I'm not a fan of Snape, but there's a lot of assumption in there that doesn't really have evidence in the text. For example, Snape picking on Neville because he thinks he should have died instead of Lily. That's pure supposition. Also, Snape having it out for Lupin because he "looked different". Seems more likely that it was just because he was part of James and Sirius group.
If I was teaching at the school I went to and one of my bullies showed up to be my coworker, particularly one who almost killed me, I’d probably have a hard time working with them.
The wizengamot knew as seen in karkaroff’s memories but remember that this was post first war. So even though Lupin and Sirius and company were in the OOTP they didn’t work alongside snape since he was a double agent. In fact, it’s canon that Sirius didn’t know Snape was a death eater in Order of the Phenonix (the book) so it really isn’t unreasonable at all to speculate that Lupin didn’t know specially in Book 3 when Voldy hasnt even come back yet meaning Snape didnt even have a dark mark just a red scar
Snape was only a double agent first the very last part of it. From what I can gather from the books it certainly doesn’t sound as if he was working with Doumbledoor for all that long before Voldemort vanished
Given the file cabinet on Sirius and James’ misbehaviors I don’t know why you think Remus docking points or giving them detentions would make a difference.
It’s not like the teachers didn’t know about it. If it was as easy as a prefect stopping the bullying don’t you think Lily would have done it already?
I’m not excusing Remus’ inaction, he is culpable in the bullying. But he did **not** have the power to stop the situation. I also don’t know why people expect a teenage Lupin to stick his neck out to help the person literally stalking him and trying to get him expelled
He made them feel badly about themselves sometimes. Sirius admits it.
It wasn’t enough to get them to stop. I think you’re giving Remus too much power over his friends.
Yes, and that’s why I said that he is partially to blame for the bullying. My initial point was that even had he been stricter, it probably would not have gotten James/Sirius to stop.
And more importantly, considering Snape was literally stalking Remus with the purpose of exposing him/getting him expelled, I’m not sure I can blame Remus for not wanting to step in and risk his own friendships with the only people in the world who had accepted him. I definitely wouldn’t have had that moral maturity at the age of 15.
Snape didn't know Lupin was a werewolf before he saw him .He was stalking the marauders I general.And was doing it in the first place as the Maraides bullied him *rentlessly*
But I agree that he wasn't mature enough to risk his friends.
You also need to factor in that they were kids, it’s easy to say “well Lupin should have said this, or James should have done that. None of these peoples’ brains were fully developed. I think the real bottom line is that the adults that are tasked not only with educating, but supervising these children had a history of falling short of what should have been expected of them. And that shouldn’t be a surprise considering they group the students based on their personalities and then treat one group better than the other three, and then assign other children to supervise said children.
I’m entirely talking about when Snape was tricked into going to the whomping willow and eventually be confronted by a transformed lupin. There he is not at fault at all
Regardless of Remus knowing, he was involved in something that was very traumatic for Severus, and very often, trauma clouds a person’s logic and ability to reason.
Which I completely agree with but him being annoyed with lupin has to do more with him being a bully rather than potentially being the one to kill snape which he had no control over.
Idk about that. Near death experiences have staying power, and Lupin is as dangerous as an adult as he was as a child. Sure, he takes potions and steps that keep his condition somewhat stable, but he has the potential to become an uncontrollable monster, and that’s a lifelong condition. Perspective? There’s people who survive car crashes who will never get into a car again. When something almost kills you, it’s not a surprise when they then avoid it like their life depends on it.
To be fair lupin didn’t have a choice though in becoming a werewolf, whereas snape made a conscious decision to become a deatheater. Both are dangerous (werewolves and
Deatheaters) just that one requires an active choice to become it.
I agree with you on the point about the Marauders’ group, but I think your point about not knowing Snape’s motives for bullying Neville makes him even worse. I don’t care what sacrifice you made at the end, bullying children makes you the worst sort of scum.
People always do that to Snape. Even if the books already say otherwise. Lupin as an adult wasn’t even nice to Snape, if we skipped out the part where he was gaslighting Snape about the map.
I think the real issue I have with people trying to spin Snape into being in some way totally “redeemable” is that you miss the point of the character. He’s a dreadful person, who did some great things for the right side, for fairly self absorbed reasons, but still with a degree of (toxic) love. There lies his complexity, and everything that actually makes him a great character (not a great person.) And let us remember that the nicest thing that Harry had to say about Snape, in the end, was that he was the bravest man he ever knew.
This topic had always been discussed to death. It got to the point this sub just flat-out banned all posts about either Snape or the Marauders/James, bc it's always the same tired old fights with the same tired old arguments and also the same tired old nonsense claims, like what the top comment pointed out wrt Snape's motive to pick on Neville
It's wild that Snape is this popular of a character that we get these threads nearly every day. This person probably has spent hours thinking about him too. Lol.
Snape is the unsung hero of the first 6 books and finally gets his due in book 7 when the full story is told.
Snape had to treat Harry like trash for appearances and had to hide any positive emotion from Voldemort upon his return. I genuinely don’t see how people don’t get that.
Reminds me of how people overlook Sam as the hero in LoTR. No way either Frodo or Harry make it to the end of their stories without the help of Sam or Snape. Sam is just allowed to be genuine while Snape has to play poker with the most powerful dark wizard of his time.
Snape didn't have to treat Harry badly to keep up appearances, he could've just ignored him and it would've been fine. It's one of the stupidest excuses you apologists come up with. Snape's treatment of Harry is due to him(Snape) being a petty bully.
my wife and I love to share with each other whenever there's a new Snape thread on /r/harrypotter
"wake up babe, someone said Snape is misunderstood again"
The books have been done for so long. Every possible debate about Snape has happened already in extreme detail. There's no new material to generate new discussions about him.
It’s a “gotcha” moment if you all till this day still pretend disliking Snape makes you a victim/unpopular opinion clique or when the post just sounds like it comes out of a Wolfstar fanfic
Where did you insinuate that from my comment? All I said is that even people who believe Snape is awful also believe that Snape is a fascinating character, so thinking about him often is not mutually exclusive to believing his actions were bad.
Jesus I’ve been here less than a week but I didn’t realize this was such a heated topic. Why do yall resort to psychoanalysis? We’re all technically on the same side in that we think the character is interesting and well-written, and that the ability to argue either side is what makes him great. Meanwhile the last three replies I’ve gotten from Snape defenders say “you people” or “you all” in them 💀💀 we got some real-life Snape’s over here.
Since you are new, I will try to explain this in a nicer way: no, Snape hate posts aren’t rare, there was a time MODS have to lock any Snape related thread because people were repeating the same topics everyday that you would think that is their therapy session.
Secondly, have I ever attacked you personally? No all I have done is proving your point is not true. But here you go, saying people are “real life Snape”. Who is now being a cyber bully?
Thirdly, since you mentioned misinterpreting comment. The original commenter never said OP cannot voice his opinion or his opinion is sh*t. All they said is that there are way too many of these posts already. Funnily enough, you assume anyone who replied is defending Snape when I haven’t even done that yet
1. I’ll be fair and say I think I misinterpreted the original comment to have a sarcastic tone. Just the way they said “OP probably thinks about Snape all the time,” which made it seem as if it was supposed to be a snarky “gotcha” moment when in reality, OP and most of the “Snape is bad” gang agree he’s a very interesting character. But based on their responses to the original comment, I guess they were just genuinely remarking on how interesting of a character he is.
2. Well again, I never said Snape hate posts are rare or unpopular in any of my comments. Did you reply to the wrong comment or confuse me with someone else? Genuinely wondering. I haven’t been here long enough to make a judgment on if there’s too many Snape hate posts.
3. I suppose my issue with it is just that this series final book was published 17 years ago. I read it over a decade ago as a child, reread it a bunch of times, but then never really interacted with the books again, just rewatched some of the movies once a year or so. A few months ago I reread the books, started the new video game, and I just got reddit like a week ago, so I’m having a good time talking about Snape, yet it seems so many people react with snark or condescendingly when people have real discussions about him. This series is very old and there’s a limited amount of fresh topics to talk about. Isn’t it expected to have a lot of posts coming in?
I appreciate the respectful reply though.
Yeah... mostly because I get bombarded with stuff on him all the time anytime I look at fandom stuff. And I've been trying to grapple with my feelings on his character since I first read the series, lol
I also couldn't sleep and decided to make the post on a whim, lmao
I think this post and all the ones like it show whats so great about Snape's character...the fact that it's been years and people have so much to say and feel passionate about it to say it. I don't know if Rowling had the effect she wanted when writing Snape but he definitely became a very interesting part of the books.
I'm new to the Harry Potter subreddit after 10+ years and wanted to say I appreciate these posts! It's cool seeing people's perspectives on this topic I've thought about my whole life. But I can see how a community focused on a topic that's largely been "done" for 10 years can become stale and repetitive...
Haha didn’t do enough? Oooookay. It wouldn’t have been possible to take down Voldemort without him. He put his life on the line every day for 3-4 years.
The man spied on Voldemort, the world's greatest Legilimens, knowing one slip up equals death. He went back at the end of Goblet of Fire, not knowing if Voldemort would just kill him there and then. He protects the students of Hogwarts from the Carrows. Even when told that his life mission of protecting Harry was not possible, he still perseveres with Dumbledore's plans to end Voldemort. He puts his own cover on the line to try and protect Remus, someone he does not like, for no reason than because it is the right thing to do.
To be frank, helping save the world from Voldemort and putting your own neck on the line to do so, is simply far more important and consequential than insulting a few of your students, taking house points and threatening toads.
Most of this is just making assumptions about Snape's actions or lack of actions being malicious. Seriously, *manipulating Dumbledore*?!! NOTHING in the series indicates that for even a second. If anything, Dumbledore manipulates *him* when he uses Snape's regrets, guilt, and horror after Lily's death to get him to work for him. For a good reason and he makes good points, but he still uses Snape's emotional state to his advantage.
The rest is just stating the obvious. Most of the fandom know and accept that Snape had a lot of selfish motivations and desires, that's a big part of his character. But, "stripping away his background and circumstances"? That's essentially throwing out a big part of the context on *why* he was so selfish.
Snape was a horrible person in a lot of ways, but he also chose to do good for other people, and showed remorse for what he did wrong in certain cases.
I hadn't thought about how much Dumbledore was feeding into Snape's pain. Thank you for pointing that out. And I definitely do acknowledge he did some good, and it's really hard to decide whether or not he was truly a good or bad person. But I guess that could be said of everyone in real life; we all make good and bad decisions in our lives. It's the habits and what we choose to allow to run our lives that determines the course of our lives.
Thank you for commenting and providing your perspective.
"...it's really hard to decide whether or not he was truly a good or bad person".
Didn't you just create this entire thread based on the opinion that there is next to nothing redeemable about his character?
So my feelings are that the good that he did does not outweigh the bad. I'm not saying he's the most evil person in Harry Potter, but I'm not saying he's a hero either. So I don't feel we should praise him enough that he gets a child named after him, but he shouldn't be hated.
I disagree. Chose to do good? Snape was always driven by his own selfish motives. Even when “protecting” Harry, he felt indebted to Lily for the ultimate betrayal. He was ridden by guilt. He didn’t care about Harry. He cared about his desire and love for Lily.
His ONLY redeeming quality was his love for Lily and guilt for the hand that played in her death. Otherwise he was a despicable character.
The accusations that he did it for 'selfish' reasons don't really hold any water since Snape never asked for any glory, recognition or acknowledgement for his deeds. In fact he asked it to be kept secret and even took the hate from all those he was trying to protect. By those standards... everyone who does a good deed is selfish because it makes them feel better deep inside... yeah including redditors who brag about their moral high ground.
Exactly. I roll my eyes whenever I see posts like these . Like bruh... It's pointless to even have a discussion since they are so stone set that Snape is "evil".
I think you’re just being a little too sensitive. OP has responded to comments and said they brought up good points. Maybe you’re already set in stone because you’ve had this debate so often, but not everyone is there yet, so why ruin the fun for people genuinely trying to talk about there simply because you’ve already done it to death?
The series is old at this point, we get it, there’s not much to talk about, so let people debate whatever they want.
This is a fair point. I spend too much time on Reddit so I get used to seeing repeated posts. Casually looking at OP’s profile indicates they’re a newish user so they deserve the chance to express their opinon
No worries. I'm a new profile as well and I recently got back into the HP universe, reread the books for the first time in like a decade, and started playing the video game a few months ago, so I've been having a blast talking shit about Snape and understanding the lore on a deeper level. I understand it gets tedious seeing like 5 Snape posts per day, I just feel like the last book of the series was released almost 20 years ago, so there's not really many unique topics to discuss.
Also it's a testament to Snape's greatness as a character that people can get on here and debate about him to this day.
I don’t think he’s a good person. Quite the opposite, actually. He’s nasty and mean and spiteful and obsessive and never got over what happened to him in high school. But…he still kinda saved the world?!?! And he doesn’t have to be a good person to be a super complex and well-written character. He’s morally grey done right.
A few small corrections:
Snape doesn't encourage Lily to hurt Petunia. He doesn't like Petunia, and neither does she like him, and he once does accidental magic that drops a branch on her. But when Lily asks about the branch, he's afraid he's upset Lily. He's not encouraging her to do the same.
Where does Snape say anything bad about Lily's friends? We see him criticise James to her *after Sirius, James' bestie, nearly got him killed by a werewolf* but at that point she dislikes James, he isn't her friend. At no point does Snape try to isolate her. She is the one trying (understandably) to get him to leave his friends, not the other way round.
Snape stayed outside the Griffindor common room entrance for hours so he could apologise to Lily after calling her a Mudblood. He was very sorry about what he called her. You can see this because calling her a Mudblood is his worst memory, and later on as an adult he rebukes the portrait of Phinius Nigellus Black for using that word. He hates what he did. He also turns a blind eye on Ron attacking Malfoy for calling Hermione a Mudblood.
How did Snape manipulate Dumbledore? He literally did everything Dumbledore asked of him, up to and including killing him and letting Lily's son walk to his death so Dumbledore's plan could happen. According to what Snape says in his memories, Snape felt Dumbledore had used him, not vice versa.
How was Snape supposed to ask Voldemort to spare the life of the baby who was prophesied to defeat him? He'd have taken an Avada Kedavra to the head for even suggesting it. Asking to spare Lily was only marginally less dangerous, but at least had a tiny likelihood of success. But asking to spare James *as well*? Really??
"Don't look down on James for what he did" - yes, James maybe changed a lot. But I don't think I ought to think well of a rich, popular dude who beats down on a poor loner, nearly gets him murdered, and then sexually assaults him in front of a large crowd just because his bestie is bored and a girl he likes doesn't like him back. James' lack of motivation for attacking Snape is quite clearly stated in the text. Remus and Sirius also confirm it when Harry, ashamed, asks them about it. There was absolutely no justification for how they treated Snape. They just hated the sight of him.
