*another Harry Potter post, deal with it. :P
I shall focus on, by this post, the character of Snape and how brilliant the canon Snape is as opposed to the romanticised, victimised version of Snape I have read on the internet. To which I shall say : Really?
[ I will address the Marauders also, they shouldn't be glorified or villified either because if you do, you are missing the point entirely].
I blame the assumption of romantcisied and victimised version of Snape due to movie and their persistent whitewashing of Snape's guilt in the Potters' death. [ To be fair, they have whitewashed Sirius' guilt in it as well, because of the lack of inclusion of whole Fidelius charm bit. Thats a crying shame because both Snape and Sirius are marvellous characters in the book]. We'll begin at the beginning, shall we? The two things Snape's character seems to scream for is control and respect [In the Goblet of Fire, Snape is offended that Moody was given permission to search his office, and even more offended by the idea Dumbledore might have given Moody a free pass to do so]. He has little use for love and affection (I dont think Snape will ever admit he needs that), given the way he is as an emotionally stunted, vindictive man but he needs respect and control, given his derision that Harry can't control his emotions during Occlumency lessons. [ I can practically hear him sneering, "How very like your father you are, Potter. He too, lacked the subtleity and opted to be brash and mediocre. Reasonable talent in Quiddicth field and set of admirers made him strut around the castle, in fact his head was so large, he would be very disappointed he does not have a scar to wear like a crown like you do."].
Little Snape wearing overlarge clothes watching Lily and Petunia. This serves as an identification for Harry who is watching the memories, and who better than Harry to understand what it is like to wear hand me downs? It is implied in text that Snape's parents largely are in an abusive relationship, living in industrial parts town, so clearly, poor. We have quite enough reasons to feel sorry for him. But note, along with this, little Snape was not a fluffy bunny who was sad and baw aww and shit. He retaliated when he was insulted. As it was the case with Petunia, who made a jibe about his clothes, the tree branch fell on her. Lily, who feels rejected by her sister, Snape does not comfort her by saying "your sister is resentful and jealous wench. ", he says, "She is only a Muggle". Yeah, little Snape the bigot [his experience with his father factors in here, but there is a difference between understanding where he comes from and excusing it entirely]. Although he does successfully cheer Lily up by mentioning Hogwarts. [the dysfunctional friendship Lily and Snape share, man. I love it to pieces because there is just so many possibilities. It is, at this stage, one step forward and two steps back kind of thing]. Now, enter James Potter, the loved and adored son, pureblood, privileged in every sense of way and Sirius Black, the rebellious pureblood outcast with his baggage load of issues. They both are wealthy, arrogant, privileged little shits and the narrative distances itself from them and identifies with Snape, as Harry does, because Harry at 11 is insecure, happy to be leaving a home he hated, much like Snape. The difference between Harry and Snape at 11 is, Harry recognizes that apart from the Durseleys, other Muggles aren't quite as bad. Snape only makes an exception for Lily, not only because she is possibly the first friend he has but also, because, she has "loads of magic". Snape craves a certain companionship, again, like Harry, who is quick to make friends with Ron, because, "he didn't have much people to share food with, and corned beef sandwiches lay forgotten". [ aww 11 year old harry. so adorable].. James, with his "who wants to be in slytherin?" [ apparently a parallel to Draco Malfoy's sentiment to Hufflepuff. Rofl. While I think it is one, I don't see James = Draco in terms of personality any more than Harry = Snape. I'll get to that too, but the main difference is however sorry you feel for Draco, he is a coward. James on the other hand, has freaking balls of steel.]
James tries to trip Snape as he passes and the name Snivellus for Snape is born, and thus, rivalry and bad blood and bullying all that happens. I have a problem with people excusing James and Sirius for their bullying as well. Don't excuse it as "oh they are teenagers and didn't know better" and all that shit. They are arrogant pricks, Sirius recognises this when he tells Harry in order of Phoneix. I doubt they really cared who they were hurting at that point, because as Lily pointed out, James hexed anyone who annoyed just because he can. No character is static or stunted, they have grown and evolved and changed. As is the case with Albus Dumbledore. Rowling's point is no man is truly perfect, and it is our choices that define who we are. [ Except Harry Potter, who I tend to love more when he is imperfect :p]. So lets continue with the deconstruction of Snape, shall we? Before we get to the Mudblood incident, Lily is sorted to Gryffindor, and she demonstres loyalty to Snape by turning away from Sirius who offered her a seat beside him. [ booyah to people who say Lily isn't a good friend]. Snape is sorted to Slytherin, and sits beside Lucius Malfoy who is apparently a prefect. [ So there goes, 'no friends' theory shot to hell guys, because it is implied, several times in canon, that Snape was good friends with Lucius ( Dolores Umbridge mentions Lucius speaks highly of him, Narcissa turned to Snape for the protection of her son, Sirius taunts Snape about being Lucius's lapdog)and several other people who were impressed with Snape's affinity to Dark Arts. Take a note of people Sirius mentions in Goblet of Fire Snape hung out with. Although take some with a grain of salt, because Sirius generally struggles to be fair in his view of Snape :P].
