Okay this is something I've been wanting to share for quite awhile now. And I know I'm still not hugely familiar with this board, I do sincerely hope I'm posting this in the most appropriately possible place. Initially I was going to put it in the Deathly Hallows section, but after thinking it felt like it truly was more of an overall series point and thus, if I understand the lay of the land correctly, right here is where it belongs.

Now, I can actually kinda understand how readers coming right off of Deathly Hallows would feel much like how Harry does at the end of the book towards Snape, thinking very highly of him, even regarding him as the bravest man he ever knew. However, over the last several months I've gone back over pretty much each of the books at least once (though, oddly, not necessarily in proper ascending order) and I'm here to throw the gauntlet down -- Severus Snape doesn't deserve this big love-in he seems to get in the end.

Alright, yes, so we discover that Snape really was on Dumbledore's (and by extension The Order) side all along, with ultimately the sincere desire to see Harry do what he'd need to do to destroy Voldemort forever. But I say this is not enough to just forget all that came before it. And really I think my argument is a relatively simple one. Let's go back in our heads to the beginning, and when Harry is first getting started at Hogwarts in Year 1. Harry is an 11 year old boy, and who, mind you, has very recently had his world turned completely upside down in being told his true past. Snape is a grown man. And literally right from the very first day they meet, Snape not only goes after Harry, but he downright revels in putting the screws to him. Snape goes out of his way and seizes every single opportunity to try and humiliate Harry, to try to make him look foolish, and otherwise hurt him and/or anyone considered close with him (namely of course Ron & Hermione).

Snape, a grown man, an adult. Harry, an 11 year old kid. Think about that. Honestly I think that's outright disturbing. And Harry does absolutely NOTHING right off the bat to deserve this. Why does Snape do it? Because he was in love with Harry's mom all his life, of course, and Snape lost her affections long ago.

It's a classic struggle of course, a son punished for the sins of his father. And there from the start and forever more, Snape just continues to project all these things onto Harry (as Dumbledore says in the DH flashbacks, "You see what you expect to see...") I mean sure after awhile Harry does his share of legitimately getting into trouble, but it's never an equal balance from the beginning, for how Harry behaves versus the weight with which Snape comes down on Harry. And as we all know, he just gets progressively worse over every single book. Many of the things he pulls on him, and/or Ron & Hermione are just reprehensible. Hypocritical. Ludicrously unfair.


So, in the end Snape gets an overall pass just because he really was "fighting for Harry", so to speak, all along? Nah, I'm sorry, I'm not that forgiving.

I've been quite vocal on this subject, you might want to check out this thread for some good discussion. I agree with you bud.

I'm afraid I have to disagree. Sure, throughout Harry's tenure at Hogwarts, Snape was downright evil toward him. I won't deny that between the release of Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, I often found myself going back and forth about whether or not Snape was good or evil.

Severus Snape died in the fight against Voldemort. He literally gave up everything that he had in order to pave the way for Harry to defeat Voldemort. When Snape killed Dumbledore, which we found out was Dumbledore's plan all along, he immediately alienated himself from the Order of the Phoenix and anyone who opposed Voldemort. When he took the Headmaster job at Hogwarts, he furthered that divide, by appearing to do Voldemort's bidding with the school. Even had Snape survived, would he have been able to return to the wizarding community? I don't know. I don't think so. He gave up everything to fight Voldemort.

The question I ask is this. Is six years of "cruelty" and perhaps unfairness, while not doing anything to actually harm Harry, worse than what might have happened had Snape not really betrayed Voldemort? If your best friend suddenly turned against you (et tu Brute), would you forever remember them by saying something like, "He was just having a bad day. Compared to all the good things he did for me, this is nothing?" I think not. The pain of that betrayal would be there forever. Why can the opposite not also be true? Why can Harry not forgive completely forgive Snape in light of the ultimate good that Snape did?