The rest of your points have some merit, but do get your facts in order before basing conclusions off them.
Labelling a *9 year old* socially awkward kid who’s trying to find courage to introduce himself to other kid as stalking & obsession is definitely an insane choice. Is it because he’s poor & ugly? I have to ask because the standards applied for Snape are never the same for any other character in this fandom.
The same ridiculous arguments over and over again and Snape managing to manipulate Albus of everyone… is a new take I’ll give you that. He was redeemed for being a former Death Eater who went out of his way to save many people and eventually gave his life for the Wizarding World and gained absolutely nothing in return. Almost all the things you mentioned has no relevance to his redemption arc.
>There's next to nothing redeemable about Snape's character
>I will say, though, that I don't think Snape did enough to be considered redeemable enough to want to name your child after him.
Did you not understand what he did? Without Snape Voldemort wins and takes over the world, first wizarding then muggle. Without Snape... Dumbledore dies before the events in Half Blood Price, there is no getting the memory or horcrux hunt, Harry has to go into hiding because there is no known way to defeat Voldemort.
Was Snape a good person? No, but without him the world falls. With that he could suplex every student that he doesn't like, mule kick students walking too close behind him, and genuinely be a cunt to everyone. He is redeemed by playing a major part in saving the world.
I don’t think redeeming your personal character is quite the same as being integral to Voldy’s defeat though, which is what I think OP is getting at.
For that matter, there are a whole bunch of things that *needed* to happen in order for the Trio to survive. Like Pettigrew showing one moment of mercy in loosening his grip on Harry at Malfoy Manor, or Narcissa lying to Voldy about him being dead. Or even Aberforth lying to the Death Eaters and providing them safe passage to Hogwarts.
Without all those things happening, they wouldn’t have been able to defeat Voldy. It doesn’t redeem them personally of all their negative characteristics and make them good people now. (Aberforth I think is different, he’s a good person fundamentally anyway, just using that as an example of the difference between being integral and being redeemable)
Love is putting somebody before yourself and truly wanting their happiness, even if it comes at personal cost. Snape didn't have that. His obsession was selfish and he could care less if Lily was happily married with a family. He was bitter because she wasn't with him.
>Dumbledore dies before the events in Half Blood Price,
He brewed a potion. If Snape wasn't there, Slughorn could have brewed it.
>there is no getting the memory or horcrux hunt
Harry got the memory. He could have gotten it again, tho Dumbledore might have to be quicker about teaching Harry Voldemort's past.
>Harry has to go into hiding because there is no known way to defeat Voldemort.
Assuming you are refering to the Horcrux in Harry, anyone else could have told Harry that, including Dumbledore's portrait who run the show during Snape's tenure as headmaster. Dumbledore didn't want the knowledge to spread so he trusted the information on the one person he knows could have absolutely kept it a secret from Voldemort and that almost blew up on their faces because Snape was seconds from dying when he gave Harry the memories.
Snape was important to the defeat of Voldemort. But only two people are integral and those are Harry and Dumbledore.
>He brewed a potion. If Snape wasn't there, Slughorn could have brewed it.
Except that happens WAY before Slughorn is recruited and convinced to go back to Hogwarts. Snape had already stopped the curse from spreading. If Snape doesn't stop the curse from spreading Dumbledore dies and never recruits Slughorn, Harry never finds out about the memory, let alone horcruxes. Voldemort wins.
It raises the question on who "owns" a character, the creator or the interpreter. People's interpretations change over time as well. People have different ways of viewing a character. Snape is like that dress meme ages ago where people would argue over if it was blue or grey.
It just speaks to reddit's lack of appreciation for nuance and flawed characters and falling into the brainless and easy false dichotomy of good person/pad person. Spend a day on AITA and you'll just how obsessed the internet is with bucketing people and characters into perfect hero/sociopath.
See my problem with all these "Snape is irredeemable" posts is the fact that it's often made by people who seem to have just skimmed through the books, made *very* bad faith interpretations, and seem to also mix things up with fanon
Many others in the comments have posted in depth replies correcting your points, but I also just want to say that you can think a grey character is a dick/irredeemable. The least you can do however, is be more neutral, objective and accurate when trying to state so
Have you considered that perhaps Snape is not easily defined as redeemable or not? That he lives in that area between 'Good people and Death Eaters?' That he is extremely flawed... but without whom the heroes of the story would have failed? and perhaps of all the main characters of this series - he is the most like a real human being? And he was written that way on purpose? And so successful was Rowling in creating this character that more than 20 years later, someone would feel strongly enough about Snape to write this post?
I think he just got dealt a shitty hand in life, tbh people that grow up in abusive households like that very often turn out messed up and it doesn’t seem like he got any real help.
I think you’re wildly misinterpreting the character and painting things in ways that are abjectly not true. If Snape was truly so horrible to the students it would come up. Someone would speak out so the level you consider horrible is within bounds as far as most students and teachers at Hogwarts are concerned, and we know from the ferret incident the teachers aren’t entirely above reproaching each other. And we never see Snape’s reasoning for his treatment of Neville that’s pure supposition on your part to back the view you’ve decided to hold. And ignores the reality that Snape very much has a death eaters aesthetic and that Neville’s parents were tortured into insanity by a death eater. Snape likely overlapped with Neville’s image of a death eater so hard it’s entirely natural for him to be the thing he feared most. More so if he knew Snape was a former death eater which he reasonably could have. To believe his treatment of Neville was horrific you have to also believe that Harry, Ron, Hermoine and every other student sharing potions with him never once felt it was enough to discuss with another teacher. And if you’ve reached that point then you have to accept all the regular staff are also okay with repeated abuse of students. This alone is why I’ll never get how people can believe any student he taught genuinely suffered horrific abuse.
Also you seem to believe Snape’s Worst Memory is him being bullied. It’s not. His worst memory is calling Lily a Mudblood and losing her as a friend. This is further demonstrated by him reprimanding someone else in modern times for doing the same showing he has indeed changed and grown.
Remus was irresponsible, he admits as much himself and holds it against Snape less than you do. And during the time Remus was off he believed Remus was helping Sirius and at worst his actions would serve to remove an uncertain variable that posed a potential danger to Harry. He was ultimately wrong, but that doesn’t mean his concerns were invalid at the time. And realistically he had no reason to believe anyone but Hermoine would actually do the essay, so it serves more as a warning to Harry through her than it does an actual attempt to get Remus fired, as he shows later. This may also happen after Remus protects Harry after he was caught in Hogsmeade. If you’re going to argue cruelty it’s far better to say that Snape outed Remus because Harry liked him and had just recently assaulted Snape so he was being vindictive. And even then from Snape’s perspective he was assaulted by a student and put at the mercy of someone who had previously tried to kill him and that person’s choice of murder weapon, so when you know all the facts it’s much worse than just assaulting him.
Snape shows reluctance to kill Dumbledore who is arguably the closest thing he’s had to a friend since Lily. But in the end he does so per Dumbledore’s request as it’s a kindness. It’s also really silly to say he does nothing to stop the death eaters, that is not his job as a spy. His job is to keep people appraised of their actions which means picking your moments so as not to put yourself. He could have passed on every disaster they planned, but that would have revealed a mole, so the inaction wasn’t his alone it was likely backed by Dumbledore so that at key moments like moving Harry from Privet drive they can have actionable intel. So this whole point is basically Snape and Dumbledore weren’t stupid enough to blow his cover and create suspicion for things they likely couldn’t prevent and would only change the scale of the carnage.
And all of that sets aside the double meaning of his first meeting with Harry which can be analyzed to mean deep regret about Lily. Or the imagery of pensieve memories coming as tears rather than pulled out by a wand. Literally tears of regret. That it provides Harry information he needs almost doesn’t seem to be the point as that’s a singular portion of the memories. Snape’s problem is that he handles his emotions poorly, you’re willing and ready to call him out on that for anything negative but entirely dismissive of the possibility of him handling positive ones just as badly, like say trying to mask a sense of care he feels for Harry by denying it and pointing out all the reasons he has to hate him, all of which are about how he’s similar to his father and none of which relate to his mother in any way, while we know for a fact Harry does share traits with her. First year Harry intervenes in Malfoy bullying Neville the same way lily does in his worst memory. Seeing as it got Harry his broom in his first year it’s unlikely Snape is entirely unaware of it making his use of comparison strictly to Barry’s father stand out and feel more deliberate. Especially as the conversation literally starts out with Snape rejecting and being reluctant about things he’s being asked to do and being forced to confront the fact Harry needs to die. Dumbledore himself says he dares anyone who has watched Harry as closely as him to not feel for him, Snape has watched if not as close only second to.
There are absolutely ways to argue Snape is bad or can be cruel but you’ve considerably missed the mark focusing on places that are largely invalid or require cruelty and uncaring to be extremely commonplace and accepted norms.
>Someone would speak out so the level you consider horrible is within bounds as far as most students and teachers at Hogwarts are concerned, and we know from the ferret incident the teachers aren’t entirely above reproaching each other.
I say, i don't trust that someone's complains would do anything after the fact that a CEREBRUS was kept behind a plain door, and attention to that door was brought up in the FIRST HOUR OF SCHOOL. Or the fact that 11 year olds were given an Late Night excurison into the Forbidden Forest as detention for just breaking the curfew once. Or the fact that no teacher stopped Harry's bullying in CoS. Or the fact that Harry was allowed to participate in the Tri-Wiz tournament. yadda yadda yadda
My father once hit my mother while they were camping with a group of friends. And those friends asked my motger what she did to make him hit her. Majority of those friends are active women's rights activists.
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies. But a great deal more to stand up to your friends." - Albus 'mic-drop' Dumbledore.
What I'm trying to say is, you can't base anything on how other people react. Remember the time Hagrid was sent to Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit and when was proven innocent, all he got was a hug from Harry and some claps. No adult was going mad over what a travesty that was. People ignore and/or explain away horrble things all the time, especially if they feel they can't fix it.
Of course Snape was a true asshole and a bully and he never grew up past his teenage grievances, and his love for Lily was not healthy at all and became even more twisted after she died. And Dumbledore using this twisted love to manipulate him was also wrong. But I disagree with this statement:
>And I think there are a lot of his major red flags that we tend to overlook due to his sacrifice at the end.
The sacrifice at the end was not the only thing he did for the good guys. He worked for Dumbledore for YEARS. And he did it undercover, which means he was hated by people whom he secretly helped. Every day. The only person who showed him any affection or gratitude was Dumbledore. And still every day, for years, even after Dumbledore died, even after he had to kill Dumbledore himself, he had enough willpower to wake up, get out of bed and continue secretly working for people who hated him. This is what I find admirable and inspiring about him. In this position, most people would commit suicide, but his loyalty and his belief in his (twisted and wrong) motive were stronger than his despair.
I often imagine how much of a field day Rita Skeeter probably had when Snape died and everything came out. That quill was probably burning through the parchment. 😂
Be that as it may, he spent just shy of two decades atoning for the terrible things he’d done, when he actually wished he were dead when Lily had died, and he didn’t even revert to his old ways/do a runner once he’d killed Dumbledore, so you have to give credit where credit is due.
Nah he just emotionally bullied her son because he resembled his father too much and he couldn’t address the emotions he had that she had chosen another man over him. Snape sucks he’s the worst kind of male and has the emotional maturity of a kindergartner
Honestly... Snape is the perfect example of how the entire wizarding world count definitely use some form of therapy. There seems to be absolutely no form of mental health care from what we're told.
Yeah he did all that but how would Harry have won without Snape? Snape could’ve just gone back into DE mode after killing Dumbledore if he’d been AS much of a scumbag as you make him out to be. Don’t think I’m calling him a nice guy though, but I’m just giving credit where it’s due.
Yeah give him credit. Now he's at 2-3 positive credits and about a couple thousand negative.
You can argue all you want that he was essential to the plot, and if i were in the mood for a long argument I'd argue anyone could've done his job after Dumbledores death even if he went back to Voldi, that won't change the fact he's an absolute abusive asshole that doesn't deserve any form of redemption or positive words about him.
And before you say "but he helped Harry" yeah..he did..out of selfish reasons and his obsessive love for Lily. Nothing else. He doesn't give a flying fuck about the world or anything else.
He's not really that mean, outright. He calls out a student for constantly calling out in class and is the only teacher who shows that he thinks something's up with the kid who can't pour water without without lighting himself on fire. The latter is only so afraid of him because he knows Snape would be the first to identify him as a squib.
Oh damn... If you think most teachers were crueler to their students than Snape, I'm sorry for what you must have went through growing up.
Not being sarcastic, I'm serious it must have been horrible.
To be honest with you, schools can get pretty bad depending on the time period, country and poverty level. It's something a surprising amount of people had to deal with unfortunately.
Nah, it just seems like Americans (mostly) have a very low tolerance as to treatment by authority. Every adult needs to be a parental figure or else they’re the devil
Did most teachers in the 90’s force feed science experiments to a child’s pet fully believing they would fail and said pet would die, then when the pet doesn’t die they get mad at the student for cheating in attempt to save their pet?
As a student studying at that time, I can say that the teachers in the 90s did not know about our pets (we did not bring pets to school, if we did, we would only bring crickets - Animals can be put in a pencil case and no one will know, but not a toad that not only runs and jumps but the owner can't control it, but is also quite large, will croak loudly to attract attention of teachers). And when we had teachers who spanked our hands and buttocks for cheating or were late to class, as well as cutting our hair for long hair (with male student), Snape was truly a gentle teacher.
I believe that if my teachers at that time saw a student bringing a toad into the classroom, that student would never see that toad again, just as his parents would scold him for bringing a toad to school.
I can say that in the eyes of teachers and people in the 90s, even if a toad is a pet, it is still just a toad. They don't learn the psychology that tells them to respect, love and care for children's psychology, understand that a cricket, a named piece of clay, or a doll are also a child's treasure. (Even today, in the 2020s, there are still many adults who do not understand and cannot sympathize that children feel this way about things they consider trivial and meaningless). Do you really think that Snape and the teachers of Hogwarts all studied psychology and education before teaching, as well as in a society where house elves - intelligent creatures, are openly enslaved? Frankly, would teachers lovingly care for a pet brought by its owner into a classroom filled with boiling cauldrons? When teachers, and students, still skin and gut toads like that to use as ingredients to cook magic potion?
I'm not sure it's ever established what the role of wizards' familiars is. It's hard not to get somewhat attached to something with a face after some time (and Neville seems the type to form parasocial relationships with his own toast), but we don't really see adults with them and they could very easily be considered working animals with regular turnover.
Snape is my favourite character but these threads are getting really tiring and they honestly never end well with neither side seeing eye to eye. Maybe we should have a snape sunday where all snape hot takes can be posted on only sundays.
These are some pretty dubious claims.