Next, of course, we see Snape arguing with Lily where she tells him, she dislikes his friends and cannot fathom why he hangs out with them. Snape dismisses her concerns about Mulciber's attack of an innocent girl as a "laugh" when it was clearly dark magic and turns it around on her [oh boy] about baw aww Marauder are not as wonderful as people think they are. Yeah, no shit, Snape. But as Lily points out, "What has Potter got to do with anything?"- because, it has nothing to do with discussion at hand, which is about Snape's choice of friends, and he directs the conversation away from them because he cannot deal with it. [ The real tragedy of Snape's character is his delusion, how he expected to have both Lily and Mulciber in his life when those wants are opposite ends of a political spectrum is beyond me. Oh, the tangled web we weave.] Second, and more troubling aspect of his character, is that by this conversation, he knows Lupin is a werewolf, having encountered it thanks to Sirius. [ oh Sirius you messed up boy, you will get a post of your own soon] he tries to bring Lily's attention to the fact that Lupin is a werewolf, when he was forbidden to speak of it. Now, keep in mind how werewolves are looked upon in the wizarding society, they are basically looked upon as animals who have not been educated, will not be permitted to get jobs, just because of the stigma associated with them. Dumbledore has basically snuck in a werewolf to Hogwarts with certain precautions, and there is a reason why it is a secret. Snape's motivation here is revenge, he is, as Lupin and Sirius say in POA, "sneaking around, trying to get them expelled." I don't see it as that much of a problem that he is trying to get Sirius and James expelled, the animosity between them is something else entirely. But Lupin? Granted,he does not stop Sirius and James from bullying Snape, but does he really deserve to be thrown out of school and shunned by the society, for merely, as Lupin says, a schoolboy grudge? He is, in effect, seen as a sub human, a societal dreg, if you please, what Snape is doing here, not only harbouring prejudices against werewolf, but he would have ruined Lupin's life at that point. Which he does in POA, after Sirius escapes. He "lets a slip" that Lupin is a werewolf at breakfast after his revenge for Lily's death and against Sirius is thwarted. Really, I find it astonishing how often there is lapse of memory to see how vindictive Snape is. He kept his word to Dumbledore in youth,while offering tantalising hints to what Lupin is, but by POA,he lost it. [he sets the kids an essay so that they recognise Lupin's symptoms. Oh god, Snape-.-].
We'll get to the The Prank. Sirius, you mindless, goddamn vicious bastard. He deserved it? What the hell man, you are an adult. You sent Snape on the path to meet a werewolf face to face, and while i do think since James mopped up the mess and nothing happened that adds to your dismissal of the Prank but seriously. You are goddamn mess, Sirius Black. {okay why am I talking as if he is real person-.-]. Here, two points- James wasn't involved in the Prank, Sirius was. He has no reason to run after Snape and pull him back, apart from basic humanity and being a great friend to Sirius and Remus. I don't pat him on the back for not being a bigot but I do pat him on the back for this, he saved Snape in his human form while Remus is transformed. This is what I mean by having balls of freaking steel, fandom can call James an arrogant bullying toerag all they want, but disregarding the fact that he was an extremely brave man is pity. Disregarding the fact he is a great friend is also a pity. Here is where I have a problem with Sirius and james as seen in fandom. Given their background, they accepted Remus when most of the wizarding world shuns them. Forget accept, James maintained, like Harry, the Remus is normal.. and just has a furry little problem. They didn't just spend hours to study being an Animagus. They spent better part of three years to be one. They did that out of loyalty to Lupin, so that it makes his transformations bearable. Of course, the danger and challenge involved in it is also appealing to people like James and Sirius, but that is not their primary motivation. They are, essentially, breaking the law. So yeah, even though what we get from James in canon are from Snape's memories, and lot of it is gleaned from his friends and teacher's impressions of him, this is a verified fact.
Anyway, so lets get back to Snape again. Here I shall point out another aspect of snape I missed while reading prince's Tale. He reacts badly when Lily points out he is being highly ungrateful James saved his life. [ Lol, Lily. I bet the fact that made Snape angrier and more humiliated is the fact James saved his life. That incident will serve to make him hate James more]. Snape says, "Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his own skin and his friend's too! I'm not going to let you-" and Lily responds with, "let me, let me?"
