Yes, Harry is definitely not evil. Thoughtless does not equal evil. But he certainly does himself no favors when he 'defends' himself by saying "I knew exactly what I was sending you into". Still, Snape's claim that Harry did it all just to spite him is unfair. In my experience though, sometimes the only thing that stems the tide of rage is getting the target of that anger equally upset. The way I've been reading it, Severus finds Harry's (relatively) calm defence of his actions in the face Snape's anger to be the most infuriating thing of all, and is thus deliberately trying to get a rise out of him, fair be damned.
One of the things I find most impressive about JKR is that she does the "Snape looks evil! Oh, wait. He's good" thing over and over in the books, and there was STILL a raging debate about his good/evil status up through book seven. Of course, that may be a comment on the audience rather than the author :)
Hmmm, was that post 157 or 158 in The Thread To End All Threads?
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-09-16 05:15 am (UTC)Yes, Harry is definitely not evil. Thoughtless does not equal evil. But he certainly does himself no favors when he 'defends' himself by saying "I knew exactly what I was sending you into". Still, Snape's claim that Harry did it all just to spite him is unfair. In my experience though, sometimes the only thing that stems the tide of rage is getting the target of that anger equally upset. The way I've been reading it, Severus finds Harry's (relatively) calm defence of his actions in the face Snape's anger to be the most infuriating thing of all, and is thus deliberately trying to get a rise out of him, fair be damned.
One of the things I find most impressive about JKR is that she does the "Snape looks evil! Oh, wait. He's good" thing over and over in the books, and there was STILL a raging debate about his good/evil status up through book seven. Of course, that may be a comment on the audience rather than the author :)
Hmmm, was that post 157 or 158 in The Thread To End All Threads?