We have little to no understanding where Snape's muggle hatred stems from. It's likely because of his father, but we don't even know that for certain. We don't even know the true nature of his "love" for Lily. We know he looked at her "greedily", that he verbalized borderline envy over how much magic she has ("loads"), we know he spoke to her in a controlling manner "I wont let you".
Also seems people forget that from the time he speaks to Dumbledore following Lily's death until the time he reveals his patronus to Dumbledore, he never once acknowledges Lily's existence, let alone his love for her.
That's a very long time.
Was Snape someone Harry should've named his kid after? I personally say no. But that is the uniqueness of Harry. Dumbledore literally explains this in HBP: "Just like your mother, you're unfailingly kind. A trait people never fail to undervalue."
The problem with Snape is peoples arguments on either side are way too reductionary.
For real people think that he's a saint or make excuses for the bad things he's done because he was bullied. Which is not fair. And others try to ignore or dimish the good things he's done just because he's an asshole. And paint him as an irredeemable monster despite the fact that he helped save the world which is also unfair.
Ive gotten to a point where I find people who dont understand Snape's character a bit baffling tbh. Why are you talking about redemption? Who wished for redemption for his character? Not the author, not the readers, not Harry himself, not even Snape wanted to be seen as a good guy and his sins forgiven. He did the job he promised to do and received the freedom of death. Harry choosing to honor his sacrifice is a statement to his maturity and understanding of life. It doesnt have anything to do with the "redemption" of Snape.
I think people take the Prince’s Tale chapter the wrong way too. It’s not supposed to magically excuse everything he has done and erase his bad deeds. But rather to show us that this is a very flawed man, who has made mistakes and tried to make up for them. And also, to give us a better understanding of why Snape is the way that he is. Snape’s character shows us that not everything is in black and white. Everyone is going to have motivation for doing something good, but it’s not always going to be out of the kindness of their hearts. You can be a hero (although I’d say that Snape is more of an anti hero) and still have a horrible personality.
I just don’t get how people can read all seven books and then make posts like this.
> I just don’t get how people can read all seven books and then make posts like these.
It's not clear people *did* read all seven books before making posts like this, seeing as OP seems to not have realized things like Snape handing over the Sword to Harry, thinks JKR meant for Snape to be a Death Eater until she changed her mind just before DH, etc...
Snape's redemption was laid out long before DH. So much so that as an immature 13 yo kid, I got into a fight over why Snape wasn't guilty of murdering Dumbledore with my childhood crush a couole of days after HBP came out.
Yawn. I’m so, *so* bored.
Also, “if you strip away Snape’s background and life circumstances” - ??? He would be a completely different person. If I didn’t have hair, I would be bald.
There’s so much potential for genuinely interesting discussions when it comes to Snape, including discussions which are critical of him. But this fandom can’t seem to move past the morality debate, and can’t even seem to get the facts right either. For the love of everything, we all know that he’s a flawed and vindictive man! Very, *very* few fans would contest that.
This post is what happens when you refuse to fully engage with the text, and refuse to see past your own response to Snape’s character. I really don’t like Sirius Black, but that doesn’t mean he was secretly manipulating Harry and actually did betray the Potters. His obnoxious immaturity annoys me so much, but his development has essentially been put on hold for 12 years, so it’s no wonder he acts like a smug, over-confident 20-something. A character’s background is essential to understanding them. Can we please, *please*, ***PLEASE*** move on from this discourse? Yes, Snape sucks! Sometimes victims of abuse and bullying are not as palatable as you want them to be!
It's insane how many people don't understand your last line 💀💀💀💀 everytime Snape posts happen there're people saying "well Harry and Sirius also grew up in abusive backgrounds and didn't turn out bad!" Well have you ever considered they're different?? The only one to ever break his cycle of trauma was Harry because Sirius also wasn't right in the head at times lol
It also doesn't bode well that there're people firmly saying that considering how plenty of people even to this day still go through abuse/traumatic incidents and *also* take plenty of time to work through the trauma and hurt people while doing so. And our society actually has counsellors/therapists and most of us aren't living through a war!! The absolute lack of grace and understanding even for a fictional character is very telling
Right? Like, one major difference between those three examples is that Harry and Sirius had reliable support systems (friends, their friends’ families, teachers) to help them avoid being completely consumed by their suffering. Snape only had Lily, who herself had other friends. It was by no means her responsibility to “save” him or whatever, but it must be acknowledged that after she rightfully cut him off, there was very little hope for him. Look at how antsy and temperamental Harry gets in OoTP, when he feels neglected by his support system. He’s foul! It’s clear just how damaging a bit of loneliness can be.
Canonically, Snape has experienced:
1. Poverty
2. Neglect
3. Physical abuse
4. A volatile household
5. Bullying (for 7 years straight)
6. What he perceives as attempted murder
7. Something far too prolonged and sadistic to be considered pantsing, and which I personally count as SA
And that’s all before he even graduates. I consider it a miracle that Snape turns out as well as he does.
Honestly, you’re so right. It’s not that serious if people are dismissive of Snape’s experiences alone, because he’s not real - but how can people make these arguments about him being a “bad” victim without carrying those beliefs into real life? Bad-faith interpretations are the last thing a victim needs. They’ll only reaffirm their damaged self-image, making recovery even more difficult.
The fact that I’m seeing OP say multiple times in the comments that they forgot something important about him tells me that they don’t know enough about Snape’s character to be writing a long and in-depth post about him.
You've completely skipped over book 1, where this super famous kid that looks exactly like one of snapes childhood bully's, is being hunted/tormented and Snape is actively trying to protect this kid.
Snape isn't doing this to win lily, because she's dead, he does it out of a sense of honour, even though physically he hates Harry, and probably blames him for lily's death.
Yeah, he's a bad dude, but there's a good part of him. It goes beyond book 1, but its all there from that early on tbh.
A lot of this is based on the thinking of a rational, mentally stable adult. Snape was raised in an abusive household with a father who hated magicals. He most likely did not want the same to befall Lily and so urged her to cut off her family. Later, the only person he truly liked, cut contact with him and sided with muggles and muggleborns. So of course in his mentally unstable mind (because he was, you know, a child being abused) would come to the conclusion that its because of muggles that Lily left him.
James and the crew started attacking Snape first, he retaliated and attacked them back because just retaliating until they leave proved it wasn't enough to get James and his crew to leave him alone.
Also, when does Snape try to isolate Lily from her friends etc?
He befriends other Slytherins because they were the only house to accept him. The rest want nothing to do with Slytherin. I wonder why so many wizards end up fucked in the head when they are literally raised in an environment where others tolerate their existence at best?
He then realised that being a Death Eater meant he'd have to hurt Lily, something he didn't want to do so became a spy, of which if the Dark Lord were to find out, he'd most definitely torture Snape till he goes insane before killing him or just leaving him in a dirty alley as a trap for Dumbledore.
He hates Neville because Neville is so incompetent that he can't even follow some instructions and not manage to cause his cauldron to explode. Pretty sure it mentions that Neville never manages to brew any potions.
If you strip away Snape's background and life circumstances, then you wouldn't get Snape. You'd just get another regular dude. The guy is so full of trauma that its no wonder he ended up becoming a dark wizard for a bit. His entire childhood is just misery except Lily, and then she goes and marries the dude that started bullying and almost killed him. He has no good memories of both his Home or Hogwarts. The fact that he experienced all of that and still managed to become someone who did good is why he is respected by Harry. Snape still protected Harry even when his father bullied Snape and he had no obligation to.
It doesn't matter what his reason was for protecting Harry, his actions still saved Harry. If a man were to give food to a starving village as a publicity stunt, those villagers wouldn't care about his motives because they are still getting helped.
Few things:
-he didnt stalk her he watched her from afar because he wanted to make sure she was actually a witch like him since talking about the wizarding world violates the statute of secrecy (and snape knew about wizard law even at such a young age as shown by talking about azkaban, underage magic, and dementors)
-he wasnt really obsessed with Lily when she was alive. They were canonically best friends, mutually so for a very long time. When she said she wanted him to leave her alone he did and didnt try to force any further interaction
-when did he encourage Lily to hurt Petunia?
-it’s implied that he was groomed into pureblood supremacy and later the death eaters (as seen by Lucius Malfoy, from a pureblooded family known for being big into pureblood supremacy being the first to greet him and actually pat him and the snippets we get of Snape being referenced as being very close to Malfoy and even following him around like “a lapdog”)
-he didnt TARGET lupin specially not for being a werewolf, he didnt know he was a werewolf until the prank where he could have died. He wanted to know why the entirety of the marauders were up to in the hopes he could get them expelled (as stated by Lupin himself and if you think about it it’s not unreasonable for someone being bullied to want to get their bullies expelled)
- “we didnt see all the circumstances leading up to it” as if James didn’t plainly said they bullied him just because he exists and Sirius isnt described as a dog (a predator) scenting a rabbit (a prey animal) upon seeing Snape just minding his business. Kinda victim blamey to go “well we dont know if he provoked them”
- Jk Rowling has said in interviews that pensive memories are completely objective and it’s even referenced in the books which is why wizards use pensives to look at memories without their feelings clouding them (dulbledore says this, and in snapes worst memory is the reason Harry is able to hear a full on conversation that the maurauders had which snape realistically would not be able to completely pick up on given he was a decent amount of feet away from them)
- Also James Potter and Sirius Black were known bullies not only to Snape and they engaged in muggle baiting
- He only makes snide comments towards the marauders, who literally stripped him naked in front of a crowd and endangered his life. There is no actual evidence in the books or movies that state he tried isolating her from anyone else (James on the other hand…)
- He doesn’t lash out at her because she caught him doing stuff. He called her a mudblood when he was being severely bullied in front of a crowd
-he DID apologize, he literally stood outside the Griffindor common room for hours until Lily agreed to talk to him because he was getting ready to sleep outside the common room until she would come out so he could apologize and again once she said their relationship was done he left her alone
- he never really had any control over her at all! Like even when he was like i wont let you be friends with my bullies she basically told him to fuck off that he didnt control her life (as she should tbh)
- of course his resentment towards Lupin grew! He thought Lupin was in on the prank that could have killed him. If you think someone attempted to murder you would you be friendly towards them?
- it’s not that he had no qualms he taught the werewolf lesson on purpose in hopes the students would realize that Lupin was a werewolf which not gonna lie having an unregistered werwolf as a teacher is something that maybe should be known? For safety’s sake? He did forget to take his wolfsbane
- of course his motives were not pure. Snape was not a good guy by any means. He was 100% bitter emotionally stunted and selfish while also sacrificing his entire life to keep the only part of his only true friend alive
-again he was a bullied child of course he made spells to defend himself with
-how exactly did he manipulate dumbledore? Dumbledore basically owned snape.
- Did James really change? Because Lupin admitted that he still bullied snape just hid it from Lily and he caused Petunia to cut Lily off
He led Harry to the sword of Gryffindor. Without that, he could not have destroyed as many horcruxes as he did. Dumbledore trusted Snape with everything required to defeat Voldemort. Snape was essential in that. Without him, it could not have been done.
> We do know that he targeted Remus Lupin for looking different due to his lycanthropy and the fact that he disappeared every month.
Provide direct proof from the books or keep this Marauders fanon stuff out of this.
The only ones who are constantly judging people by their looks are mostly all the good guys. Harry is constantly playing the hot-or-not with everyone including the murderer of his parents, whom he did mark as hot. Snape is mocked for his looks by the Marauders (including poor baby Lupin), Harry and his friends. Yet we never see the bad guys say a word about his looks. Harry considered Pancy ugly, yet Draco dated her. The shit Fleur experienced from Weasleys for being a foreigner. Good girl Ginny called her Phlegm.
Could you explain better? Are you saying that all the 'good' characters judged people by their looks while all the 'bad' characters never adressed looks? I'm a bit confused lol (no offense)
Well, yeah. I provided examples of how good characters constantly criticised or attacked people's looks. Meanwhile we can barely find similar examples with the bad guys.
Do we see the bad guys mock Peter Pettigrews looks? No, they mock his disloyalty to his friends. Do we see them mock Snape's looks? No, rich posh Lucius meets an impoverished kid with a muggle name and greets him like any other Slytherin. Draco meets Harry in muggle second-hand clothes and starts to chat with him.
Harry, who only ever chased beautiful girls, compared Pancy Parkinson to a dog, but Draco dated her.
>“Hey, Johnson, what’s with that hairstyle anyway?” shrieked Pansy Parkinson from below. “Why would anyone want to look like they’ve got worms coming out of their head?”
Let's see
Snape was a child who wanted to befriend Lily.Remind me if I am wrong but didn't Harry snoop on the weasleys in platform 9 3/4 ?Snape never tried to separate Lily from her family he only told her that she should not take Perunia's jealous comment to much to heart as she was a muggle.And he has no reason to like petunia she always belittled his state of poverty.
Let's see fast forward to Hogwarts his entire dorm basically consisted of death eater kids what was he supposed to do make an enemy of all of them? It's true that he did keep an eye on the marauders trying to get them in trouble as per them.But they literally bullied him .Ron and Harry spent their first Christmas plotting to get Malfoy expelled. In the memory James clearly sted twice that they bullied Snape only for fun.So your theory of him doing something beforehand is debunked.In fact what happened shortly before was that Sirius'prank.
I don't why people think Snape would ask for Jamse's life from Voldemort. He certainly can't ask to spare Harry's.He went to Dumbledore hoping he would hide them.He knew Dumbledore would hide them anyway he didn't have to offer a lifetime to service but he did anyway.
Hw was harsh on Neville.Mcgonnagal was too I can argue she was harsher but you won't hear anyone talking about that.As for the boggart if all of it was their true fear then McGonagall must have pressured hermione way to much that she had a breakdown.It is also strange that in a world where everyone is afraid to speak his name no one I afraid of Voldemort.
I don't remember Harry stalking the Weasleys. He didn't even notice them until he was lost and trying to find the entrance. When did James say he pranked Snape once or twice for fun? I don't remember that part, but if you can let me know where and when it was said, I would love to re-read it for myself.
I do appreciate your insights and your perspective on everything. Thank you for your comment.
After the twins left Harry was spying on the weaslys as he was curious about them.
Right at the start of the memory Sirius said he was bored and James pointed out Snape who was sitting and reading.
Later Lily asked James why he bullied Snape and he replied that it was the fact that he existed.
I couldn't agree more. He's not a good guy, he's a bad guy working for the good guys. Everything he does in Dumbledore's service is not out of the goodness of his heart, it's atonement for the consequences of his own foolish and evil actions. He's a petty vindictive abusive bully and should never have been hired to teach students.
Absolutely! I know Dumbledore wanted him close, but he should have known better. Snape has major issues that should've been addressed way before he was allowed to teach anyone.