I also have to disagree. I've always like Snape and I always will. I mean sure Snape could have been nicer towards Harry. But Snape LOVED Lily Potter and having Harry at Hogwarts was a reminder of Lily. I mean he's a single, bitter man that lost his love towards Voldemort and now he has to fake his allience with Voldemort in order to help Potter. So what if Snape was mean 'cause of James. Harry and him looked so much alike even Siruis got them confused at times.

Severus Snape never really did any harm to any of the characters. Okay so he was a bit mean but isn't there always someone against you? Even in real life? I mean if Snape wasn't so mean then things would be lifeless, sure there was Draco and all the other stuff that happened but with Snape, a teacher, hating Harry it made the book more interesting.

And we must remember the SS book where Snape saves Harry from falling off his broomstick! Snape always kept Harry alive and even when Harry attacked Draco in the bathroom Snape never gave Harry a detiontion or expelled him.

Yea I have to admit, I felt a little foolish when I ran up against that thread, which wasn't until after I'd already made this one, of course I was like damn, she's pretty much already making this exactly same argument I am. haha That's what I get for I guess not taking enough time to truly get around to know ALL parts of the board.


And ya know, speaking of that very first day they meet at Hogwarts it reminds me of something, that first thing that Snape comes down on Harry for in class, the great irony is that Harry was doing the most proper thing in that moment more so than perhaps any other student (well, in the movie definitely, I can't recall right now if it's exactly the same in the book). That is, Snape's giving his potions speech on how he'll teach "how to ensnare the senses, bottle fame, etc" and Harry gets chastised for 'not paying attention', when in reality he's paying the MOST attention, because he's writing down every single thing that Snape is saying! lol


Oh and just for one the one thing thing I wanted to mention, granted this is a relatively small quibble I guess, but one of my "problems" with Deathly Hallows was how convenient it seemed that events transpired there towards the end for Harry to be with Snape right when he dies, so Snape can pass off the essential memories. Because I mean, earlier on when Snape is alone with Voldy and pleading "Let ME go and bring the boy to you, my lord", obviously this was him trying to ensure he'd be able to cross paths with Harry to then be able to give him all the old memories so Harry could learn what he needed to. So you gotta figure when Snape is denied this, he's starting to get pretty antsy that he's not gonna get the chance to see Harry, and then most definitely when Voldy starts to kill him he must be thinking he failed. But then, oh hey look at that, Harry's been hiding in a corner this whole time so now he can crawl right up to Snape once Voldy's out of the room and he can get the memories after all. Just a little bit too contrived and convenient, but again it's not as if it really ruins anything for me.

and siv1987 and peaches11 -- yea I can understand where you're coming from, but I'm sorry I still hold my position firmly. Although, peaches you say "okay so he was a bit mean, but..." A bit mean? Please. Snape constantly mentally abused Harry, and like I said then Ron & Hermione got overflow just for being friends with him. If I was Harry I wouldn't have had any shame whatsoever in going to Dumbledore sometime during that first year and just being like "what the hell? This teacher has been downright evil to me from my first day, goes out of his way to be especially and extremely unfair to me, give me one good reason why I should continue to just take this?"

I'd say it's a darn good bet that in the entire time Harry was at school (if not even before then) Snape never gave any Gryffindor student any points whatsoever for any accomplishment, only ever taking them away, for even the tiniest infraction.

And again, for what? All because of Snape's hatred of James. See most of this for me is about the fact that Harry is so young and immediately taking it in the worst way from Snape, like it's one thing if you have a boiling hatred for someone, you later meet their son and he's pretty grown up and you treat them like crap. But for Harry to not even having been a teenager yet, and Snape taking such immense joy in riding Harry incessantly, that's just beyond wrong to me.

Seeker, forgive me if anything I said before sound harsh or condescending. I wasn't trying to bash you or your opinion in any way. Everyone has their own opinion.

