Okay, let me clarify, I did not write this, but these are almost my thoughts exactly, and I agree very much.
Link to the Original post,
here.
That Age-Old, War-starting Snape Question…
What is my opinion on Severus Snape? A very complicated, I don’t even know where to begin question, but I swear, I answered it in the best way I possibly could…
I have to say that I was not the biggest Snape fan when he was introduced as a character. I couldn’t understand him because here was a grown man who hated Harry’s father so much that he picked on Harry himself as an eleven year old. He was actually really cruel to several children, like Neville Longbottom (what did that poor boy ever do to you, Snape?) and Hermione Granger, and yeah, I could never understand how someone in his thirties could be mean to students so young (and why?). I understand being strict as a professor, but I don’t know… Some of his comments were uncalled for. (And this remains the one thing that I really really do not like about him, even now when I actually like him as a character.)
But then he went and ended up being the reason Harry survived his first year at Hogwarts and I was confused. He hated Harry, bullied children, but saved that boy’s life? What?
In CoS and especially in PoA, he continued to be that same adult!bully I saw in the first book, but part of this made some sense when Sirius was introduced and we learned that Snape and the marauders could never see eye to eye about anything since they were at Hogwarts together. (I still don’t get why he had to be so mean to Hermione and Neville, but whatever.) And then we learned about Sirius’ prank that could have killed Snape and how Snape spent so much time trying to get Remus expelled for being cursed with lycantrophy, and I couldn’t understand him again. I understood why he hated Sirius, since, you know, he tried to kill him…
But the stuff he said about James bugged me (even though we basically knew nothing about James at this point). Because knowing what we know about James Potter now, I can’t accept that the only reason James saved Snape was to prevent his friends from being expelled or to keep Remus’ secret still secret. He wasn’t just undoing what Sirius did. He was trying to save a life. James Potter might not have liked Severus Snape, but he was also fighting for lives. Dark arts or not, he wouldn’t have cared who Snape was. He would have done it for anybody. I can’t see him wishing death on anyone, even someone he could never see eye to eye with, and I think Snape knows this. And I think that just frustrates him more.
I didn’t think much of Snape in GoF, even when it was hinted that he had something to do with the death eaters, or connections or whatever, and that warning he gave Karkaroff didn’t even register. I now know that he was trying to play double agent for Dumbledore during that year, and keep an eye on a known Death Eater, and indirectly keep Harry safe on Dumbledore’s orders, but yeah, none of this meant anything then. Now it serves as some back story on Snape’s character, but I’ll talk about that later.
For most of Order of the Phoenix, Snape annoyed me. He would provoke Sirius, who was my favorite character at this point, and okay, they never got along, but why would he torture a man who has basically been locked up for a good part of his life? I always felt for Sirius in this book because the more we learned about his home life, the more my heart broke. But then everything changed with Snape’s Worst Memory. (We now know that the memory was his worst for Lily and what he said to her, but we didn’t at the time, and yeah, this bothered me.) It honestly surprised me that James was such a jerk to Snape when they were younger, but there’s a reason why I’m a James fan now, and it’s more than just the fanfiction I read. I’ve read OotP nearly a hundred times now, and SWM even more than that, and I still can’t choose sides. Remus and Sirius pointed out that James and Snape both picked fights with each other every chance they got. It was even. Sure, in SWM, we see that Sirius and James started it, but everything JKR has said about the marauder era describes that it wasn’t like that every time. Sometimes Snape started the fights, too. (And that stuff that he and his friends did to Muggleborns? That wasn’t Lily Evans exaggerating. It happened, and Snape was in on it.) But yeah, James eventually changed and grew up, and Snape changed as well (though it took him longer than James did because of the stuff he was into with the Death Eaters and Voldemort).
Half Blood Prince became the book that defined my relationship with the character. For most people it was DH, but no, I knew I liked Snape, even if (as JKR said) I want to slap him sometimes too, when I read HBP. Okay, it bothered me that Snape basically had a section labeled ‘for enemies’ in his book, and it was obvious he was making stuff up to torture the marauders with (though I guess, since that’s what they did as fifteen year olds, I can’t hold that against him - though, yeah, you need to be a twisted genius to come up with something like Sectumsempera). But all that stuff with Dumbledore? While most of the world was going, SEVERUS SNAPE: FRIEND OR FOE? or Snape!bashing all the time, I was thinking, “Dumbledore was a genius… This whole thing seemed planned… That please seemed like a plea for death… Something else is at work here. Snape might be strangely cruel to children, and he might have that DE background, and yeah, some children who are bullied and did bully as children go crazy as adults, but no… I refuse to believe that he would betray Dumbledore like this. JK Rowling is a genius - IT CANNOT BE THIS SIMPLE.”