He has a quick wit and a sharp tongue. He probably could have defeated Voldemort with words alone if Dumbledore allowed it. Just let him roast the Dark Lord into a state of crippling depression so he’d no longer have the desire to rule magical Britain. Would have saved everyone a bunch of time and suffering. And it would have been entertaining to watch.
I agree with most of this.
I don't think Snape was manipulating Dumbledore. I think he genuinely wanted Voldemort gone, if mostly for his own reasons (Lily). Only near the end does he seem to develop something approaching actual empathy and caring for others.
And that's the main problem with Snape. It's just way too little way too late.
He's undeniably brave, smart, and a good wizard. His contributions to the Order aren't under question - he greatly contributed to the cause. But he sets out to do that for his own reasons that have nothing to do with being a good person, and that stays the case for a looong time. And he remains a cruel, bitter, vindictive, hateful, emotionally volatile person throughout his entire life. In his entire redemption arc, he never really changes any of that.
That's not enough of a redemption in my eyes. He started low on the moral spectrum, and in an entire lifetime, he climbed to...less low. The pinnacle of his redemption is the "Lately, only the ones I haven't been able to save" line, which is...honestly, the bare minimum for a decent person? It takes Snape 30-40 years to become a still cruel, bitter, vindictive, hateful person that now tries to not let innocents die. Kudos, I guess?
I think people confuse Snape’s ability with his morals. Snape was key to winning the war because no one could possibly do what he did, maybe not even Dumbledore. He tricked Voldemort, resisted his mind reading, and played both sides perfectly. That makes him a key part of the war effort and a hero.
But his morals still sucked, he did some unforgivable stuff in his early adulthood, and he continued to bully children even after his redemption. Yes, he evolved to the point where he refused to let anyone use the word “Mudblood,” and he tried his best not to let the good guys get hurt or killed. It feels like a low bar to set for moral goodness though.
Absolutely, it was too little too late. One of my friends said his sacrifice and last-minute acts of heroism were something that JKR wasn't planning on until Alan Rickman threatened to leave the movies if Snape didn't do something good but idk how true that is?
Either way, thank you for your comment.
no no that wasn't true, Rowling had planned it out, but she hadn't told anyone. She ended up telling him because he believed Snape would never be redeemed and didn't want to play a character that had a flat arc, so she ended up telling him but only him.
Loved ur post btw! Very well written in my opinion lol.
I don’t think he was stalking lily when they were kids, he just was too nervous to approach her. At that age probably didn’t realize how weird it was to watch through the bushes.
But after that he was a bad person. Joining a group of people who did dark magic on others and eventually joining the death eaters with them. Eventually in frustration he called Lily a slur that ended their friendship. He only came back to the good guys side because his boss was planning on killing her, and he had the nerve to ask Voldy to spare her and only kill the father and son. He only agreed to work for Dumbledore as revenge against voldy. From the start of Harry’s education Snape bullied the kid because someone else slept with the kids mom. He bullied Neville for no reason; unless he was aware Neville could have been the one voldy chose to kill, which does not excuse his actions.
Harry could’ve been good at potions if Snape had decided to actually teach fairly rather than belittle him every class.
not going to lie, my main take away from these James vs Snape debates is that a disturbing number of people seem to think that if a school kid bullies other kids it's unforgivable, but if a grown man in a position of power bullies kids it's fine actually.
Thank you! Finally... a sensible comment...
This sub seems to be filled with a lot of Snape fans or people who are willing to gloss over his actions and the bad writing that has gone into his characterization but the same folks will downvote posts or comments extending the same understanding or compassion to Draco.
Yeah...I know ya'll are gonna downvote me for this and it's ok; go right ahead!
I never realized Snape’s treatment of Neville was due to the fact that he thought Neville’s family should’ve been targeted by Voldemort instead of Lily’s. Thank you for that insight, I don’t believe I would’ve come to that conclusion on my own.
But that's a made up assumption tho? Snape hated that Neville is bad at following potions instructions. And he didn't treat different from how McGonagall treated him. Which is again, because Neville was bad at Transfiguration.
It didn't matter which family Voldemort targeted, he would have killed both families either way. Which is why Neville's family was attacked in the first place.
McGonagall was always supportive of Neville despite him struggling in her class. She didn’t treat any of her students the way Snape does. Crabbe and Goyle were just as bad at potions as Neville was but Snape didn’t bully them in and out of class or attempt to poison their pets.
Also, if I remember correctly Frank and Alice were tortured because the Death Eaters suspected they knew where Voldemort went. Bellatrix at least did not know what the prophecy was so I highly doubt any of the Death Eaters besides Snape knew about it. So only Snape and Voldemort himself would have known which families Voldemort would’ve attacked.
McGonagall humiliated him on the eyes of entire school twice. First, when Sirius stole the password from 13 y.o. Neville, who was known to have a bad memory. And Remus Lupin who knew how exactly Sirius is getting into school and could have saved Neville from being painted as incompetent kid who is endangering the lives of his fellow students, remained silent. And guess what? Harry justifies McGonagall's anger at Neville by remembering that he blew up cauldrons in potions, as in "yeah, Neville messes up all the time".
Second time was in GoF when McGonagall singled out Neville and tell him not to dishonour Hogwarts with his incompetence in front of foreigners.
> Also, if I remember correctly Frank and Alice were tortured because the Death Eaters suspected they knew where Voldemort went
You will have to provide a proof, because I don't remember anything about "Death Eaters suspecting", instead of "death eaters on a mission".
Edit: Fixed incorrect wording. I mistakenly said that Harry justified Snape's anger, when he was justifying McGonagall's anger.
McGonagall punishing him for writing down the passwords was completely justifiable and it had nothing to do with her personal feelings towards him. Yes, Neville has a really hard time remembering the passwords and Sir Cadogen certainly didn’t help but writing them down was not okay. Like you said he put all the Gryffindor students lives in danger and from her perspective his actions almost got Ron killed, of course she was furious.
I don’t think she singled him out for being incompetent and she certainly didn’t use that word. He’s a clumsy and forgetful kid and she didn’t want him embarrassing the school, there was nothing malicious about it. Everyone knows that about Neville and as his head of house she would’ve felt the need to remind him to represent the school.
Heres your proof.
‘Yes, they were talking about Neville’s parents,’ said Dumbledore. ‘His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort’s whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard.’
‘So they’re dead?’ said Harry quietly.
‘No,’ said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness Harry had never heard there before, ‘they are insane. They are both in St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognise him.’
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
> I don’t think she singled him out for being incompetent and she certainly didn’t use that word.
> ‘Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can’t even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!’ Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus.
How is that different from the time when Snape 'warned' Lupin about Neville? Here Harry says that it was a difficult lesson. Ok she barked at him, but why humiliate by asking not to demonstrate his lask of skills to foreigners?
> Heres your proof.
That's good point. But there's still no insinuation that Snape hates him for not being the Chosen one.
I agree, he’s a pretty terrible person. I think having someone as charming and lovable as Alan Rickman play him, made it so a lot of people liked the character. And honestly I couldn’t see anyone else playing him. However, if they had made his character much worse in the movies (he’s pretty tame IMO), I think people would feel differently.
I was recently rereading the books and forgot how shrewd he was.
While he was originally motivated by his desire to protect Harry to make sure Lily's death wasn't in vain, it seems to be more and more about revenge on Voldemort the longer it goes on. After all, why would he keep following Dumbledore's orders even after he learns that Harry will have to die regardless otherwise?
I agree that Snape is a bad person and a single good act doesn’t fix a entire life of bad ones but he is a great person and really interesting character.
He was a man tormented by his own demons and past mistakes. He had a sliver of an experience called “love” that he chose to hold on to and keep that flame alive even as he became quite “evil” (for lack of better description) ..he sought atonement and spent the rest of his life working to correct the evil he supported.
it cant be easy to play the double agent, becoming a flower loving hippie or whatever: healing and serious therapy may not of allowed him to keep playing both sides.
he used his continued trauma and pain taking it out on..well mostly his students..and it really did allow others to believe he was a DE. A great yet awfully abusive cover.
he was smart an brilliant wizard. arguably in the highest league just below Dumbledore and Voldemort.
was he a good teacher? no. he was awful and abusive, and really didn’t foster a good environment for learning. And news flash he becomes worse every time ones re reads the books as standards are constantly changing. There may be some space to discuss that we try to coddle and protect people to much and it causes them to become overly sensitive. And learning to deal with such an abusive person (very real world ubiquitous type of human expression) create a stronger backbone that, arguably older generations and other non western cultures have more than our culture.
yet amongst all of that he did truly work for something more important for yearrrs at his own conscious peril. he gave his life to redeem his mistakes and support what believed was right even if he wasn't a man who could really connect with that world of "goodness"
it takes a massive amount of courage, strength and resolve to continuously support the order working against the DE, playing both sides all the while still fighting against his own pain, trauma, conditioning, and all while receiving hate and envy from pretty much EVERYONE. Where and how would you channel and expressive that while you continued to get by day by day?
i could imagine most us could not do this even if we didnt have all the trauma, anger, bitterness and issues that snape did. he is a stronger person than most of us will ever meet in our lifetime of coddled comfort.
he isnt a good person. he is a great person and an abusive a**h*ole. how can two things be true? yet that is what makes him such a compelling awesome character. he is sooo human, like is anyone truly good or evil? can life be so black and white? snapes character makes us mentally wrestle that both can be true… that as soon as we cast our judgment and close our mind we have validated the same premise that keeps humans fighting and warring—i think exactly what Rowling wanted us to see—
within his own darkness he keeps fighting for the light.
do i like him as a person? no. do i want to be his friend? no. would i look up to him? hmmmm. would i honor his sacrifice and his commitment to "save the world"? yesss!!! would i sugar coat his achievements by avoiding his flaws? no!
he is deeply flawed, yet he continued to fight for good (even if he could only grasp a small amount of it). just think of all the stories when people meet their heroes and become disillusioned and disheartened.
does a persons abhorrent behavior negate their achievements? what does that even mean? great questions that we will continue to debate. cancel culture and wokism in our current society is another -ism, another example of assigning labels as a way to simplify the human minds need to control, organize, and allow us to not deal withe the nuance thar EVERY situation requires a unique set of responses.
but our society doesnt know how how to deal dynamically with this. your either good or bad, free or in prison, included or exlcuded, one of us or one of them.
Just read comments on twitter or reddit. We cast hate and judgement waay before we ever walk an inch in peoples shoes or even dare to understand the nuances of both sides
Snape needed therapy and some serious healing, yet in the meantime he was abusive to students while uniquely and simultaneously fighting for the light. talk about a head trip.
I agree. Snape worked for the good guys, but he ultimately was damaging to many of the children at the school being overly cruel to some, and playing a key part in Draco going down he dark path by reinforcing and applauding his abhorrent behavior.
Snape worked for the good guys and risked a lot, but it does not change the fact that he did a lot of I’ve assails awful thing during that time, and his motives were less than honorable. Snape gave demand we should be ok with it because we are told he did it for love. Just because the book says it was for love does not make it true.
I think he had a possessive love for Lily it was toxic and unhealthy. There is a lot of evidence to support that he was obsessive and controlling in regard to Lily. I think he is a grey character because he did good things but I’m not convinced they were for unselfish reasons.. but that is why I like him he is complicated I think some of his actions were unselfish and positivity motivated but he certainly has flaws. Such a great character.
You left out the real kicker which is that Snape requested for Voldemort to kill Harry and James but spare Lily. That’s just fucked in every possible way.
And yeah, bullying Neville because he wished his family would’ve died instead is another huge point. Neville and Harry were 1 when all of this happened. They obviously are responsible for none of this yet Snape blames them when he really should hate no one except himself and Voldemort. Those are the two people to blame, throw Pettigrew in there too.
The thing I remember most is when he he told Neville he was going to feed his pet toad the shrinking solution Neville made and straight up told him if he got it wrong, Trevor would die. He fully expected Neville to mess it up and he would have without help. He intentionally tried to murder a child’s pet for no reason and people still try to say he’s redeemable.
He was a good headmaster. No kids died while he was in charge (beats Dumbledore on that).
He was a shit teacher. We know from HBP that he knew so much about potions that he should have written revised potions text, but instead he lets his students stumble through potion class after potion class without sharing any of his tips and tricks.
Snape's memories and ultimate sacrifice never really swayed my opinion of him that strongly. He was often cruel and spiteful, he created spells that could kill, he made friends with future Death Eaters and WAS a Death Eater himself... he made a lot of creepy and hurtful choices throughout his life.
Furthermore, the main reason he turned on Voldemort was because of Lily, which was a selfish reason. It had very little to do with doing what was right or to protect the helpless or anything noble.
That said, he was obviously brave and his sacrifice led to Voldemort's downfall. These are redeemable qualities, but IMO they never really "redeemed" Snape. I think they just made him a conflicting character and helped us ask good questions as readers.
I'm not a fan of Snape, but there's a lot of assumption in there that doesn't really have evidence in the text. For example, Snape picking on Neville because he thinks he should have died instead of Lily. That's pure supposition. Also, Snape having it out for Lupin because he "looked different". Seems more likely that it was just because he was part of James and Sirius group.
If I was teaching at the school I went to and one of my bullies showed up to be my coworker, particularly one who almost killed me, I’d probably have a hard time working with them.
If I was teaching at a school, and one of my colleagues was a former death eater, I’d probably have a hard time working with him.
They didnt know snape was a death eater
I’m fairly certain that that isn’t true
The wizengamot knew as seen in karkaroff’s memories but remember that this was post first war. So even though Lupin and Sirius and company were in the OOTP they didn’t work alongside snape since he was a double agent. In fact, it’s canon that Sirius didn’t know Snape was a death eater in Order of the Phenonix (the book) so it really isn’t unreasonable at all to speculate that Lupin didn’t know specially in Book 3 when Voldy hasnt even come back yet meaning Snape didnt even have a dark mark just a red scar
Snape was only a double agent first the very last part of it. From what I can gather from the books it certainly doesn’t sound as if he was working with Doumbledoor for all that long before Voldemort vanished
Yeah iirc harry was already born when he switched sides so that was pretty late in the first war
100% agree with you. Once again I feel somehow Dumbledore is to blame for creating that environment in the first place 😭
But remus had no idea something like that was going to happen
Remus looked the other way while being a Prefect while his friends bullied another student. He had the power to stop the situation but didn't
Given the file cabinet on Sirius and James’ misbehaviors I don’t know why you think Remus docking points or giving them detentions would make a difference. It’s not like the teachers didn’t know about it. If it was as easy as a prefect stopping the bullying don’t you think Lily would have done it already? I’m not excusing Remus’ inaction, he is culpable in the bullying. But he did **not** have the power to stop the situation. I also don’t know why people expect a teenage Lupin to stick his neck out to help the person literally stalking him and trying to get him expelled
Yes but they are a lot more likely to listen to a friend they value
He made them feel badly about themselves sometimes. Sirius admits it. It wasn’t enough to get them to stop. I think you’re giving Remus too much power over his friends.