But this discussion got me thinking about another possibility. I don't really believe this, but I thought I would play devil's advocate with it. We know that memories can be tampered with (Slughorn), so how exactly do we know that the memory that Harry got from Snape was actually a real memory? What if?

I agree with you Seeker. But i also agree with Siv's middle paragraph on her first post. Snape gave up EVERYTHING. Everything he believed in. But now i can say, he was a VERY cool character.

Hate to break it to you, but Harry did receive detention from Snape for using Sectumsempra. (And I don't think too many people would say that he didn't deserve some form of punishment for his attack on Draco. ) In HBP, page 528, Snape gives Harry detention every Saturday for the rest of term because of the bathroom incident. Not trying to invalidate your arguments, just wanting to make sure we all have our facts straight.

It's okay, no worries, I didn't take anything of what you were saying in a condescending matter at all

That's an interesting concept you bring up with the memory alteration, but I'd highly doubt it, I mean Rowling doesn't seem to give even the slightest hint in that kind of direction that it's what was at work.


But see to really get the age gap across in this Harry/Snape dynamic I'm talking about, I was just sitting here and trying to make it directly relatable for me. That is, okay I'm 34 years old, and I've got a nephew that just turned 12 last month. Let's imagine that I've got just an incredible hatred for my sister (his mom), that ya know we had these horrible events earlier in our lives and our relationship is totally destroyed, we can't stand each other. But in the course of my every day life, I'm exposed to my nephew a significant amount. I imagine myself on practically a daily basis just tearing into my nephew in the worst way of chopping him down mentally and emotionally, humiliating him, that it would kind of be tantamount to child abuse. And hell obviously Snape in the books is even older than I am.

Now, I know you could say "yea but deep down you're not doing something secretly all along to help your nephew", but actually that's practically irrelevant. Because Snape was still taking pure joy from the screws he was always putting to Harry, so it was in fact pretty much an entirely separate thing from the notion that he was Dumbledore's man all along.

Considering my username, I feel obligated to post here and join in the discussion. I might rearrange some quotes just to make it easier for me to keep my post a bit more fluent, but I'll certainly try not to take anything out of context. So here goes:

I won't pretend for a second that Snape was at all right or justified in his verbal abuse and cutting remarks towards Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville (I'm surprised no one's mentioned him yet). Neville's boggart wasn't Snape for nothing. No one should ever verbally abuse another person; no matter the reason it's wrong. I do, however, think it's worth recalling the causes and the reasons why Snape is so verbally abusive towards, mainly, Gryffindors, namely Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville. Having a neglectful childhood (not so unlike Harry's really) with a clearly verbally abusive father (we only see him yelling at Eileen, but it's highly likely that he treated Snape the same way), a not always very pleasant time at school (the Marauders' bullying doesn't exactly cheer him up), losing the only girl he ever loved to the guy he hated most, and finding acceptance only in people like the Death Eaters, it certainly seems logical, even reasonable, that Snape would turn out the way he did - bitter and cruel. These do not justify his mistreatment of students like Harry, especially considering he was on Dumbledore's side by this point, but it does make him sympathetic, realistic, and human, which I, personally, always love in any character. I can't say the same for anyone else, obviously, but that is part of the reason I like Snape as a character.

Now you, Seeker, mentioned this:

(bolding mine for emphasis)

I personally I agree. I'm a bit surprised that Harry didn't go to the Headmaster of the school and ask how he was supposed to deal with the professor who apparently had an immediate dislike for him. And I'm not sure, so please correct me anyone who has read the first book very recently, did Harry even go to Hagrid about it? Because maybe the reason he didn't go to someone about it (whether Dumbledore and Hagrid or just Dumbledore) was simply because he was used to it. The Dursleys never exactly sang his praises while he was at their house, and they did far more than just verbal abuse, but also physical (they didn't hit him, no, but starving him at times? locking him in a cupboard under the stairs?) and by extension even some mental and emotional abuse. Perhaps Harry saw Snape's sudden dislike of him as just another Dursley-like person to just ignore and to try not to get in trouble if he could help it while in Snape's presence. Hold a grudge, hate him back, insult him when he isn't around, and cherish the time spent not in the Potions room - this seems to be the general train of thought surrounding Snape in Harry's mind.