Yeah, he has got control issues as well, coming from the way at his house. He is unconsciously imitating his father. [ hook nosed man shouting at a cowering woman] Lily, of course, doesn't take his shit. Yes, women everywhere, this is exactly how you are saying you want to be loved like after DH2. If this doesn't prove my point. Maybe you should take a look at adult Snape weeping at Grimmauld Place taking the letter that contained Lily's love, and the half of her photo. [grief, delusion, disregard of her choices, and hell, that is not normal or healthy].
After this, lets get to the Snape Worst Memory, people who justify James and Sirius here, should make note that Pensieve is a neutral object. So while it is Snape's memory, James and Sirius are bad as they are shown at that stage. Since we got that out of the way, lets get to Snape, humiliated, using an early version/weaker version of Sectumsempra on James. [ Really, does anyone doubt that Sectumsempra - for enemies note made in the Half Blood Prince textbook is clearly a spell intended to be used on James?], Lily comes in, she defends him, James asks her out, Lily tells him he can stuff it, and she gets her own wand out to defend Snape against these pricks. The moment Snape is released from the spell, and James says it is lucky he has Lily to defend him (i think James meant it as a taunt), Snape says he doesn't need help from "filthy little mudbloods like her". Snape has been humiliated and he is trying to assert the power and control of the situation he has been humiliated in by calling a girl who defended him a racial epithet. By calling his best friend a filthy little mudblood. [ akin to "dirty little Jew", if you want an obvious parallel] No, it is not a "name", man. Even though it was a slip, it is clear the inherent bigotry is there, and he treats his best friend (usually) as a sort of exception to people he generally considers sub-human, inferior. With that word, he is asserting his superiority by worth of his blood. In many ways, he does not respect Lily's choices, given his contempt of people she loves as seen later in his life.
Next to the scene, where Lily tells him the damage is done. It is clear by this scene, that it was a straw that broke the camel's back. Lily is tired of making excuses for him, for his racism, for his trigger happiness to join Voldemort's cause along with rest of the Death Eaters, and most of all, she is tired of making excuses to herself that this was something she could bring him back from. She says that he calls everyone of her birth Mudblood, and she shouldn't be any different. Take her word for it, peeps. He has called other people Mudblood and she still stood by him, it was when it was directed at her, she realised she had to wake up and smell the coffee, so to speak. [can't call Lily Evans a Mary Sue either, because of this :P..]
Next I'll address the case of seventh year Severus, where Lupin and Sirius inform us, "that he never lost the opportunity to curse James, you don't expect james to take that lying down?" does not mean omg!James was still sekretly a bully! It means, at that point, James and Severus's dynamic is filled with mutual antagonism, and it is not the case of bully-victim anymore. Just two boys who hate each other's guts. [This is confirmed by Dumbledore in Philosopher's Stone, "Not unlike Mr. Malfoy and yourself", he said.].Of course the fact Lily starts going out with James factors into this.
So now, next we come to Snape begging Dumbledore to hide the Potters. Dumbledore [what a shrewd calculating old man, you are, Dumbles] points out that surely Snape would have asked him to spare her, life of a woman in exchange for the child. And Snape replies truthfully that he has asked him. Uh Snape, i can understand, to an extent why you wouldn't mind James dead [ a little telling about the fact Snape probably has killed people in his service to the Dark Lord.] but the baby of the woman you claim to love? Do you not know her at all? You won't care about the fact the Voldemort is literally pointing a gun at the head of an infant? Jesus -___-. Dumbledore calls him out on this, and yes, people, it is pretty disgusting. And this is a HUGE turning point for Snape, this is where, while he may not be good, he tries to do so for his own reason..as an act of remorse. [The whole theme of the Deathly Hallows book is remorse. ]
It must be said, that Dumbledore's manipulation to get desired results, it shows his innate understanding of how people work and man, he used Harry and Snape's character to trap them both. I think his skill of understanding people also comes with his heightened self awareness after his sister's death. Now the second part of this is how Snape, comes to his own, becomes a better man for selfish reasons and still displays dichotomy of character. I'll go further on how Snape has evolved with his association with Dumbledore but that deserves an another post. :) [ Which I will write someday]
So give one of the most complex character Rowling created some credit, lets not wash him down or romanticise him into something he was not. He was a genius and delusional, his life is extremely sad, misguided and cannot seem to do it right when it comes to the woman he loves, he is a bully but he is also extremely brave and loyal to a memory. And he earns his redemption.
