pauraque_bk | GoF 27

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GoF 27

GoF 27: Padfoot Returns

And so do we. By popular demand, I think I can fairly say!

[Rita's article:] However, it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms which have captured these unfortunate boys' interest.

'She's really ugly,' says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, 'but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it.' (444)

If you like the theory that Ginny's using a love potion in HBP, here's more foreshadowing.

'I told you!' Ron hissed at Hermione, as she stared down at the article. 'I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She's made you out to be some sort of -- of scarlet woman!'

Hermione stopped looking astonished and snorted with laughter.

'Scarlet woman?' she repeated, shaking with suppressed giggles as she looked round at Ron.

'It's what my mum calls them,' Ron muttered, his ears going red again. (445)

Certainly reminiscent of Ron's "D'you think I want people saying my sister's a--" in HBP, though I doubt he was going to say "scarlet woman" that time. Ron is very worried about the girls he cares about being seen as sluts.

'If that's the best Rita can do, she's losing her touch,' said Hermione, still giggling, as she threw Witch Weekly onto the empty chair besdie her. 'What a pile of old rubbish.'

She looked over at the Slytherins, who were all watching her and Harry closely across the room to see if they had been upset by the article. Hermione gave them a sarcastic smile and a wave[...] (445)

I don't know whether this should be a surprising reaction from her. Instead of getting upset at the petty bullies, she later exacts her revenge on Rita, the one who's really done her wrong.

'Ah ... reading magazines under the table as well?' Snape added, snatching up the copy of Witch Weekly. 'A further ten points from Gryffindor ... oh, but of course ...' Snape's black eyes glittered as they fell on Rita Skeeter's article. 'Potter has to keep up with his press cuttings...'

The dungeon rang with the Slytherins' laughter, and an unpleasant smile curled Snape's thin mouth. To Harry's fury, he began to read the article aloud.

'Harry Potter's Secret Heartache ... dear, dear, Potter, what's ailing you now? A boy like no other, perhaps...'

Harry could feel his face burning now. Snape was pausing at the end of every sentence to allow the Slytherins a hearty laugh. The article sounded ten times worse when read by Snape. (446-447)

It's a pretty long article, too! I hope no one was actually trying to, you know, do some schoolwork while Snape was hamming it up. This is one of those times where you can't really justify Snape's behavior; he's just being an ass.

Interestingly, we get no reaction shots from Hermione here. Perhaps because the entire performance is really directed at Harry, as we can see when Snape moves Harry to sit in front of his desk, and carries on:

'You might be labouring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you,' Snape went on, so quietly that no one else could hear him [...] 'but I don't care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him.' (447)

Which is nothing we haven't heard before from him, though every time Snape complains about Harry "breaking rules" it sounds very disingenuous to me. Snape doesn't hate Harry because he thinks rules are beneath him, but because of James (and I don't think he hated James because he "broke rules" either).

Anyway, this segues into:

'So I give you fair warning, Potter,' Snape continued, in a softer and more dangerous voice, 'pint-sized celebrity or not -- if I catch you breaking into my office one more time--' (448)

'[...]But unless you watch your step, you might just find that my hand slips --' he shook the crystal bottle slightly '--right over your evening pumpkin juice[...]' (449)

Though the context is not the same, I'm surprised at how closely the dialogue here matches the "closet scene" in the movie. Of course, the movie doesn't convey Harry's reaction very well:

He didn't like the sound of that Truth Potion at all, and nor would he put it past Snape to slip him some. He repressed a shudder at the thought of what might come spilling out of his mouth if Snape did [...] there were all the other things he was concealing ... like the fact that he was in contact with Sirius ... and -- his insides squirmed at tthe thought -- how he felt about Cho ... (449)

Nice foreshadowing of the Occlumency plotline in OotP, how strongly he resists Snape's intrusion into his memories of kissing Cho -- ie, his sexual feelings (the ones that make him feel all squirmy inside! my goodness). Snarry isn't my favorite pairing, but I will totally grant that there's a wealth of relevant canon to make it more interesting.

Next comes the Trio's visit to Sirius's Cave of Angst and Rat-Eating. I always found this scene sort of pointless, and didn't resent it not being included in the movie, but now that I look more closely at it, it's actually very nice as a character interlude.