Indeed, it is rather amusing, isn't it? Perhaps it just didn't look like Harry was writing down what Snape said - maybe Snape assumed he was writing a note to a friend? Maybe he thought he was doodling and not paying attention. Maybe Snape just didn't think Harry was the note-taking type. Whatever the reason, I find the irony quite amusing.

Truthfully, a lot of what happened in DH was down to chance and luck. In a way, it all sort of fell into place, but many, many things could have gone wrong with even a split second of bad luck. It seems to me that that's a lot like what life's like though, so I don't see too much of a problem here. Of course, that could just be me.

(again, bolding mine for emphasis on what I'm trying to address)

While I agree that the first paragraph is likely, I have to disagree just a bit on the bolded part. It wasn't only because of James that Snape hated Gryffindors. There were the other three Marauders as well, and also I think it is fair to point out that, except for Lily and perhaps his "Death Eater" friends, no one ever stood up for Snape or tried to help him. That includes the rest of the Gryffindors, as well as the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs. He was either being bullied and laughed at or fully ignored and left to his own devices. Under such treatment, who wouldn't hold a bit of a grudge against those people and the houses they were in? It doesn't make it right, but neither is it right for Harry and the others to hate all Slytherins just because Voldemort is practically evil incarnate and Draco's a jerk. And because Hagrid said so.

If you recall from the tampered with memory in question (where Voldemort asks Slughorn about Horcruxes), during that particular portion of the memory, the scene is suddenly covered with grey fog, Slughorn says something he actually didn't, and none of the other members of the dream seem to notice anything strange happening at all. Their reactions did not match with what Slughorn said. Considering nothing of this sort happened in the memories Snape gave to Harry and, as Seeker said, JKR has never hinted at such a thing, it's safe to assume that Snape's memories were, indeed, real.

(bolding, again, mine)

Actually, Snape is in fact around your age (in the series time, not currently in our real life time). He was born on January 9, 1960, approximately twenty years and a few months before Harry (who was born July 31, 1980). Therefore, when Harry entered Hogwarts at 11, Snape was 31. When Harry was 12, Snape was 32. Etc. Etc. Snape died at the age of 38. So he wasn't that far off your age. He just looks older in the movies because Alan Rickman is, in fact, much older than 38 years of age.

I don't recall Harry exactly going to Hagrid perse, but I know he wasn't shy about expressing his feelings that Snape completely loathed him(Harry). Hagrid of course dismissed it immediately, usually referring to Snape's being a Hogwart's teacher and Dumbledore's trust of Snape to refute any accusation which Harry tried to bring against him.

Why did Snape "hate" Gryffindors? Well, maybe part of the answer can be found in the section I've made bold. I agree with what you said here, but I disagree that Harry and most Gryffindors hated Slytherin because of a couple of people. Gryffindor and Slytherin are kind of like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox of Hogwarts. (If you don't follow baseball, that is one of the biggest rivalries in sports.) Gryffindors hated Slytherins and Slytherins hated Gryffindors simply because that's the way it was. Even Professor McGonnagal said that she hadn't been able to look Snape in the eyes for ages because Slytherin had beaten Gryffindor at Qudditch and for the House Cup so much. Slytherin and Gryffindor have been rivals for ages. Since the days of the four founders. It was Gryffindor and Slytherin that disagreed the most over which students were worthy to be let into Hogwarts. When you have a rivalry that runs for that long, it stops being so much of a rivalry and simply becomes bitter hatred. Is it right? No. But since when is everything right?

Yeah, I know. I just think it's fun to speculate.