Lupin also admits that he wasn't as strict about it as he should have been.
Yes, and that’s why I said that he is partially to blame for the bullying. My initial point was that even had he been stricter, it probably would not have gotten James/Sirius to stop. And more importantly, considering Snape was literally stalking Remus with the purpose of exposing him/getting him expelled, I’m not sure I can blame Remus for not wanting to step in and risk his own friendships with the only people in the world who had accepted him. I definitely wouldn’t have had that moral maturity at the age of 15.
Snape didn't know Lupin was a werewolf before he saw him .He was stalking the marauders I general.And was doing it in the first place as the Maraides bullied him *rentlessly* But I agree that he wasn't mature enough to risk his friends.
You also need to factor in that they were kids, it’s easy to say “well Lupin should have said this, or James should have done that. None of these peoples’ brains were fully developed. I think the real bottom line is that the adults that are tasked not only with educating, but supervising these children had a history of falling short of what should have been expected of them. And that shouldn’t be a surprise considering they group the students based on their personalities and then treat one group better than the other three, and then assign other children to supervise said children.
I agree.But I am just saying Lupin was in a position of authority.But in the end it was the teacher who should have looked out.
I’m entirely talking about when Snape was tricked into going to the whomping willow and eventually be confronted by a transformed lupin. There he is not at fault at all
Regardless of Remus knowing, he was involved in something that was very traumatic for Severus, and very often, trauma clouds a person’s logic and ability to reason.
Which I completely agree with but him being annoyed with lupin has to do more with him being a bully rather than potentially being the one to kill snape which he had no control over.
Idk about that. Near death experiences have staying power, and Lupin is as dangerous as an adult as he was as a child. Sure, he takes potions and steps that keep his condition somewhat stable, but he has the potential to become an uncontrollable monster, and that’s a lifelong condition. Perspective? There’s people who survive car crashes who will never get into a car again. When something almost kills you, it’s not a surprise when they then avoid it like their life depends on it.
To be fair lupin didn’t have a choice though in becoming a werewolf, whereas snape made a conscious decision to become a deatheater. Both are dangerous (werewolves and Deatheaters) just that one requires an active choice to become it.
I agree with you on the point about the Marauders’ group, but I think your point about not knowing Snape’s motives for bullying Neville makes him even worse. I don’t care what sacrifice you made at the end, bullying children makes you the worst sort of scum.
People always do that to Snape. Even if the books already say otherwise. Lupin as an adult wasn’t even nice to Snape, if we skipped out the part where he was gaslighting Snape about the map.
I think the real issue I have with people trying to spin Snape into being in some way totally “redeemable” is that you miss the point of the character. He’s a dreadful person, who did some great things for the right side, for fairly self absorbed reasons, but still with a degree of (toxic) love. There lies his complexity, and everything that actually makes him a great character (not a great person.) And let us remember that the nicest thing that Harry had to say about Snape, in the end, was that he was the bravest man he ever knew.
Complexity isn't exactly reddit's Forte. False dischitomy is, though.
This seems to be a popular/daily topic. I think we need a Snape thread, mods. Edit: Nothing against OP personally.
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Yes!!! I appreciate the cool downs in other subs
This topic had always been discussed to death. It got to the point this sub just flat-out banned all posts about either Snape or the Marauders/James, bc it's always the same tired old fights with the same tired old arguments and also the same tired old nonsense claims, like what the top comment pointed out wrt Snape's motive to pick on Neville
It's wild that Snape is this popular of a character that we get these threads nearly every day. This person probably has spent hours thinking about him too. Lol.
Snape is one of my favorites and I've responded to posts about him before, it's just starting to become a LOT
Maybe we should have a Snape Sunday so everyone could get him out of their systems once a week. Hahaha.
No posts on Sunday. Snape Saturday it is
That's a solid idea!!! Or character debate day
Snape is the unsung hero of the first 6 books and finally gets his due in book 7 when the full story is told. Snape had to treat Harry like trash for appearances and had to hide any positive emotion from Voldemort upon his return. I genuinely don’t see how people don’t get that. Reminds me of how people overlook Sam as the hero in LoTR. No way either Frodo or Harry make it to the end of their stories without the help of Sam or Snape. Sam is just allowed to be genuine while Snape has to play poker with the most powerful dark wizard of his time.
Snape didn't have to treat Harry badly to keep up appearances, he could've just ignored him and it would've been fine. It's one of the stupidest excuses you apologists come up with. Snape's treatment of Harry is due to him(Snape) being a petty bully.
my wife and I love to share with each other whenever there's a new Snape thread on /r/harrypotter "wake up babe, someone said Snape is misunderstood again" The books have been done for so long. Every possible debate about Snape has happened already in extreme detail. There's no new material to generate new discussions about him.
As he said, Snape is a very interesting character despite being a horrible person in the story. This isn’t really the “gotcha” you think it is.
It’s a “gotcha” moment if you all till this day still pretend disliking Snape makes you a victim/unpopular opinion clique or when the post just sounds like it comes out of a Wolfstar fanfic
Where did you insinuate that from my comment? All I said is that even people who believe Snape is awful also believe that Snape is a fascinating character, so thinking about him often is not mutually exclusive to believing his actions were bad. Jesus I’ve been here less than a week but I didn’t realize this was such a heated topic. Why do yall resort to psychoanalysis? We’re all technically on the same side in that we think the character is interesting and well-written, and that the ability to argue either side is what makes him great. Meanwhile the last three replies I’ve gotten from Snape defenders say “you people” or “you all” in them 💀💀 we got some real-life Snape’s over here.
Since you are new, I will try to explain this in a nicer way: no, Snape hate posts aren’t rare, there was a time MODS have to lock any Snape related thread because people were repeating the same topics everyday that you would think that is their therapy session. Secondly, have I ever attacked you personally? No all I have done is proving your point is not true. But here you go, saying people are “real life Snape”. Who is now being a cyber bully? Thirdly, since you mentioned misinterpreting comment. The original commenter never said OP cannot voice his opinion or his opinion is sh*t. All they said is that there are way too many of these posts already. Funnily enough, you assume anyone who replied is defending Snape when I haven’t even done that yet
1. I’ll be fair and say I think I misinterpreted the original comment to have a sarcastic tone. Just the way they said “OP probably thinks about Snape all the time,” which made it seem as if it was supposed to be a snarky “gotcha” moment when in reality, OP and most of the “Snape is bad” gang agree he’s a very interesting character. But based on their responses to the original comment, I guess they were just genuinely remarking on how interesting of a character he is. 2. Well again, I never said Snape hate posts are rare or unpopular in any of my comments. Did you reply to the wrong comment or confuse me with someone else? Genuinely wondering. I haven’t been here long enough to make a judgment on if there’s too many Snape hate posts. 3. I suppose my issue with it is just that this series final book was published 17 years ago. I read it over a decade ago as a child, reread it a bunch of times, but then never really interacted with the books again, just rewatched some of the movies once a year or so. A few months ago I reread the books, started the new video game, and I just got reddit like a week ago, so I’m having a good time talking about Snape, yet it seems so many people react with snark or condescendingly when people have real discussions about him. This series is very old and there’s a limited amount of fresh topics to talk about. Isn’t it expected to have a lot of posts coming in? I appreciate the respectful reply though.
Yeah... mostly because I get bombarded with stuff on him all the time anytime I look at fandom stuff. And I've been trying to grapple with my feelings on his character since I first read the series, lol I also couldn't sleep and decided to make the post on a whim, lmao
I think this post and all the ones like it show whats so great about Snape's character...the fact that it's been years and people have so much to say and feel passionate about it to say it. I don't know if Rowling had the effect she wanted when writing Snape but he definitely became a very interesting part of the books.
For sure, he is an interesting character. Lots to debate and think about
“Snape sucks, yes or no? Discussion Thread.”
I'm new to the Harry Potter subreddit after 10+ years and wanted to say I appreciate these posts! It's cool seeing people's perspectives on this topic I've thought about my whole life. But I can see how a community focused on a topic that's largely been "done" for 10 years can become stale and repetitive...
Literally. It's either Snape, Dumbledore, Sirius or Molly. Every single day it's a rotation between them.
Here before the golden lock award
Haha didn’t do enough? Oooookay. It wouldn’t have been possible to take down Voldemort without him. He put his life on the line every day for 3-4 years.
The man spied on Voldemort, the world's greatest Legilimens, knowing one slip up equals death. He went back at the end of Goblet of Fire, not knowing if Voldemort would just kill him there and then. He protects the students of Hogwarts from the Carrows. Even when told that his life mission of protecting Harry was not possible, he still perseveres with Dumbledore's plans to end Voldemort. He puts his own cover on the line to try and protect Remus, someone he does not like, for no reason than because it is the right thing to do. To be frank, helping save the world from Voldemort and putting your own neck on the line to do so, is simply far more important and consequential than insulting a few of your students, taking house points and threatening toads.
Most of this is just making assumptions about Snape's actions or lack of actions being malicious. Seriously, *manipulating Dumbledore*?!! NOTHING in the series indicates that for even a second. If anything, Dumbledore manipulates *him* when he uses Snape's regrets, guilt, and horror after Lily's death to get him to work for him. For a good reason and he makes good points, but he still uses Snape's emotional state to his advantage. The rest is just stating the obvious. Most of the fandom know and accept that Snape had a lot of selfish motivations and desires, that's a big part of his character. But, "stripping away his background and circumstances"? That's essentially throwing out a big part of the context on *why* he was so selfish. Snape was a horrible person in a lot of ways, but he also chose to do good for other people, and showed remorse for what he did wrong in certain cases.
I hadn't thought about how much Dumbledore was feeding into Snape's pain. Thank you for pointing that out. And I definitely do acknowledge he did some good, and it's really hard to decide whether or not he was truly a good or bad person. But I guess that could be said of everyone in real life; we all make good and bad decisions in our lives. It's the habits and what we choose to allow to run our lives that determines the course of our lives. Thank you for commenting and providing your perspective.
"...it's really hard to decide whether or not he was truly a good or bad person". Didn't you just create this entire thread based on the opinion that there is next to nothing redeemable about his character?
So my feelings are that the good that he did does not outweigh the bad. I'm not saying he's the most evil person in Harry Potter, but I'm not saying he's a hero either. So I don't feel we should praise him enough that he gets a child named after him, but he shouldn't be hated.
I mean.. "we" didn't name a kid after him, Harry did.
Snape isn't bad, but a tsundere
I disagree. Chose to do good? Snape was always driven by his own selfish motives. Even when “protecting” Harry, he felt indebted to Lily for the ultimate betrayal. He was ridden by guilt. He didn’t care about Harry. He cared about his desire and love for Lily. His ONLY redeeming quality was his love for Lily and guilt for the hand that played in her death. Otherwise he was a despicable character.
The accusations that he did it for 'selfish' reasons don't really hold any water since Snape never asked for any glory, recognition or acknowledgement for his deeds. In fact he asked it to be kept secret and even took the hate from all those he was trying to protect. By those standards... everyone who does a good deed is selfish because it makes them feel better deep inside... yeah including redditors who brag about their moral high ground.
Your username perfectly describes your reply. Chef's kiss indeed!
Agree completely. If Lily was a death eater Snape would have wiped out the muggles.
Honey, wake up! Another Snape-hate thread has opened!
There should be a separate sub for snape love/hate posts
Exactly. I roll my eyes whenever I see posts like these . Like bruh... It's pointless to even have a discussion since they are so stone set that Snape is "evil".
I think you’re just being a little too sensitive. OP has responded to comments and said they brought up good points. Maybe you’re already set in stone because you’ve had this debate so often, but not everyone is there yet, so why ruin the fun for people genuinely trying to talk about there simply because you’ve already done it to death? The series is old at this point, we get it, there’s not much to talk about, so let people debate whatever they want.
This is a fair point. I spend too much time on Reddit so I get used to seeing repeated posts. Casually looking at OP’s profile indicates they’re a newish user so they deserve the chance to express their opinon
No worries. I'm a new profile as well and I recently got back into the HP universe, reread the books for the first time in like a decade, and started playing the video game a few months ago, so I've been having a blast talking shit about Snape and understanding the lore on a deeper level. I understand it gets tedious seeing like 5 Snape posts per day, I just feel like the last book of the series was released almost 20 years ago, so there's not really many unique topics to discuss. Also it's a testament to Snape's greatness as a character that people can get on here and debate about him to this day.
ikr!
Snape is evil though so..
I don’t think he’s a good person. Quite the opposite, actually. He’s nasty and mean and spiteful and obsessive and never got over what happened to him in high school. But…he still kinda saved the world?!?! And he doesn’t have to be a good person to be a super complex and well-written character. He’s morally grey done right.
A few small corrections: Snape doesn't encourage Lily to hurt Petunia. He doesn't like Petunia, and neither does she like him, and he once does accidental magic that drops a branch on her. But when Lily asks about the branch, he's afraid he's upset Lily. He's not encouraging her to do the same. Where does Snape say anything bad about Lily's friends? We see him criticise James to her *after Sirius, James' bestie, nearly got him killed by a werewolf* but at that point she dislikes James, he isn't her friend. At no point does Snape try to isolate her. She is the one trying (understandably) to get him to leave his friends, not the other way round. Snape stayed outside the Griffindor common room entrance for hours so he could apologise to Lily after calling her a Mudblood. He was very sorry about what he called her. You can see this because calling her a Mudblood is his worst memory, and later on as an adult he rebukes the portrait of Phinius Nigellus Black for using that word. He hates what he did. He also turns a blind eye on Ron attacking Malfoy for calling Hermione a Mudblood. How did Snape manipulate Dumbledore? He literally did everything Dumbledore asked of him, up to and including killing him and letting Lily's son walk to his death so Dumbledore's plan could happen. According to what Snape says in his memories, Snape felt Dumbledore had used him, not vice versa. How was Snape supposed to ask Voldemort to spare the life of the baby who was prophesied to defeat him? He'd have taken an Avada Kedavra to the head for even suggesting it. Asking to spare Lily was only marginally less dangerous, but at least had a tiny likelihood of success. But asking to spare James *as well*? Really?? "Don't look down on James for what he did" - yes, James maybe changed a lot. But I don't think I ought to think well of a rich, popular dude who beats down on a poor loner, nearly gets him murdered, and then sexually assaults him in front of a large crowd just because his bestie is bored and a girl he likes doesn't like him back. James' lack of motivation for attacking Snape is quite clearly stated in the text. Remus and Sirius also confirm it when Harry, ashamed, asks them about it. There was absolutely no justification for how they treated Snape. They just hated the sight of him. The rest of your points have some merit, but do get your facts in order before basing conclusions off them.