[Harry says Crouch Sr has been ill.]

'Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn't he?' said Hermione coldly. She was stroking Buckbeak, who was crunching up Sirius' chicken bones. (453)

Hermione's protectiveness of Winky is obliquely compared to affection for an animal, not a human being. Clever.

Sirius paced all around the cave in silence. Then he said, 'Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you'd left the Top Box?'

[...]

'Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?'

'It's possible,' said Sirius.

'Winky didn't steal that wand!' said Hermione shrilly.

'The elf wasn't the only one in that box,' said Sirius[...] (454)

Indeed not. But as usual, Sirius's advice is of mixed value. He raises some valid points and introduces a lot of information, but also casts doubt on a number of innocent characters.

'Oh, I know Crouch all right,' he said quietly. 'He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban -- without a trial. [...] Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn't you know? [...] Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorised the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark side.' (456-457)

It's not clear whether Crouch had special wartime powers that someone in his position wouldn't normally have. Ron gasps along with Hermione at the revelation that Crouch imprisoned Sirius without a trial, but is it the act that shocks him, or the person who committed it?

'Most go mad in [Azkaban], and plenty stop eating in the end. [...] You could always tell when a death was coming, because the Dementors could sense it, they got excited. [...] Crouch never came for his son's body. The Dementors buried him outside he fortress, I watched them do it.'

Sirius threw aside the bread he had just lifted to his mouth, and instead picked up the flask of pumpkin juice and drained it. (459)

That last is surely significant. The Trio brought that pumpkin juice, so it's not spiked, but doesn't it seem that Sirius reaches for a drink out of habit, subconsciously wishing to dispell the horrible memories he's just relived? Very much the Sirius of OotP who smells of stale alcohol, I think.

The image of Dementors burying a corpse is perhaps a little strange, but they are corporeal, so it's not completely absurd. The point is that a human gravedigger would have noticed it wasn't really Crouch Jr, but his mother, I expect.

'So you think Snape could be up to something, then?' asked Harry, but Hermione broke in.

'Look, I don't care what you say, Dumbledore trusts Snape--'

'Oh, come off it, Hermione,' said Ron impatiently, 'I know Dumbledore's brilliant and everything, but that doesn't mean a really clever Dark wizard couldn't fool him--'

'Why did Snape save Harry's life in the first year, then? Why didn't he just let him die?'

'I dunno -- maybe he thought Dumbledore would kick him out--'

'What d'you think, Sirius?' Harry said loudly, and Ron and Hermione stopped bickering to listen. (460)

This exchange works on two levels. With an example of his occasional uncanny intuition, Ron tells us the truth, but in a form we don't recognize.

Simultaneously, Ron and Hermione speak as Harry's inner voices, arguing back and forth until Harry himself has to yell for them to shut up, seeking a second opinion outside his own head. (Someone he sees as wise, though we may not agree.)

'[Snape] was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters.' (461)

That's Rosier, Wilkes, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Avery. If we take what Sirius says in OotP into account, we can add Lucius to the "gang", I reckon. Whether Snape was really friends with any of these people, or was more like their "lap dog", is up for debate.

'He showed Snape something on his arm?' said Sirius, looking frankly bewildered. [...] 'Well, I've no idea what that's about ...' (461)

The practice of marking Death Eaters wasn't and isn't widely known, even to someone who has every reason to know a lot about the DEs. It's sort of hard to imagine how the secret could be kept, unless you accept that the mark could be hidden at will.

[Sirius:] 'And don't forget, if you're talking about me among yourselves, call me Snuffles, OK?' (463)

Aside from just sounding silly, does this actually make sense? Why wouldn't they just call him Padfoot? Or, say... Bob. If you overheard people talking about "Snuffles", wouldn't you be more likely to ask who that was, not less?

Well, aside from that, this is a very nice chapter. I wish they were all like this.

Previous GoF posts are saved in memories here. I should probably go read them too, since it's been so long...

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Of Hermione's making? I think it's more likely Slughorn's.

No, I didn't mean that Hermione had actually made a Love Potion for Ginny. I simply meant that JKR raises the possibility of someone playing such a trick, which is often the way she does her foreshadowing.

