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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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!