But I didn’t think about it until Deathly Hallows. I don’t know how people guessed Snape’s story before it happened, but the entire thing took me by surprise. Reading the series over again, I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. If Lily and Snape weren’t friends, why was she there to witness SWM randomly? I can believe that she’d do it for anyone, but reading it over, I SEE that this wasn’t a random interference. If Snape hated James, why was he always saving Harry? If Dumbledore DID ask him to kill him, why would he do it? Why did it seem like he only listened and respected Dumbledore? Why was he so sincere when he was trying to talk to McGonagall at the end of DH, when he asked her to please tell him if Harry was in the building? Why was he so desperate? There’s a sadness he carries with him despite the fact that he’s not the most sensitive person ever, and what is that? And why didn’t he torture Ginny, Luna, and Neville when they tried to steal the sword, when he really could? So yeah, lots of questions. Everything explained in that one chapter…
So where do I stand on Snape now? Honestly, he is one of the bravest men I ever knew, but I can’t deny all the other brave things others have done in this series as well. I love Snape for his complexity. He’s not easy to understand, and I don’t think a person can. I don’t think you can be a fan of Snape if you can’t accept that he did awful things as well as awesome things. He dedicated his life to Lily, and he spent seven years trying to save Harry and deal with the personal things he felt against the marauders, but he was also incredibly cruel to children who had nothing to do with him (maybe he’s that way because of his blah father, but yeah, Snape had the choice, and I can’t believe for a second that he did any of that to keep the secret and play double agent - maybe when he was mean to Harry, but not Neville or Hermione, or anyone else). But also, he sold the Potters out to Voldemort, tried to only save Lily and wouldn’t care if Harry and James died, and this is just… Ugh… So I don’t know… Snape is a hero because he did something no one would dare: he double crossed Voldemort. His story is sad because he chose the Dark Arts and a murdering cult over the one person that could even make him smile, and it pains him that when he turned his back on Lily, the guy he hated in school matured and she finally gave him the time of day. (I can’t see Snape/Lily ever happening, even if he hadn’t been a Death Eater back then, but yeah, I bet they would have still been friends.) I think it’s heartbreaking that even as a Death Eater, Snape obviously still thought about Lily, and that listening to the prophecy and reporting to Voldemort is the very thing that kills her. I can’t imagine what that would feel like, having someone who had once meant the world to you, even if you weren’t speaking, killed indirectly because of something you did. He had to have lived with that pain for the rest of his life, even if Voldemort was the one who physically did the killing. People always talk about how it must be torture for Snape to see Harry with Lily’s eyes and James’ physical features, but I bet this pained him more. It had to have; it’s the reason why, “After all this time?/ Always.” means so much to Potter fans (though I actually have a love/hate with this quote - the sentiment is sweet, but he’s also saying that he still doesn’t give a damn about her husband and child).
Gah, yeah, I don’t know. I feel the same way about Snape that I hope JK Rowling wanted us to feel about Snape: someone who is heroic and pitiable and sad and cruel and lonely and… far too complicated to ever fully understand.
Snape, From the Mind of JK Rowling:
“Snape is a very sadistic teacher, loosely based on a teacher I myself had, I have to say. I think children are very aware and we are kidding ourselves if we don’t think that they are, that teachers do sometimes abuse their power and this particular teacher does abuse his power. He’s not a particularly pleasant person at all. However, everyone should keep their eye on Snape, I’ll just say that because there is more to him than meets the eye...”
“I really like Snape. I mean, I wouldn’t want to have a dinner with him, but as a character he’s great because he’s complicated and quite nasty.”
“Do I think he’s a hero? To a point I do, but he’s not an unequivocally good character. Snape is a complicated man. He’s bitter. He’s … spiteful. He’s a bully. All these things are still true of Snape, even at the end of this book. But was he brave? Yes, immensely. Was he capable of love? Very definitely. So he’s— he’s a very— he was a flawed human being, like all of us. Harry forgives him—- as we know, from the epilogue, Harry— Harry really sees the good in Snape ultimately. I wanted there to be redemption and I wanted there to be forgiveness. And Harry forgives, even knowing that until the end Snape loathed him unjustifiably. it’s totally, totally unfair that he loathes him so much, but anyway…”
Q: Do you think Snape is a hero?
JK Rowling: “Yes, I do; though a very flawed hero. An anti-hero, perhaps. He is not a particularly likeable man in many ways. He remains rather cruel, a bully, riddled with bitterness and insecurity - and yet he loved, and showed loyalty to that love and, ultimately, laid down his life because of it. That’s pretty heroic!”
STEPHEN FRY: “Then there are characters like Snape, who are bad but there is a certain ambiguity about him. You can’t quite decide because there’s something quite sad about him. Something very lonely. We’re slowly (after five books) getting the idea that maybe he is not so bad after all.”
JK ROWLING: “Yes, but you shouldn’t think he’s too nice. Let me just say that. It is worth keeping an eye on old Severus Snape, definitely.”
Q: Was Snape always intended to be a hero?
JK ROWLING: *gasp* “Is he a hero? You see, I don’t see him really as a hero.”
Q: Really?
JK ROWLING: “Yeah, he’s spiteful, he’s a bully. All these things are still true of Snape, even at the end of this book. Ah, um, but was he brave? Yes, immensely.”
Q: If Snape didn’t love Lily, would he still have tried to protect Harry?
JK ROWLING: “No, he definitely wouldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have been remotely interested in what happened to this boy.”
“And sometimes consequences define your life with hardship. Will goodness be the banner you raise? ‘Cause with his last breath, Severus said, “Take it, take it.” Living in disguise, a true wizard on the inside. Not afraid of what he had to do, he was the bravest man I ever knew.” -Oh wait, that’s Ministry of Magic. XD
Labels: #Harry Potter, #HP Related, #James Potter, #Lily Evans, #Marauders, #Peter Pettigrew, #Remus Lupin, #Severus Snape, #Sirius Black, #Thoughts