Ha! :D

Good point! One of the reasons Sirius's presence in this book feels like something of a loose end to me is that despite all the time that's spent on Harry's misgivings, and Sirius's own warnings to keep his location a secret, nothing ever comes of it. Despite the slip-ups such as signing his own name, he doesn't get caught.

I made it myself. Thank you. :)

It might also be a sign that he had acquaintances rather than true friends. People who liked him for what he could do for them rather than just because he was him. And if he had an aptitude for learning, and found the stuff that was being taught at his own level to be easy, I can see him being drawn towards people a few years older who could teach him the more advanced spells that they were learning, provided that they were prepared to tolerate him in return. As a younger kid and tolerated prodigy he'd almost certainly be on the outer edges of the group though, which again would seem to fit with what we know of Snape as a loner who keeps his own counsel.

It'd go a fair way towards maintaining that chip on his shoulder. And also, it leaves him fairly rudderless once they all leave school and he's still there. I wonder how much the Marauders' campaign of taunting and worse might have escalated once his older pals who knew the more advanced hexes had all left and he was isolated?

Oh, I see. Yes. There's a lot in Books 2 and 4 that don't pay off till Book 6.

This is well-put and I just wanted to add that we get a glimpse here of the HBP Harry, who is definitely sneaky and manipulative. (And "obsessed" with Draco, to tie into the homoeroticism you also brought up.)

That's interesting -- I think I tend to sell JKR short on foreshadowing between books, but you're right, you definitely see some sides of Harry here that are only developed in HBP. And I was also thinking about the whole anger theme in OOTP, the way people stoke each other up in a way that echoes what Harry and Snape are doing here. It's interesting how much stuff you don't notice until you do a re-read in the light of later books.

I agree with a lot in this post, though I'm not entirely sure about this...

But really, we could equally read it as a quiet demand for an explanation – a reasonably direct request that Harry account for his behavior.

Well, we could -- and had Snape said the same thing to Draco Malfoy, a student he has some sort of understanding with at this point, chances are that he might have taken it as the same (because as Snape has never had cause or desire to insult him before, he could recognize it as such). But it's not exactly shocking that Harry couldn't, and I have doubts that any other fourteen-year-old could, even one with a neutral background with Snape, as it's not presented as a request for explanation so much as a rather insulting decided statement. And while we've never actually seen Snape interact with another student this way, with the exception of Neville (who, for obvious reasons, tends not to respond either), Ron did warn Harry against trying to defend himself to Snape way back in PS.

Additionally, Snape had just docked Gryffindor twenty points without letting any of the Trio get a word in edgewise (which would make a request for explanation after punishment had already been doled out a little odd, not to mention hard to detect).

I don't think Harry can fairly be faulted for ignoring Snape (and any possible overtures he was making) after the point had already been driven home that his explanations were worthless. And the only other reason he had for ignoring Snape was his refusal to let Snape get a rise from him; and while this could in some sense be taken as contempt, we have also seen what happens when Harry does let Snape get to him, and that too has continuously been described as insolence and contempt, which I more strongly agree with, but which also makes it hard for me to see his doing the exact opposite as the very same thing.

I can easily see how Snape would take it as such, though -- for all his gripes about Harry and James, he's quite the attention-whore himself, and doesn't take kindly to being dismissed either -- and maybe that's the important thing. But what Snape sees doesn't necessarily equate to what actually is, any more than it what actually is equates to what Harry sees. That's the important balance I've always personally seen, that each are in some parts wrong and right about each other.

That's the one. It's so wonderfully grotesque. :)

I will totally grant that there's a wealth of relevant canon to make it more interesting.

Hmm. Snape/Harry makes the whole story :) I mean, besides that thing with Voldemort and Harry.

'[Snape] was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters.' (461)

This vagueness of this statement has often been used to debunk the credibility of Sirius's accounts in the HP series, because it's constantly pointed out that these people would have left Hogwarts in Snape's second/third year, and Snape was alone in the Pensieve scene. I just see it as an example of the Slytherin hierarchy, which we have seen at work in the present generation (indeed, by OotP, Draco and Pansy seem to be at the top of it). Even though Draco's "main" gang consists of Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, and Blaise, we know that he is often seen with many other Slytherins, not all of whom can be in his year, and not all of whom he hangs around with all the time (ie, Theodore Nott, although they are friends) -- yet they can all be seen as part of his gang, especially by outsiders.