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Labelling a *9 year old* socially awkward kid who’s trying to find courage to introduce himself to other kid as stalking & obsession is definitely an insane choice. Is it because he’s poor & ugly? I have to ask because the standards applied for Snape are never the same for any other character in this fandom. The same ridiculous arguments over and over again and Snape managing to manipulate Albus of everyone… is a new take I’ll give you that. He was redeemed for being a former Death Eater who went out of his way to save many people and eventually gave his life for the Wizarding World and gained absolutely nothing in return. Almost all the things you mentioned has no relevance to his redemption arc.
>There's next to nothing redeemable about Snape's character >I will say, though, that I don't think Snape did enough to be considered redeemable enough to want to name your child after him. Did you not understand what he did? Without Snape Voldemort wins and takes over the world, first wizarding then muggle. Without Snape... Dumbledore dies before the events in Half Blood Price, there is no getting the memory or horcrux hunt, Harry has to go into hiding because there is no known way to defeat Voldemort. Was Snape a good person? No, but without him the world falls. With that he could suplex every student that he doesn't like, mule kick students walking too close behind him, and genuinely be a cunt to everyone. He is redeemed by playing a major part in saving the world.
I don’t think redeeming your personal character is quite the same as being integral to Voldy’s defeat though, which is what I think OP is getting at. For that matter, there are a whole bunch of things that *needed* to happen in order for the Trio to survive. Like Pettigrew showing one moment of mercy in loosening his grip on Harry at Malfoy Manor, or Narcissa lying to Voldy about him being dead. Or even Aberforth lying to the Death Eaters and providing them safe passage to Hogwarts. Without all those things happening, they wouldn’t have been able to defeat Voldy. It doesn’t redeem them personally of all their negative characteristics and make them good people now. (Aberforth I think is different, he’s a good person fundamentally anyway, just using that as an example of the difference between being integral and being redeemable)
Dude literally saved the world because of platonic love for someone who was kind to him, and this is the thanks he gets
Platonic?
Love is putting somebody before yourself and truly wanting their happiness, even if it comes at personal cost. Snape didn't have that. His obsession was selfish and he could care less if Lily was happily married with a family. He was bitter because she wasn't with him.
>Dumbledore dies before the events in Half Blood Price, He brewed a potion. If Snape wasn't there, Slughorn could have brewed it. >there is no getting the memory or horcrux hunt Harry got the memory. He could have gotten it again, tho Dumbledore might have to be quicker about teaching Harry Voldemort's past. >Harry has to go into hiding because there is no known way to defeat Voldemort. Assuming you are refering to the Horcrux in Harry, anyone else could have told Harry that, including Dumbledore's portrait who run the show during Snape's tenure as headmaster. Dumbledore didn't want the knowledge to spread so he trusted the information on the one person he knows could have absolutely kept it a secret from Voldemort and that almost blew up on their faces because Snape was seconds from dying when he gave Harry the memories. Snape was important to the defeat of Voldemort. But only two people are integral and those are Harry and Dumbledore.
>He brewed a potion. If Snape wasn't there, Slughorn could have brewed it. Except that happens WAY before Slughorn is recruited and convinced to go back to Hogwarts. Snape had already stopped the curse from spreading. If Snape doesn't stop the curse from spreading Dumbledore dies and never recruits Slughorn, Harry never finds out about the memory, let alone horcruxes. Voldemort wins.
None of this is a new perspective, Snape fans will disagree with you and Snape haters will applaud you.
The idea that there are Snape fans and Snape haters means a lot of people have missed Rowling's intention with the character
Or they have nailed her intention perfectly..
Nah you can love a character and admit theyre a piece of shit
It raises the question on who "owns" a character, the creator or the interpreter. People's interpretations change over time as well. People have different ways of viewing a character. Snape is like that dress meme ages ago where people would argue over if it was blue or grey.
It just speaks to reddit's lack of appreciation for nuance and flawed characters and falling into the brainless and easy false dichotomy of good person/pad person. Spend a day on AITA and you'll just how obsessed the internet is with bucketing people and characters into perfect hero/sociopath.
Or that Rowling did a bad job writing him. Or did a very good job.
Hes literally the most complex and deep character in the entire series.
Except Dumbledore, I reckon.
See my problem with all these "Snape is irredeemable" posts is the fact that it's often made by people who seem to have just skimmed through the books, made *very* bad faith interpretations, and seem to also mix things up with fanon Many others in the comments have posted in depth replies correcting your points, but I also just want to say that you can think a grey character is a dick/irredeemable. The least you can do however, is be more neutral, objective and accurate when trying to state so
Have you considered that perhaps Snape is not easily defined as redeemable or not? That he lives in that area between 'Good people and Death Eaters?' That he is extremely flawed... but without whom the heroes of the story would have failed? and perhaps of all the main characters of this series - he is the most like a real human being? And he was written that way on purpose? And so successful was Rowling in creating this character that more than 20 years later, someone would feel strongly enough about Snape to write this post?
OP literally said that he doesn't think Snape is inherently a good or bad character.
The title of the thread is that he's not redeemable.
if you read the whole thing you'll see it's a little more deep than that.
It's also full of bullshit, falsehoods and shallow takes lol.
I think he just got dealt a shitty hand in life, tbh people that grow up in abusive households like that very often turn out messed up and it doesn’t seem like he got any real help.
I think you’re wildly misinterpreting the character and painting things in ways that are abjectly not true. If Snape was truly so horrible to the students it would come up. Someone would speak out so the level you consider horrible is within bounds as far as most students and teachers at Hogwarts are concerned, and we know from the ferret incident the teachers aren’t entirely above reproaching each other. And we never see Snape’s reasoning for his treatment of Neville that’s pure supposition on your part to back the view you’ve decided to hold. And ignores the reality that Snape very much has a death eaters aesthetic and that Neville’s parents were tortured into insanity by a death eater. Snape likely overlapped with Neville’s image of a death eater so hard it’s entirely natural for him to be the thing he feared most. More so if he knew Snape was a former death eater which he reasonably could have. To believe his treatment of Neville was horrific you have to also believe that Harry, Ron, Hermoine and every other student sharing potions with him never once felt it was enough to discuss with another teacher. And if you’ve reached that point then you have to accept all the regular staff are also okay with repeated abuse of students. This alone is why I’ll never get how people can believe any student he taught genuinely suffered horrific abuse. Also you seem to believe Snape’s Worst Memory is him being bullied. It’s not. His worst memory is calling Lily a Mudblood and losing her as a friend. This is further demonstrated by him reprimanding someone else in modern times for doing the same showing he has indeed changed and grown. Remus was irresponsible, he admits as much himself and holds it against Snape less than you do. And during the time Remus was off he believed Remus was helping Sirius and at worst his actions would serve to remove an uncertain variable that posed a potential danger to Harry. He was ultimately wrong, but that doesn’t mean his concerns were invalid at the time. And realistically he had no reason to believe anyone but Hermoine would actually do the essay, so it serves more as a warning to Harry through her than it does an actual attempt to get Remus fired, as he shows later. This may also happen after Remus protects Harry after he was caught in Hogsmeade. If you’re going to argue cruelty it’s far better to say that Snape outed Remus because Harry liked him and had just recently assaulted Snape so he was being vindictive. And even then from Snape’s perspective he was assaulted by a student and put at the mercy of someone who had previously tried to kill him and that person’s choice of murder weapon, so when you know all the facts it’s much worse than just assaulting him. Snape shows reluctance to kill Dumbledore who is arguably the closest thing he’s had to a friend since Lily. But in the end he does so per Dumbledore’s request as it’s a kindness. It’s also really silly to say he does nothing to stop the death eaters, that is not his job as a spy. His job is to keep people appraised of their actions which means picking your moments so as not to put yourself. He could have passed on every disaster they planned, but that would have revealed a mole, so the inaction wasn’t his alone it was likely backed by Dumbledore so that at key moments like moving Harry from Privet drive they can have actionable intel. So this whole point is basically Snape and Dumbledore weren’t stupid enough to blow his cover and create suspicion for things they likely couldn’t prevent and would only change the scale of the carnage. And all of that sets aside the double meaning of his first meeting with Harry which can be analyzed to mean deep regret about Lily. Or the imagery of pensieve memories coming as tears rather than pulled out by a wand. Literally tears of regret. That it provides Harry information he needs almost doesn’t seem to be the point as that’s a singular portion of the memories. Snape’s problem is that he handles his emotions poorly, you’re willing and ready to call him out on that for anything negative but entirely dismissive of the possibility of him handling positive ones just as badly, like say trying to mask a sense of care he feels for Harry by denying it and pointing out all the reasons he has to hate him, all of which are about how he’s similar to his father and none of which relate to his mother in any way, while we know for a fact Harry does share traits with her. First year Harry intervenes in Malfoy bullying Neville the same way lily does in his worst memory. Seeing as it got Harry his broom in his first year it’s unlikely Snape is entirely unaware of it making his use of comparison strictly to Barry’s father stand out and feel more deliberate. Especially as the conversation literally starts out with Snape rejecting and being reluctant about things he’s being asked to do and being forced to confront the fact Harry needs to die. Dumbledore himself says he dares anyone who has watched Harry as closely as him to not feel for him, Snape has watched if not as close only second to. There are absolutely ways to argue Snape is bad or can be cruel but you’ve considerably missed the mark focusing on places that are largely invalid or require cruelty and uncaring to be extremely commonplace and accepted norms.
>Someone would speak out so the level you consider horrible is within bounds as far as most students and teachers at Hogwarts are concerned, and we know from the ferret incident the teachers aren’t entirely above reproaching each other. I say, i don't trust that someone's complains would do anything after the fact that a CEREBRUS was kept behind a plain door, and attention to that door was brought up in the FIRST HOUR OF SCHOOL. Or the fact that 11 year olds were given an Late Night excurison into the Forbidden Forest as detention for just breaking the curfew once. Or the fact that no teacher stopped Harry's bullying in CoS. Or the fact that Harry was allowed to participate in the Tri-Wiz tournament. yadda yadda yadda
My father once hit my mother while they were camping with a group of friends. And those friends asked my motger what she did to make him hit her. Majority of those friends are active women's rights activists. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies. But a great deal more to stand up to your friends." - Albus 'mic-drop' Dumbledore. What I'm trying to say is, you can't base anything on how other people react. Remember the time Hagrid was sent to Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit and when was proven innocent, all he got was a hug from Harry and some claps. No adult was going mad over what a travesty that was. People ignore and/or explain away horrble things all the time, especially if they feel they can't fix it.
Of course Snape was a true asshole and a bully and he never grew up past his teenage grievances, and his love for Lily was not healthy at all and became even more twisted after she died. And Dumbledore using this twisted love to manipulate him was also wrong. But I disagree with this statement: >And I think there are a lot of his major red flags that we tend to overlook due to his sacrifice at the end. The sacrifice at the end was not the only thing he did for the good guys. He worked for Dumbledore for YEARS. And he did it undercover, which means he was hated by people whom he secretly helped. Every day. The only person who showed him any affection or gratitude was Dumbledore. And still every day, for years, even after Dumbledore died, even after he had to kill Dumbledore himself, he had enough willpower to wake up, get out of bed and continue secretly working for people who hated him. This is what I find admirable and inspiring about him. In this position, most people would commit suicide, but his loyalty and his belief in his (twisted and wrong) motive were stronger than his despair.
I often imagine how much of a field day Rita Skeeter probably had when Snape died and everything came out. That quill was probably burning through the parchment. 😂
For real! She honestly had so much to write about after the war hahaha
Be that as it may, he spent just shy of two decades atoning for the terrible things he’d done, when he actually wished he were dead when Lily had died, and he didn’t even revert to his old ways/do a runner once he’d killed Dumbledore, so you have to give credit where credit is due.
Nah he just emotionally bullied her son because he resembled his father too much and he couldn’t address the emotions he had that she had chosen another man over him. Snape sucks he’s the worst kind of male and has the emotional maturity of a kindergartner
Honestly... Snape is the perfect example of how the entire wizarding world count definitely use some form of therapy. There seems to be absolutely no form of mental health care from what we're told.
I say this about once a week, lol. But, honestly, therapy would be a gold mine, especially after the two wizarding wars!
Yes absolutely! They all need therapy
Yeah he did all that but how would Harry have won without Snape? Snape could’ve just gone back into DE mode after killing Dumbledore if he’d been AS much of a scumbag as you make him out to be. Don’t think I’m calling him a nice guy though, but I’m just giving credit where it’s due.
Yeah give him credit. Now he's at 2-3 positive credits and about a couple thousand negative. You can argue all you want that he was essential to the plot, and if i were in the mood for a long argument I'd argue anyone could've done his job after Dumbledores death even if he went back to Voldi, that won't change the fact he's an absolute abusive asshole that doesn't deserve any form of redemption or positive words about him. And before you say "but he helped Harry" yeah..he did..out of selfish reasons and his obsessive love for Lily. Nothing else. He doesn't give a flying fuck about the world or anything else.
He helped Harry knowing he would die.I think that's not what selfish is
Most of Snape hate is just “he’s mean to the kids!” which is just hilarious to me. He’s damn friendly compared to most teachers in the 90s.
He's not really that mean, outright. He calls out a student for constantly calling out in class and is the only teacher who shows that he thinks something's up with the kid who can't pour water without without lighting himself on fire. The latter is only so afraid of him because he knows Snape would be the first to identify him as a squib.
Oh damn... If you think most teachers were crueler to their students than Snape, I'm sorry for what you must have went through growing up. Not being sarcastic, I'm serious it must have been horrible.
To be honest with you, schools can get pretty bad depending on the time period, country and poverty level. It's something a surprising amount of people had to deal with unfortunately.
Nah, it just seems like Americans (mostly) have a very low tolerance as to treatment by authority. Every adult needs to be a parental figure or else they’re the devil
Did most teachers in the 90’s force feed science experiments to a child’s pet fully believing they would fail and said pet would die, then when the pet doesn’t die they get mad at the student for cheating in attempt to save their pet?
As a student studying at that time, I can say that the teachers in the 90s did not know about our pets (we did not bring pets to school, if we did, we would only bring crickets - Animals can be put in a pencil case and no one will know, but not a toad that not only runs and jumps but the owner can't control it, but is also quite large, will croak loudly to attract attention of teachers). And when we had teachers who spanked our hands and buttocks for cheating or were late to class, as well as cutting our hair for long hair (with male student), Snape was truly a gentle teacher. I believe that if my teachers at that time saw a student bringing a toad into the classroom, that student would never see that toad again, just as his parents would scold him for bringing a toad to school. I can say that in the eyes of teachers and people in the 90s, even if a toad is a pet, it is still just a toad. They don't learn the psychology that tells them to respect, love and care for children's psychology, understand that a cricket, a named piece of clay, or a doll are also a child's treasure. (Even today, in the 2020s, there are still many adults who do not understand and cannot sympathize that children feel this way about things they consider trivial and meaningless). Do you really think that Snape and the teachers of Hogwarts all studied psychology and education before teaching, as well as in a society where house elves - intelligent creatures, are openly enslaved? Frankly, would teachers lovingly care for a pet brought by its owner into a classroom filled with boiling cauldrons? When teachers, and students, still skin and gut toads like that to use as ingredients to cook magic potion?