Well I must say, I was rather surprised when I took a look at your profile and saw you were only 16, you're extremely well spoken and eloquent in your thoughts, unfortunately not a very common thing for someone your age (and then I cry realizing I'm literally more than twice your age )


But yea the depiction of peoples' ages in the books is I think one of the areas where we have to suspend the most disbelief, in relation to the films. As you point out Alan Rickman looks MUCH older than 31 in Harry's first year, and I only just did the math now upon re-listening to Hallows that supposedly James and Lilly were only about 22 years old when Harry was born, yet the photos we see of them around that time, those actors are significantly older.


Btw on a completely different note, now that I've been posting here a little bit more I'd like to ask just a typical board member this, out of curiosity would you happen to get the reference of my username? That is, it has a double meaning, one from the book, and one from somewhere else in pop culture.

Oh crap! Reallly?! Shot I just read the book and I already forget that Harry get detention! Crap I'm used to the movie where Harry doesn't get one! Omggg I feel soo stupidd lol. And now that you say that I remember cause didn't Harry have to like sort through all the old detention and they were mostly James and Siruis?!

I have been reading this thread I I love all of the points everyone has made.
Seeker: I do agree with a lot of what was in you original post and most of my friends never understood my problems with snape.

P.s. I think of my self as a typical board member and I am guessing your name is in reference to The Who

So I've been going back thru Philosopher's Stone and had one (what I'd consider really strong) example again of my argument come charging to the forefront. Here you have Harry in literally his first Potions class ever, and Snape starts badgering him with questions that it's more than reasonable that Harry would have no clue about, I mean this is literally the first interaction that Snape is EVER having with Harry, and already he's using this "pop quiz" as a way to utterly humiliate Harry (an 11 year old boy, mind you) and it's like he's having the most fun of his life.

I'm not sure what to think on this subject, you've made very good points and I think I agree with you? What the people who are disagreeing are saying, is that Snape was very brave to lie to Voldemort and so after going through all of that he should be forgiven. Well I don't think he should, I agree completely with you.

Nat x

Why not? What has Snape done (or not done) that makes him in particular so unforgivable? Just because he acts like a snarky jerk most of the time? Why then should we forgive Draco Malfoy? For most of the books, he bullied people he didn't like, ridiculed anyone who disagreed with him, and snubbed anyone he thought was "beneath him." Should we forgive him because he supposedly "changed" by the time the epilogue rolled around? Or how about Dumbledore? In his youth, he was arrogant, cared very little about his family and resented having to take care of them, and was totally cool with the idea of wizards ruling over the Muggles when Grindelwald suggested it. Should we forgive him too? And how about James? He was also incredibly arrogant and bullied and made fun of most people in his school for many years. Why should we forgive him?

I forgive in some ways Snape but I don't in others if that makes any sense. I definitely forgive him for joining the death eaters when he was younger, he made up for that in a big way obviously, but I don't forgive him completely for treating his students so horribly. His mean comments mostly just got on Harry, Ron and Hermione's nerves and sometimes that affected their school work, but the thing he did that bugs me the most is pick on Neville so much. Knowing what Neville went through and how in the beginning he had such little confidence its horrible seeing how Snape treated him. Neville may have enjoyed school much more and wouldn't have been so scared in that class if Snape would've at least respected the kid. Neville seemed to do much better when his teachers believed in him and helped him out, like how Lupin treated him or how Harry was in the DA.

I dont think that he was let off too easy. I think that he deserved everything at the end. Harry trusted him at the end and he understood everything. I thought it was lovely.

Yes I agree. Harry trusted him in the end; and even named one of his kids after him. He was a great wizard and a goodie from the very beginning.

I think he's charming in his way....

and i did not bother to look through all of it, but a mean person would not be caught in the act doing this:


and think about Snape saving Harry at the QM, his attempt to saving him(and ron and hermie of course) from the 'murderer' sirius, the sectumsempra to save 'harry' that costs george his ear etc.....there are lots of clues in the books.... he might be a bit of a nasty teacher, in the background i think he's not that evil......