That to me seems to be what happened here, although it does cast my vote for Lapdog!Snape, his being so much younger than them and all. Bellatrix, being of a similar mold as Draco (and especially at that age, I suspect) could easily have been at the top of the hierarchy, possibly playing the Pansy-Draco role with Rodolphus Lestrange, only with the actual roles reversed. The other Slytherins Sirius named may also have been at the top by association; it's the main way I can account for these names being the one to stick out most in Sirius's mind, although he also would have been in third year at the most when they left school.

The practice of marking Death Eaters wasn't and isn't widely known, even to someone who has every reason to know a lot about the DEs.

Fandom Idea No. X debunked.

The more I think about the way Sirius is depicted in this chapter, the more fascinated I am with JKR’s trickiness. Many things about the way the chapter is set up, many conventional aspects of the scene in the Cave, reinforce Harry’s sense of excitement at seeing his godfather, reflect his sense of admiration and sympathy for him, heighten a dramatic sense of Sirius as a kind of romantic hero. At the same time, we also notice a set of descriptions and images that are radically subversive of Harry’s view, and that suggest that Sirius is a remarkably unsympathetic personality.

I should say at the outset that I find Sirius is a disturbing and creepy character throughout the series, and I resist (and think JKR intends to subvert) the generally sentimental way that Harry tends to see him. And I don’t just mean that Sirius is reckless or a bad boy. Fundamentally, I see Sirius as a born User, someone who almost instinctively misrepresents himself and manipulates Harry for his own ends, taking advantage of Harry’s emotional neediness while pursuing an opportunistic agenda that has little to do with Harry. Without going into an obsessively close reading here, I want to make some suggestions and then invite people to re-consider the scene and see if these suggestions seem plausible.

The very concluding words of the chapter nail down the basic irony here: Ron says, “Poor old Snuffles . . . he must really like you, Harry . . . imagine having to live off rats.” This is precisely the impression that Sirius has worked to create, leaving Harry with the sense that Sirius is ferociously devoted to him, self-sacrificing, etc. I don’t buy it at all.

First, why has Sirius gone to such lengths to station himself outside Hogwarts? To watch over Harry? How exactly does living as a dog in a cave, half an hour from Hogsmeade, help him accomplish that? I think Sirius is there for an entirely different reason – to watch for an opportunity to avenge himself on Crouch Sr., who is supposed to be attending the Tournament as a judge. It’s very similar to the situation in PoA, where Sirius allows Harry to believe that he escaped from Azkaban to protect him, while I think you can make a case that what drove him in PoA was the hope of revenging himself on Peter once he had learned his whereabouts. It’s a tricky case to make in either example, but I think what makes it persuasive is, first, the ability of the “revenge” theory in either case to explain details of Sirius’ behavior – the way, in GoF, he preserves his distance from Harry; or the way, in PoA, he tries to ingratiate himself with Harry by giving him a broom but seems oddly indifferent about frightening him or hurting Ron. The revenge motive is hinted at but de-emphasized, and covered by a convenient parallel story that plays directly to Harry’s emotional needs.

In this chapter JKR certainly signals some wariness, even disgust, about Sirius as a personality. She is very careful to reinforce doglike or animal-like aspects of his behavior throughout the cave scene. At the moment Sirius changes back into a human being, he still has newspapers in his mouth. (Featuring stories about Crouch!) Once he spits out the newspapers, the first thing he says isn't "How are you, Harry?" It's “Chicken!” Sirius is hungry, and his hunger comes first. He bolts his food like a dog, and guzzles his pumpkin juice like a dog (I like your theory about taking a drink but I think it’s more just a matter of crudeness.) He even “barks” his laugh at one point.

It’s not at all clear that Sirius takes much emotional interest in Harry. The very first significant thing he says to Harry, when Harry asks him what he’s doing there, is that he’s “doing my duty as a godfather.” This comes off, to me, as strikingly passive-aggressive, insincerely self-pitying, mainly calculated to manipulate Harry’s emotions.