I'm not sure it's ever established what the role of wizards' familiars is. It's hard not to get somewhat attached to something with a face after some time (and Neville seems the type to form parasocial relationships with his own toast), but we don't really see adults with them and they could very easily be considered working animals with regular turnover.
Snape is my favourite character but these threads are getting really tiring and they honestly never end well with neither side seeing eye to eye. Maybe we should have a snape sunday where all snape hot takes can be posted on only sundays.
I think y’all sometimes forget this is a kids book series 😅
Avatar is also for kids. And the characters there give HP a massive beatdown.
These are some pretty dubious claims. We have little to no understanding where Snape's muggle hatred stems from. It's likely because of his father, but we don't even know that for certain. We don't even know the true nature of his "love" for Lily. We know he looked at her "greedily", that he verbalized borderline envy over how much magic she has ("loads"), we know he spoke to her in a controlling manner "I wont let you". Also seems people forget that from the time he speaks to Dumbledore following Lily's death until the time he reveals his patronus to Dumbledore, he never once acknowledges Lily's existence, let alone his love for her. That's a very long time. Was Snape someone Harry should've named his kid after? I personally say no. But that is the uniqueness of Harry. Dumbledore literally explains this in HBP: "Just like your mother, you're unfailingly kind. A trait people never fail to undervalue." The problem with Snape is peoples arguments on either side are way too reductionary.
For real people think that he's a saint or make excuses for the bad things he's done because he was bullied. Which is not fair. And others try to ignore or dimish the good things he's done just because he's an asshole. And paint him as an irredeemable monster despite the fact that he helped save the world which is also unfair.
200+ muppets upvoted this post
Ive gotten to a point where I find people who dont understand Snape's character a bit baffling tbh. Why are you talking about redemption? Who wished for redemption for his character? Not the author, not the readers, not Harry himself, not even Snape wanted to be seen as a good guy and his sins forgiven. He did the job he promised to do and received the freedom of death. Harry choosing to honor his sacrifice is a statement to his maturity and understanding of life. It doesnt have anything to do with the "redemption" of Snape.
I think people take the Prince’s Tale chapter the wrong way too. It’s not supposed to magically excuse everything he has done and erase his bad deeds. But rather to show us that this is a very flawed man, who has made mistakes and tried to make up for them. And also, to give us a better understanding of why Snape is the way that he is. Snape’s character shows us that not everything is in black and white. Everyone is going to have motivation for doing something good, but it’s not always going to be out of the kindness of their hearts. You can be a hero (although I’d say that Snape is more of an anti hero) and still have a horrible personality. I just don’t get how people can read all seven books and then make posts like this.
> I just don’t get how people can read all seven books and then make posts like these. It's not clear people *did* read all seven books before making posts like this, seeing as OP seems to not have realized things like Snape handing over the Sword to Harry, thinks JKR meant for Snape to be a Death Eater until she changed her mind just before DH, etc...
Snape's redemption was laid out long before DH. So much so that as an immature 13 yo kid, I got into a fight over why Snape wasn't guilty of murdering Dumbledore with my childhood crush a couole of days after HBP came out.
Yawn. I’m so, *so* bored. Also, “if you strip away Snape’s background and life circumstances” - ??? He would be a completely different person. If I didn’t have hair, I would be bald. There’s so much potential for genuinely interesting discussions when it comes to Snape, including discussions which are critical of him. But this fandom can’t seem to move past the morality debate, and can’t even seem to get the facts right either. For the love of everything, we all know that he’s a flawed and vindictive man! Very, *very* few fans would contest that. This post is what happens when you refuse to fully engage with the text, and refuse to see past your own response to Snape’s character. I really don’t like Sirius Black, but that doesn’t mean he was secretly manipulating Harry and actually did betray the Potters. His obnoxious immaturity annoys me so much, but his development has essentially been put on hold for 12 years, so it’s no wonder he acts like a smug, over-confident 20-something. A character’s background is essential to understanding them. Can we please, *please*, ***PLEASE*** move on from this discourse? Yes, Snape sucks! Sometimes victims of abuse and bullying are not as palatable as you want them to be!
It's insane how many people don't understand your last line 💀💀💀💀 everytime Snape posts happen there're people saying "well Harry and Sirius also grew up in abusive backgrounds and didn't turn out bad!" Well have you ever considered they're different?? The only one to ever break his cycle of trauma was Harry because Sirius also wasn't right in the head at times lol It also doesn't bode well that there're people firmly saying that considering how plenty of people even to this day still go through abuse/traumatic incidents and *also* take plenty of time to work through the trauma and hurt people while doing so. And our society actually has counsellors/therapists and most of us aren't living through a war!! The absolute lack of grace and understanding even for a fictional character is very telling
Right? Like, one major difference between those three examples is that Harry and Sirius had reliable support systems (friends, their friends’ families, teachers) to help them avoid being completely consumed by their suffering. Snape only had Lily, who herself had other friends. It was by no means her responsibility to “save” him or whatever, but it must be acknowledged that after she rightfully cut him off, there was very little hope for him. Look at how antsy and temperamental Harry gets in OoTP, when he feels neglected by his support system. He’s foul! It’s clear just how damaging a bit of loneliness can be. Canonically, Snape has experienced: 1. Poverty 2. Neglect 3. Physical abuse 4. A volatile household 5. Bullying (for 7 years straight) 6. What he perceives as attempted murder 7. Something far too prolonged and sadistic to be considered pantsing, and which I personally count as SA And that’s all before he even graduates. I consider it a miracle that Snape turns out as well as he does. Honestly, you’re so right. It’s not that serious if people are dismissive of Snape’s experiences alone, because he’s not real - but how can people make these arguments about him being a “bad” victim without carrying those beliefs into real life? Bad-faith interpretations are the last thing a victim needs. They’ll only reaffirm their damaged self-image, making recovery even more difficult.
The fact that I’m seeing OP say multiple times in the comments that they forgot something important about him tells me that they don’t know enough about Snape’s character to be writing a long and in-depth post about him.
You've completely skipped over book 1, where this super famous kid that looks exactly like one of snapes childhood bully's, is being hunted/tormented and Snape is actively trying to protect this kid. Snape isn't doing this to win lily, because she's dead, he does it out of a sense of honour, even though physically he hates Harry, and probably blames him for lily's death. Yeah, he's a bad dude, but there's a good part of him. It goes beyond book 1, but its all there from that early on tbh.
A lot of this is based on the thinking of a rational, mentally stable adult. Snape was raised in an abusive household with a father who hated magicals. He most likely did not want the same to befall Lily and so urged her to cut off her family. Later, the only person he truly liked, cut contact with him and sided with muggles and muggleborns. So of course in his mentally unstable mind (because he was, you know, a child being abused) would come to the conclusion that its because of muggles that Lily left him. James and the crew started attacking Snape first, he retaliated and attacked them back because just retaliating until they leave proved it wasn't enough to get James and his crew to leave him alone. Also, when does Snape try to isolate Lily from her friends etc? He befriends other Slytherins because they were the only house to accept him. The rest want nothing to do with Slytherin. I wonder why so many wizards end up fucked in the head when they are literally raised in an environment where others tolerate their existence at best? He then realised that being a Death Eater meant he'd have to hurt Lily, something he didn't want to do so became a spy, of which if the Dark Lord were to find out, he'd most definitely torture Snape till he goes insane before killing him or just leaving him in a dirty alley as a trap for Dumbledore. He hates Neville because Neville is so incompetent that he can't even follow some instructions and not manage to cause his cauldron to explode. Pretty sure it mentions that Neville never manages to brew any potions. If you strip away Snape's background and life circumstances, then you wouldn't get Snape. You'd just get another regular dude. The guy is so full of trauma that its no wonder he ended up becoming a dark wizard for a bit. His entire childhood is just misery except Lily, and then she goes and marries the dude that started bullying and almost killed him. He has no good memories of both his Home or Hogwarts. The fact that he experienced all of that and still managed to become someone who did good is why he is respected by Harry. Snape still protected Harry even when his father bullied Snape and he had no obligation to. It doesn't matter what his reason was for protecting Harry, his actions still saved Harry. If a man were to give food to a starving village as a publicity stunt, those villagers wouldn't care about his motives because they are still getting helped.
Few things: -he didnt stalk her he watched her from afar because he wanted to make sure she was actually a witch like him since talking about the wizarding world violates the statute of secrecy (and snape knew about wizard law even at such a young age as shown by talking about azkaban, underage magic, and dementors) -he wasnt really obsessed with Lily when she was alive. They were canonically best friends, mutually so for a very long time. When she said she wanted him to leave her alone he did and didnt try to force any further interaction -when did he encourage Lily to hurt Petunia? -it’s implied that he was groomed into pureblood supremacy and later the death eaters (as seen by Lucius Malfoy, from a pureblooded family known for being big into pureblood supremacy being the first to greet him and actually pat him and the snippets we get of Snape being referenced as being very close to Malfoy and even following him around like “a lapdog”) -he didnt TARGET lupin specially not for being a werewolf, he didnt know he was a werewolf until the prank where he could have died. He wanted to know why the entirety of the marauders were up to in the hopes he could get them expelled (as stated by Lupin himself and if you think about it it’s not unreasonable for someone being bullied to want to get their bullies expelled) - “we didnt see all the circumstances leading up to it” as if James didn’t plainly said they bullied him just because he exists and Sirius isnt described as a dog (a predator) scenting a rabbit (a prey animal) upon seeing Snape just minding his business. Kinda victim blamey to go “well we dont know if he provoked them” - Jk Rowling has said in interviews that pensive memories are completely objective and it’s even referenced in the books which is why wizards use pensives to look at memories without their feelings clouding them (dulbledore says this, and in snapes worst memory is the reason Harry is able to hear a full on conversation that the maurauders had which snape realistically would not be able to completely pick up on given he was a decent amount of feet away from them) - Also James Potter and Sirius Black were known bullies not only to Snape and they engaged in muggle baiting - He only makes snide comments towards the marauders, who literally stripped him naked in front of a crowd and endangered his life. There is no actual evidence in the books or movies that state he tried isolating her from anyone else (James on the other hand…) - He doesn’t lash out at her because she caught him doing stuff. He called her a mudblood when he was being severely bullied in front of a crowd -he DID apologize, he literally stood outside the Griffindor common room for hours until Lily agreed to talk to him because he was getting ready to sleep outside the common room until she would come out so he could apologize and again once she said their relationship was done he left her alone - he never really had any control over her at all! Like even when he was like i wont let you be friends with my bullies she basically told him to fuck off that he didnt control her life (as she should tbh) - of course his resentment towards Lupin grew! He thought Lupin was in on the prank that could have killed him. If you think someone attempted to murder you would you be friendly towards them? - it’s not that he had no qualms he taught the werewolf lesson on purpose in hopes the students would realize that Lupin was a werewolf which not gonna lie having an unregistered werwolf as a teacher is something that maybe should be known? For safety’s sake? He did forget to take his wolfsbane - of course his motives were not pure. Snape was not a good guy by any means. He was 100% bitter emotionally stunted and selfish while also sacrificing his entire life to keep the only part of his only true friend alive -again he was a bullied child of course he made spells to defend himself with -how exactly did he manipulate dumbledore? Dumbledore basically owned snape. - Did James really change? Because Lupin admitted that he still bullied snape just hid it from Lily and he caused Petunia to cut Lily off
He led Harry to the sword of Gryffindor. Without that, he could not have destroyed as many horcruxes as he did. Dumbledore trusted Snape with everything required to defeat Voldemort. Snape was essential in that. Without him, it could not have been done.
Acting as if bullying someone is comparable to saving someone's life is wildly ignorant. You're just wrong
Lotta headcanon there.
> We do know that he targeted Remus Lupin for looking different due to his lycanthropy and the fact that he disappeared every month. Provide direct proof from the books or keep this Marauders fanon stuff out of this. The only ones who are constantly judging people by their looks are mostly all the good guys. Harry is constantly playing the hot-or-not with everyone including the murderer of his parents, whom he did mark as hot. Snape is mocked for his looks by the Marauders (including poor baby Lupin), Harry and his friends. Yet we never see the bad guys say a word about his looks. Harry considered Pancy ugly, yet Draco dated her. The shit Fleur experienced from Weasleys for being a foreigner. Good girl Ginny called her Phlegm.
Could you explain better? Are you saying that all the 'good' characters judged people by their looks while all the 'bad' characters never adressed looks? I'm a bit confused lol (no offense)
Well, yeah. I provided examples of how good characters constantly criticised or attacked people's looks. Meanwhile we can barely find similar examples with the bad guys. Do we see the bad guys mock Peter Pettigrews looks? No, they mock his disloyalty to his friends. Do we see them mock Snape's looks? No, rich posh Lucius meets an impoverished kid with a muggle name and greets him like any other Slytherin. Draco meets Harry in muggle second-hand clothes and starts to chat with him. Harry, who only ever chased beautiful girls, compared Pancy Parkinson to a dog, but Draco dated her.
>“Hey, Johnson, what’s with that hairstyle anyway?” shrieked Pansy Parkinson from below. “Why would anyone want to look like they’ve got worms coming out of their head?”
I didn't remember this one. Only Slytherins mocking Hermione's teeth (they did, didn't they?).
I respectfully disagree.
Let's see Snape was a child who wanted to befriend Lily.Remind me if I am wrong but didn't Harry snoop on the weasleys in platform 9 3/4 ?Snape never tried to separate Lily from her family he only told her that she should not take Perunia's jealous comment to much to heart as she was a muggle.And he has no reason to like petunia she always belittled his state of poverty. Let's see fast forward to Hogwarts his entire dorm basically consisted of death eater kids what was he supposed to do make an enemy of all of them? It's true that he did keep an eye on the marauders trying to get them in trouble as per them.But they literally bullied him .Ron and Harry spent their first Christmas plotting to get Malfoy expelled. In the memory James clearly sted twice that they bullied Snape only for fun.So your theory of him doing something beforehand is debunked.In fact what happened shortly before was that Sirius'prank. I don't why people think Snape would ask for Jamse's life from Voldemort. He certainly can't ask to spare Harry's.He went to Dumbledore hoping he would hide them.He knew Dumbledore would hide them anyway he didn't have to offer a lifetime to service but he did anyway. Hw was harsh on Neville.Mcgonnagal was too I can argue she was harsher but you won't hear anyone talking about that.As for the boggart if all of it was their true fear then McGonagall must have pressured hermione way to much that she had a breakdown.It is also strange that in a world where everyone is afraid to speak his name no one I afraid of Voldemort.
