouldn't matter much in his life. Harry wouldn't see him much, so why would he give Snape a thought?
(That is until.. youknow they work together and fall in love and such)
We don't really know much about canon!Snape, so we have to interpret his actions. I agree with you that he's immature, at least when dealing with emotions. And I think you're right about canon!Harry, he will, one day, be impartial, indifferent to Snape. But if we want him to fall in love in Snape (and oh, how we want it!), I think this "Impartial" phase is not very favorable for us. As they say, nothing is more opposed to love than indifference. So, I think we should make him think he's now impartial, when, deep inside, he's already falling for Snape! ;-)
I agree with you completely - if Harry stays angry, he's immature, and if he gets over it, it's very, very hard to see him ever *liking* Severus. Likewise, I geniunely feel that Severus absolutely *loathes* Harry and that he's very unlikely to get over that. A bigger problem for me than the hate or indifference, on Harry's side, is that I don't think Harry respects Severus. That to me is the real problem with Snarry.
You could have his hatred for Snape as a lingering blind-spot in an otherwise mature personality, a lot of people are like that in reality; sensible, adult, wise, helpful, generous & nice etc ... until you run into the personal 'Zone of Doom' that they may hold in regards to certain persons/people, things etc.
I agree with others that you're lucky to hate nobody. I can't think of anybody I really hate--that is, people I have regular, personal contact with. People like President Bush are another matter entirely. *g
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I agree with you about Bush, but this is the kind of hate that is social, political and impersonal.
Hee, I think I'm really weird, because I know more than one Snape in RL, and I like them very much. It's just a question of not letting yourself be crushed by them ;-). You have to make them respect you.
But I understand why Harry hates Snape now. What is hard for me to see is a Harry who already knows Snape is not his ennemy, and continues to hate him. I know: Snape was, in a way, responsible for Harry's parents' deaths, but even so.
As for Snape, I see him as very immature, and it doesn't matter how old he is ;-).
So it's the all-consuming aspect of the hate that you can't grasp in a mature person?
(That's not a rhetorical question; I'm not sure where the line is between hating someone and despising them . . . or something?) If I can hate someone and love him at the same time, I can surely hate someone else and have some respect for her at the same time . . . which is what I can see Harry doing. Getting Harry over the hate is the part I always look for, of course . . . because that's just the kind of gal I am. :)
I don't care much for hatesex, because that doesn't resolve anything. I like my resolutions, and want these people to be happy. It is a little strange that I want them to be happy *together*.
Oh, despising is a feeling I know very well. I despise many, many people. If this is a mature feeling or not, I can't tell you ;-). I think the difference between despise and hate is that hate is consuming. Maybe not all-consuming, but consuming. I think despising is healthy, while hating is not. Maybe it's just an issue of definition, I don't know.
I believe you can love and hate, but not love and despise... Why is that? Exactly because hate is a very personal feeling, IMO.
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Adults can hate people. That doesn't make them any less mature. You can loathe someone with every fiber of their being and still recognize that they are a valid individual. Just because someone dislikes someone else doesn't mean that they can't understand and appreciate them on varying levels. In fact, you're more likely to react negatively to someone whom you understand on a deeper level simply because they're more emotionally evocative. We often see ourselves and our fears reflected in the people we can't stand.
The nature Harry's loathing for Severus may change over time, but I find it unrealistic to believe that he'll reach a ( ... )
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I guess to bring this back on track and to end my rambling. What exactly is your definition of a "believable mature!Harry"?
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Yay, I'm glad you're reading Schola. I'm also glad that, although I can't really empathise with this Harry, he seems plausible to you.
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Wow, you are very lucky. I'm guessing there was never anyone close to you that hurt you deeply enough to make hatred stick. It took me nearly three decades of life to stop hating my father -- although I loved him, too. That only makes it even more difficult. It's why there's a name for a love-hate relationship.
I'm not saying Harry has any love for Snape, but Snape's contempt and ill treatment of Harry gouged into the same wounds already cut by the neglect and contempt of the Dursleys. Then he murdered Harry's only father figure in cold blood.
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I can understand why Harry hates Snape. I just think when a person gets older, if he/she doesn't come to terms with that kind of feeling, it's because this person is not really mature. But I agree with you that this hate may transform into a kind of despise or dislike.
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Snape is petty. He IS immature. So the hate for Harry I can totally see. As Harry grows up, I can see him coming to have a grudging respect for Snape. In a way that while he doesn't LIKE Snape, he doesn't hate him either. To me, as Harry grows up, Snape is just kindda there. So Harry's feels go from Hate to Impartial. Where he doesn't really have a thought about the man one way or another. He would know he used to hate Snape, but now it wouldn't matter much in his life. Harry wouldn't see him much, so why would he give Snape a thought?
(That is until.. youknow they work together and fall in love and such)
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Hee, I think I'm really weird, because I know more than one Snape in RL, and I like them very much. It's just a question of not letting yourself be crushed by them ;-). You have to make them respect you.
But I understand why Harry hates Snape now. What is hard for me to see is a Harry who already knows Snape is not his ennemy, and continues to hate him. I know: Snape was, in a way, responsible for Harry's parents' deaths, but even so.
As for Snape, I see him as very immature, and it doesn't matter how old he is ;-).
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(That's not a rhetorical question; I'm not sure where the line is between hating someone and despising them . . . or something?) If I can hate someone and love him at the same time, I can surely hate someone else and have some respect for her at the same time . . . which is what I can see Harry doing. Getting Harry over the hate is the part I always look for, of course . . . because that's just the kind of gal I am. :)
I don't care much for hatesex, because that doesn't resolve anything. I like my resolutions, and want these people to be happy. It is a little strange that I want them to be happy *together*.
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I believe you can love and hate, but not love and despise... Why is that? Exactly because hate is a very personal feeling, IMO.
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