[continued . . . ]

[. . . continued]

Throughout the conversation in the cave, Sirius is more interested in explaining and exploring his own conspiracy theories, especially regarding Crouch, and he uses hard-luck stories to attract and keep Harry’s sympathy. We all make much of the rat-eating. But how do we know Sirius has been eating rats? Because he says so. And yet a big friendly dog would probably dine fairly well behind the inns and bake shops of Hogsmeade. Sirius tries to pre-empt this obvious objection by saying he didn’t want to “attract attention” in Hogsmeade, but what’s more natural and inconspicuous than a dog begging for scraps? And if you’re a dog, what’s wrong with a rat dinner, anyway?

Does anyone on this thread really consider Sirius a reliable narrator in general? It’s interesting that this chapter opens with Ron exaggerating stories about his “kidnapping” for the Second task. I suspect we’re being clued in, here, to the unreliability of self-dramatizing narrators, prepared and warned to take Sirius with a bushel of salt.

If we suspect Sirius of tendentious storytelling, then, what should we conclude about the other important information he passes along in this scene: his account of his non-trial, his reading of Crouch’s behavior? I’m particularly struck bv what Sirius says about Crouch being a bad father, which must have some powerful resonance with his own family tensions, and possibly more to do with Sirius' private grievances than with the actual facts. The thing we’re inclined to forget is that Sirius is simply wrong about his interpretation of the Crouches. Crouch Sr. may well have been justified in his aggressive tactics against the DEs, even if Sirius himself was caught up as an innocent victim. (You never hear Dumbledore, for instance, say a harsh word against Crouch Sr.) Crouch Jr., in fact, wasn’t innocent. Crouch Sr. probably was wracked by guilt and regret. And he was a devoted enough father to help Crouch Jr. escape and to try to keep him safe at home, however misguidedly. Ironically, it’s Sirius who wants to reduce Crouch Sr. to a black and white character, a figure of absolute evil rather than of tragedy, and who is stalking him with uncertain but probably sinister purpose. Meanwhile, he is overlooking and excusing the real guilty party, the real source of danger to Harry – Crouch Jr. He’s making the same mistake that Crouch Sr. made thirteen years ago in persecuting him instead of Peter.

I would like to believe that Sirius has some genuine concern for Harry, even if only narcissistically, as a reminder or symbol of better days with James. But I’m not sure we see even that much real emotion in GoF!Sirius – the “godfather” references seem too consciouisly part of a strategy of manipulation. There is very little humanity left in Doggish!Sirius, other than a craving for very personal vindication and revenge. Mostly, I think, Sirius sees Harry as a tool, a resource. He wants to keep him loyal and devoted, and a source of information when needed, but in practical terms he also wants to keep him out of the way. I find it almost bizarre that after drawing Harry and his friends half an hour out into the wilderness beyond Hogsmeade, Sirius sternly cautions Harry never to visit again because it’s not safe.

Why does any of this matter? After all, in the end Sirius doesn’t do any actual harm to Harry, and doesn’t wreak vengeance on Crouch Sr – that’s left to Crouch Jr. One thing that’s worth stressing is that, for all his visibility as a character, Sirius is really much less important in driving the actual course of events than his oversized romantic presence, and his role in Harry’s imagination, would suggest. He’s a fantasist, a poseur, and is ultimately ineffective in almost everything he takes on. But he’s very important, I think, to JKR’s analysis of Harry’s own potential character traps, of the way that attractive characters go bad through excessive self-regard, through indulgence of passions and the pursuit of idealized closure to their personal stories, oblivious to Dumbledore-style irony and sympathy and pragmatic reason. He’s an example of what not to let yourself become. This may be why, in OOTP, JKR called his catastrophe “a necessary death.”

Well, I'm not going to defend Snape's fairness, because I agree that Snape is not being fair. But what I think is important, here, is that Snape, however hostile he may be, is treating Harry like a human being. He is speaking to him frankly -- this is what I think of you, this is why I don't like you -- which, paradoxical as it may be, implies a kind of respect that silence and manipulation simply don't. It's an authentic communication, and Harry has the chance to reply and chooses not to.