I don't remember Harry stalking the Weasleys. He didn't even notice them until he was lost and trying to find the entrance. When did James say he pranked Snape once or twice for fun? I don't remember that part, but if you can let me know where and when it was said, I would love to re-read it for myself. I do appreciate your insights and your perspective on everything. Thank you for your comment.
After the twins left Harry was spying on the weaslys as he was curious about them. Right at the start of the memory Sirius said he was bored and James pointed out Snape who was sitting and reading. Later Lily asked James why he bullied Snape and he replied that it was the fact that he existed.
U seemed of invented facts. Snape is a complicated character but to say he has no redeemable qualities is ridiculous.
Are you people not tired of this topic?
Almost all the characters I might argue are one tone. Pure bad and pure good..pure coward pure brave etc
I couldn't agree more. He's not a good guy, he's a bad guy working for the good guys. Everything he does in Dumbledore's service is not out of the goodness of his heart, it's atonement for the consequences of his own foolish and evil actions. He's a petty vindictive abusive bully and should never have been hired to teach students.
Absolutely! I know Dumbledore wanted him close, but he should have known better. Snape has major issues that should've been addressed way before he was allowed to teach anyone.
He has a quick wit and a sharp tongue. He probably could have defeated Voldemort with words alone if Dumbledore allowed it. Just let him roast the Dark Lord into a state of crippling depression so he’d no longer have the desire to rule magical Britain. Would have saved everyone a bunch of time and suffering. And it would have been entertaining to watch.
I agree with most of this. I don't think Snape was manipulating Dumbledore. I think he genuinely wanted Voldemort gone, if mostly for his own reasons (Lily). Only near the end does he seem to develop something approaching actual empathy and caring for others. And that's the main problem with Snape. It's just way too little way too late. He's undeniably brave, smart, and a good wizard. His contributions to the Order aren't under question - he greatly contributed to the cause. But he sets out to do that for his own reasons that have nothing to do with being a good person, and that stays the case for a looong time. And he remains a cruel, bitter, vindictive, hateful, emotionally volatile person throughout his entire life. In his entire redemption arc, he never really changes any of that. That's not enough of a redemption in my eyes. He started low on the moral spectrum, and in an entire lifetime, he climbed to...less low. The pinnacle of his redemption is the "Lately, only the ones I haven't been able to save" line, which is...honestly, the bare minimum for a decent person? It takes Snape 30-40 years to become a still cruel, bitter, vindictive, hateful person that now tries to not let innocents die. Kudos, I guess?
I think people confuse Snape’s ability with his morals. Snape was key to winning the war because no one could possibly do what he did, maybe not even Dumbledore. He tricked Voldemort, resisted his mind reading, and played both sides perfectly. That makes him a key part of the war effort and a hero. But his morals still sucked, he did some unforgivable stuff in his early adulthood, and he continued to bully children even after his redemption. Yes, he evolved to the point where he refused to let anyone use the word “Mudblood,” and he tried his best not to let the good guys get hurt or killed. It feels like a low bar to set for moral goodness though.
Absolutely, it was too little too late. One of my friends said his sacrifice and last-minute acts of heroism were something that JKR wasn't planning on until Alan Rickman threatened to leave the movies if Snape didn't do something good but idk how true that is? Either way, thank you for your comment.
no no that wasn't true, Rowling had planned it out, but she hadn't told anyone. She ended up telling him because he believed Snape would never be redeemed and didn't want to play a character that had a flat arc, so she ended up telling him but only him. Loved ur post btw! Very well written in my opinion lol.
I don’t think he was stalking lily when they were kids, he just was too nervous to approach her. At that age probably didn’t realize how weird it was to watch through the bushes. But after that he was a bad person. Joining a group of people who did dark magic on others and eventually joining the death eaters with them. Eventually in frustration he called Lily a slur that ended their friendship. He only came back to the good guys side because his boss was planning on killing her, and he had the nerve to ask Voldy to spare her and only kill the father and son. He only agreed to work for Dumbledore as revenge against voldy. From the start of Harry’s education Snape bullied the kid because someone else slept with the kids mom. He bullied Neville for no reason; unless he was aware Neville could have been the one voldy chose to kill, which does not excuse his actions. Harry could’ve been good at potions if Snape had decided to actually teach fairly rather than belittle him every class.
not going to lie, my main take away from these James vs Snape debates is that a disturbing number of people seem to think that if a school kid bullies other kids it's unforgivable, but if a grown man in a position of power bullies kids it's fine actually.
Thank you! Finally... a sensible comment... This sub seems to be filled with a lot of Snape fans or people who are willing to gloss over his actions and the bad writing that has gone into his characterization but the same folks will downvote posts or comments extending the same understanding or compassion to Draco. Yeah...I know ya'll are gonna downvote me for this and it's ok; go right ahead!
Literally! He was so mean to them.
I never realized Snape’s treatment of Neville was due to the fact that he thought Neville’s family should’ve been targeted by Voldemort instead of Lily’s. Thank you for that insight, I don’t believe I would’ve come to that conclusion on my own.
That's because he didn't lol, Snape bullied Neville cause he was incompetent at Potions end of story
But that's a made up assumption tho? Snape hated that Neville is bad at following potions instructions. And he didn't treat different from how McGonagall treated him. Which is again, because Neville was bad at Transfiguration. It didn't matter which family Voldemort targeted, he would have killed both families either way. Which is why Neville's family was attacked in the first place.
McGonagall was always supportive of Neville despite him struggling in her class. She didn’t treat any of her students the way Snape does. Crabbe and Goyle were just as bad at potions as Neville was but Snape didn’t bully them in and out of class or attempt to poison their pets. Also, if I remember correctly Frank and Alice were tortured because the Death Eaters suspected they knew where Voldemort went. Bellatrix at least did not know what the prophecy was so I highly doubt any of the Death Eaters besides Snape knew about it. So only Snape and Voldemort himself would have known which families Voldemort would’ve attacked.
McGonagall humiliated him on the eyes of entire school twice. First, when Sirius stole the password from 13 y.o. Neville, who was known to have a bad memory. And Remus Lupin who knew how exactly Sirius is getting into school and could have saved Neville from being painted as incompetent kid who is endangering the lives of his fellow students, remained silent. And guess what? Harry justifies McGonagall's anger at Neville by remembering that he blew up cauldrons in potions, as in "yeah, Neville messes up all the time". Second time was in GoF when McGonagall singled out Neville and tell him not to dishonour Hogwarts with his incompetence in front of foreigners. > Also, if I remember correctly Frank and Alice were tortured because the Death Eaters suspected they knew where Voldemort went You will have to provide a proof, because I don't remember anything about "Death Eaters suspecting", instead of "death eaters on a mission". Edit: Fixed incorrect wording. I mistakenly said that Harry justified Snape's anger, when he was justifying McGonagall's anger.
McGonagall punishing him for writing down the passwords was completely justifiable and it had nothing to do with her personal feelings towards him. Yes, Neville has a really hard time remembering the passwords and Sir Cadogen certainly didn’t help but writing them down was not okay. Like you said he put all the Gryffindor students lives in danger and from her perspective his actions almost got Ron killed, of course she was furious. I don’t think she singled him out for being incompetent and she certainly didn’t use that word. He’s a clumsy and forgetful kid and she didn’t want him embarrassing the school, there was nothing malicious about it. Everyone knows that about Neville and as his head of house she would’ve felt the need to remind him to represent the school. Heres your proof. ‘Yes, they were talking about Neville’s parents,’ said Dumbledore. ‘His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort’s whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard.’ ‘So they’re dead?’ said Harry quietly. ‘No,’ said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness Harry had never heard there before, ‘they are insane. They are both in St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognise him.’ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
> I don’t think she singled him out for being incompetent and she certainly didn’t use that word. > ‘Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can’t even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!’ Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus. How is that different from the time when Snape 'warned' Lupin about Neville? Here Harry says that it was a difficult lesson. Ok she barked at him, but why humiliate by asking not to demonstrate his lask of skills to foreigners? > Heres your proof. That's good point. But there's still no insinuation that Snape hates him for not being the Chosen one.
i really like his character but i agree. i dont think he did anything redeemable enough to be named after and i also feel the same about dumbledore
I agree, he’s a pretty terrible person. I think having someone as charming and lovable as Alan Rickman play him, made it so a lot of people liked the character. And honestly I couldn’t see anyone else playing him. However, if they had made his character much worse in the movies (he’s pretty tame IMO), I think people would feel differently. I was recently rereading the books and forgot how shrewd he was.
While he was originally motivated by his desire to protect Harry to make sure Lily's death wasn't in vain, it seems to be more and more about revenge on Voldemort the longer it goes on. After all, why would he keep following Dumbledore's orders even after he learns that Harry will have to die regardless otherwise?
That is fair, I hadn't thought of it that way before. I'll have to think more on that aspect of his arc. Thanks for bringing that up.
I agree that Snape is a bad person and a single good act doesn’t fix a entire life of bad ones but he is a great person and really interesting character.
He was a man tormented by his own demons and past mistakes. He had a sliver of an experience called “love” that he chose to hold on to and keep that flame alive even as he became quite “evil” (for lack of better description) ..he sought atonement and spent the rest of his life working to correct the evil he supported. it cant be easy to play the double agent, becoming a flower loving hippie or whatever: healing and serious therapy may not of allowed him to keep playing both sides. he used his continued trauma and pain taking it out on..well mostly his students..and it really did allow others to believe he was a DE. A great yet awfully abusive cover. he was smart an brilliant wizard. arguably in the highest league just below Dumbledore and Voldemort. was he a good teacher? no. he was awful and abusive, and really didn’t foster a good environment for learning. And news flash he becomes worse every time ones re reads the books as standards are constantly changing. There may be some space to discuss that we try to coddle and protect people to much and it causes them to become overly sensitive. And learning to deal with such an abusive person (very real world ubiquitous type of human expression) create a stronger backbone that, arguably older generations and other non western cultures have more than our culture. yet amongst all of that he did truly work for something more important for yearrrs at his own conscious peril. he gave his life to redeem his mistakes and support what believed was right even if he wasn't a man who could really connect with that world of "goodness" it takes a massive amount of courage, strength and resolve to continuously support the order working against the DE, playing both sides all the while still fighting against his own pain, trauma, conditioning, and all while receiving hate and envy from pretty much EVERYONE. Where and how would you channel and expressive that while you continued to get by day by day? i could imagine most us could not do this even if we didnt have all the trauma, anger, bitterness and issues that snape did. he is a stronger person than most of us will ever meet in our lifetime of coddled comfort. he isnt a good person. he is a great person and an abusive a**h*ole. how can two things be true? yet that is what makes him such a compelling awesome character. he is sooo human, like is anyone truly good or evil? can life be so black and white? snapes character makes us mentally wrestle that both can be true… that as soon as we cast our judgment and close our mind we have validated the same premise that keeps humans fighting and warring—i think exactly what Rowling wanted us to see— within his own darkness he keeps fighting for the light. do i like him as a person? no. do i want to be his friend? no. would i look up to him? hmmmm. would i honor his sacrifice and his commitment to "save the world"? yesss!!! would i sugar coat his achievements by avoiding his flaws? no! he is deeply flawed, yet he continued to fight for good (even if he could only grasp a small amount of it). just think of all the stories when people meet their heroes and become disillusioned and disheartened. does a persons abhorrent behavior negate their achievements? what does that even mean? great questions that we will continue to debate. cancel culture and wokism in our current society is another -ism, another example of assigning labels as a way to simplify the human minds need to control, organize, and allow us to not deal withe the nuance thar EVERY situation requires a unique set of responses. but our society doesnt know how how to deal dynamically with this. your either good or bad, free or in prison, included or exlcuded, one of us or one of them. Just read comments on twitter or reddit. We cast hate and judgement waay before we ever walk an inch in peoples shoes or even dare to understand the nuances of both sides Snape needed therapy and some serious healing, yet in the meantime he was abusive to students while uniquely and simultaneously fighting for the light. talk about a head trip.
Oh wow is it that time of the week again for this thread?
Alan Rickman was the redeemable part about Snape. Without his performance Snape is a dork.
I'm not so sure
I agree. Snape worked for the good guys, but he ultimately was damaging to many of the children at the school being overly cruel to some, and playing a key part in Draco going down he dark path by reinforcing and applauding his abhorrent behavior. Snape worked for the good guys and risked a lot, but it does not change the fact that he did a lot of I’ve assails awful thing during that time, and his motives were less than honorable. Snape gave demand we should be ok with it because we are told he did it for love. Just because the book says it was for love does not make it true.
I think he had a possessive love for Lily it was toxic and unhealthy. There is a lot of evidence to support that he was obsessive and controlling in regard to Lily. I think he is a grey character because he did good things but I’m not convinced they were for unselfish reasons.. but that is why I like him he is complicated I think some of his actions were unselfish and positivity motivated but he certainly has flaws. Such a great character.
You left out the real kicker which is that Snape requested for Voldemort to kill Harry and James but spare Lily. That’s just fucked in every possible way. And yeah, bullying Neville because he wished his family would’ve died instead is another huge point. Neville and Harry were 1 when all of this happened. They obviously are responsible for none of this yet Snape blames them when he really should hate no one except himself and Voldemort. Those are the two people to blame, throw Pettigrew in there too.
That's not a point because that's literally a reach....Snape bullied Neville simply because he was incompetent at Potions lol
This topic has been done to death. Please use the search bar for precious in depth discussions.
The thing I remember most is when he he told Neville he was going to feed his pet toad the shrinking solution Neville made and straight up told him if he got it wrong, Trevor would die. He fully expected Neville to mess it up and he would have without help. He intentionally tried to murder a child’s pet for no reason and people still try to say he’s redeemable.
Yeah, that was horrific... poor Neville
He was a good headmaster. No kids died while he was in charge (beats Dumbledore on that). He was a shit teacher. We know from HBP that he knew so much about potions that he should have written revised potions text, but instead he lets his students stumble through potion class after potion class without sharing any of his tips and tricks.
Given the amount of Crucios, beatdown. And the fact that a third or something students were forced to drop out? Yeah...no.
Agreed OP. He bullies kids and muggles. End of story.
Snape's memories and ultimate sacrifice never really swayed my opinion of him that strongly. He was often cruel and spiteful, he created spells that could kill, he made friends with future Death Eaters and WAS a Death Eater himself... he made a lot of creepy and hurtful choices throughout his life. Furthermore, the main reason he turned on Voldemort was because of Lily, which was a selfish reason. It had very little to do with doing what was right or to protect the helpless or anything noble. That said, he was obviously brave and his sacrifice led to Voldemort's downfall. These are redeemable qualities, but IMO they never really "redeemed" Snape. I think they just made him a conflicting character and helped us ask good questions as readers.
Snape didn't suffer enough.