I don't agree that Snape's prior behavior with the points excuses Harry's refusal to speak. The points business may, again, be unfair and disproportionate, but Snape is clearly within his rights. The trio is whispering in class, they're reading a newspaper -- it's an open and shut case, and there's no need to hear excuses. He may be unreasonably severe here (and more severe than he would be with others) but his motives are perfectly clear and defensible, he's not being obscure about them. The Trio know where they stand, and why.

And as soon as Snape separates the Trio after this incident, as soon as he secures a reasonably private opportunity to talk to Harry, he does talk. And Harry doesn't.

Snape is being a hard-ass, but there's a personal connection there, a personal message. Harry is refusing to recognize Snape even as a person.

Aha. That would explain why he seemed friendless in the Pensieve scene despite the dialogue in this chapter. That's been bugging me.

I've never noticed anyone eavesdropping on them when they discuss anything worth eavesdropping on.

Except Draco in HBP. But that did indeed seem to be the first time anyone had overheard them say anything important--I was kind of shocked when it happened because it was just something I'd come not to expect.

I don't have much to add here, but I think you're dead-on - this was really gratifying to my own reading of Sirius. Thanks!

Hi, sorry for just jumping in, but I just wanted to add that even if Snape is just asking for information at this point, the history they already have together makes it more or less impossible for Harry to react in any other way.

I'm not saying that Harry is in the right though, just that he has come to expect Snape to behave like the Dursleys in these sorts of situations; they've already decided what to think, and anything he says won't matter a bit.

This is also consistent with the irony theme I think JKR is so good at; here Harry has done what the Durleys are doing to him, which is disregarding what Snape actually does in favour of Harry's own preconceptions.

Of course, Harry has more of a reason to treat Snape this way, since Snape was pretty bad from the start. But he still does it, and I think it's a product of his upbringing, just as his habit of forgetting the adult world even exists (because for him it pretty much didn't, before he found out about Hogwarts).

I've never took my analysation of Sirius this far, but I'm finding your reasoning very convincing.

Sirius is a character who might never have been held accountable for what he's done. Of course, I tend to suspect that he had some form of punishment after sending Snape towards a death by werewolf, but Dumbledore isn't harsh, and tend to prefer making a person realise their mistakes instead of a simple punishment. Sirius might have brushed that off fairly easily.

His stay in Azkaban was for something he didn't do, and therefore gives him the chance to play the tragic hero, righteous in his revenge. I agree with your observations. He's a warning, not a role model, but Harry might never had realised that.

I remember first reading about why he escaped Azkaban, and wondered why he hadn't escaped earlier if it were for Harry's sake. It was Peter's picture in the paper that made him react after all. He probably cares about Harry to some extent, but his need for revenge and to fulfill his own needs was probably a lot more important to him.

The Trio know where they stand, and why.

I wasn't arguing that Snape's behaviour excuses Harry's refusal to speak (if it came off that way, I apologize), I was arguing more that his behaviour explains Harry's refusal to speak. Because we know for a fact that Harry didn't come to the conclusion that Snape was expecting an explanation from him; and Snape's behaviour explains why -- it's highly unorthodox to demand that Harry account for his behaviour after points had already been taken, because however deserving the punishment may be, what use is the explanation after the fact? It's not like the points are going to be given back. It's not like said explanation was demanded at a time when it could have actually made a difference. So that's why I think Harry didn't hear Snape's words as anything other than what they seemed to be, an insult.

Which is how we come to this...

It's an authentic communication, and Harry has the chance to reply and chooses not to.

...because it's starting to seem like a lose/lose situation no matter what Harry would have chosen to do. Because yes, he had the chance to reply. We know how he took Snape's opening statement, he was angry; let's face it, anything he would have said in reply would have been insolent. And we've seen Harry in situations like this before, where he did happen to talk back and thus acknowledge Snape as a person worth getting his opinion across to, and those scenes are still (correctly, IMO) viewed as Harry's being insolent and contemptuous of Snape's position. So...I don't know, was this what you meant by Snape always bringing out the worst in Harry, and vice versa -- no matter what Harry chooses to do, he's still showing a very ugly side of himself?

I guess I'm having a little bit of trouble getting behind the idea that ignoring someone = dehumanization, because...well I definitely agree that it shows a lack of respect, in a "you're not worth wasting my breath over" kind of way, but so often it is really the best response to a variety of different situations (this one included, imo).

I mean, if your infuriating boss at work starts railing at you because he is ticked off about something (that may or may not have anything to do with you personally), do you ignore him until he's done, or do you start railing back? What's the best choice? When spouses get ticked off at each other, they could either revert to the ignoring act, or they could keep fighting verbally, letting it escalate and acknowledging each other as people, though disrupting not only their own peace, but the peace of anyone else around them at the same time.

In GoF, Hermione completely ignores the Slytherin girls as they laugh at Skeeter's article, and is constantly telling the boys to do the same. Multiple times throughout they actually do attempt to take this advice, and ignore the Slytherin kids completely while the Slytherins acknowledge them as people ... but is this the less favourable option, below the option of acknowledging said Slytherins back and allowing the fight to escalate and become ugly and physical? I need someone to find me any instance in canon when the Gryffindors have not either become physical, or come very very close to it, on the times they have risen to the Slytherins' bait (at least the kids'). If they don't ignore them, this is what it comes down to, and this seems rather dehumanizing in itself. What's the better choice?

It's something I've never really looked at so closely before, but it's odd that both options are rather disrespectful in their own sense; most have called simply ignoring your nemeses 'taking the high road', but I guess when faced with antagonism, there really are very few ways to really take the high road, be the bigger person.

I think you're on the mark.

And also, it leaves him fairly rudderless once they all leave school and he's still there. I wonder how much the Marauders' campaign of taunting and worse might have escalated once his older pals who knew the more advanced hexes had all left and he was isolated?

This perfectly explains how Snape can have had as many allies as Sirius suggests, yet still have been without anyone to stick up for him by his fifth year.

Jumping in is allowed. Encouraged, even. :)

I think you're right. Snape and Harry behave very similarly towards one another, which is sometimes disguised by the fact that Snape has authority over Harry, and makes his behavior appear much worse.

That's Rosier, Wilkes, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Avery.

From HBP:

"Nonsense," said Slubhorn briskly, "couldn't be plainer you come from decent wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you'll go far, Tom, I've never been wrong about a student yet."

The small golden clock standing upon Slughorn's desk chimed eleven o'clock behind him and he looked around.

"Good gracious, is it that time already? You'd better get going, boys, or we'll all be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it's detention. Same goes for you, Avery."

...Oops.

You've got some really interesting points here, but I think we still have what we might call a "fruitful disagreement" that's worth going another round on!

First, I completely agree with your observations about Harry's take on the situation -- I think that's precisely what's going through his head, that he can't win, that he has nothing to gain by speaking. The question is -- is this an adequate assessment of the situation? What do we make of it? Does it reflect a deficit of understanding on Harry's part that forms part of our evaluation of his character?

Where I think we disagree, fundamentally, is in how we assess the range of possible responses to Snape-style hostility. I read you as suggesting that there are two options: escalating the confrontation, and "taking the high road" by ignoring the provocation.

But I don't think those options exhaust the possibilities or include the most effective strategies; I don't think that choice works. And it's an important issue, because confrontation is a fact of life, it's something people need to have an effective strategy for dealing with. To take your spouse example -- it would be kind of horrible, wouldn't it, if the only choices for dealing with conflict were to fester in silence or to escalate the confrontation? Clearly, a relationship is a situation where it's really important to get to the root of the conflict, to transform the conflict by talking and understanding and reflecting on the other person's viewpoint.

But the marriage example is maybe a bad one because everyone would agree that you need to go to extraordinary lengths to resolve differences there. Maybe a better case is your "boss" example. Because a boss has a great deal of license for Snapish behavior. And sometimes you can let it pass, or blow over, but sometimes you have to deal with it because otherwise it would just create an impossible situation if your boss made a contemptuous judgment about you and you let it stand. At the same time, a contest of "face," an escalation of the confrontation, isn't very smart either.

But there's a third choice, which I think you'd agree is perfectly normal and ordinary and happens all the time in effective resolution of problems between people. And that is to talk about the problem, to first stand your ground with self-respect but also to show respect for the other person's concern, and to sort of tactfully manage their reaction to whatever is bothering them. "Let's talk this out, let's get to the bottom of this. Here's what I think. Here's what I think you think. Can we work this out?" And you do this in a way that's not about face, that's not about competing for who's taking the high road, but that is genuinely oriented toward solving the problem. And again, this is a necessary skill, because confrontation happens all the time, and the person in a power position isn't always going to be the first one to be tactful about differences, so people have to come up with a constructive strategy for dealing with this sort of circumstance.

To take this back to Harry and Snape, there are a couple of issues.

First, you suggest that Harry has tried talking before, and it hasn't worked. But I don't agree that he has tried this. When he's "talked" to Snape in the past, he's basically just mouthed off. There's no acknowledgment that Snape has an issue with him, that needs dealing with.

[continued . . . ]

[. . . continued]

Second, you raise the "points" issue again. So I should make a clearer case here about how I see that. I'm not actually suggesting that what they need to talk about is the points. The points are a closed issue. The Trio were talking, they were reading a paper in class, they got points taken. There's nothing to talk about. And Harry needs, at a minimum, to recognize that that was basically a fair disciplinary act and get over it.

What's left to talk about is something else: their underlying tension, their hostile relationship. The root of Snape's hostility is that he thinks Harry is an asshole. He may be wrong, but Harry has to start by acknowledging that fact and coming up with a strategy for dealing with it. Or, he can choose to just live with the situation, but where does that get him? So he needs to have enough respect for Snape just as another person, who may be right or wrong about things, and needs to have enough distance on his own ego, to conceive of the idea that correcting Snape's perception is a problem worth working on. (And quite frankly, I'm not sure Snape is entirely wrong about Harry, or at a minimum, I think he has a partial insight that Harry might profit from taking to heart.) If Harry can't imagine that as a live possibility, that's his own failure of imagination -- and I'd feel more sympathetic to him if he'd ever given it a try.

Third, I agree that Snape's comment doesn't sound very much like an invitation to talk, it sounds more like a considered judgment and an insult. But again, in power positions, that's often what you've got to work with. It's an overture, it's an opening. I continue to think that it's significant that Snape addresses Harry, that he lays out, quite plainly, what his issue with Harry is all about. It's a handle for communication, and if Harry wants to change the situation he's got to seize it.

What should he say? As much as the situation permits: That he acknowledges Snape has made certain judgments about him. That he thinks Snape is mistaken but is willing to hear his issues. That he's not his father and isn't willing to inherit Snape's issues with his father. That he recognizes he shouldn't have been discussing the newspaper in class. That he thinks it's reasonable to be concerned about hostile gossip, and not a sign of egotism or collecting press clippings. The main thing is to be calm, to be self-assured, to indicate that he knows they have a problem but wants to get to the bottom of it.

Is this a reasonable thing to ask from a 14-year old? Well, I'm not going to give a glib answer to that. I'm not mainly interested in "scolding" Harry but I think it's useful to look at his mistakes and the things he does badly or out of ignorance. It's probably true that the great majority of 14 year olds are too self-absorbed to show this kind of tact. But not all of them. I think we all knew people in high school and even in middle-school who could just startle you with their insight, their ability to defuse situations, to command spontaneous respect and loyalty because of their ability to manage people. It's probably a matter of native social intelligence. (And I certainly don't pretend to have scored very high on that at that age.) The point is that it's a trait that exists, and that Harry doesn't have.

Again, my goal here is not primarily to dump on Harry. It's just that as adult readers, I think we're meant to see Harry clearly and ironically -- to see his limitations, his blind spots, and the way these things contribute to his total situation. He's much too self-absorbed and self-righteous to deal effectively with Snape, and that's something that's going to continue to cause him problems in analagous situations until he figures it out. Of course, Snape is no prize either -- but that's another post!

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GoF 27

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Thoughts on Sirius - I

Thoughts on Sirius -- II

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Re: Thoughts on Sirius -- II

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Re: Thoughts on Sirius -- II

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