Editorials

The Problem with Snape

Author: Maryh

JKR's view of Snape appears to be significantly different than that of many of her readers.

To her, he is a supporting character, on the order of Remus Lupin or Neville Longbottom. In the end, Snape is no more essential to the defeat of Voldemort than Neville.

His role in the series is to:
1. Be the "mean" teacher.
2. Be the general purpose red herring.
3. Show us that James Potter wasn't perfect.

How could someone who was as mean to Harry as Snape was ever be admired by any significant portion of her readers?

Prisoner of Azkaban
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In the werewolf incident, we're not supposed to believe Snape actually had good reason to suspect Sirius was out to murder him. Snape was over-reacting. How could anyone ever think Sirius would intentionally set out to murder a fellow student? Sure, he's a bit rash, but so is Harry. Snape is clearly making way too big a deal of this.

And most of us probably agree that Sirius was reckless, not homicidal. And of course, Dumbledore did have to hush the whole thing up so that Remus could stay at Hogwarts.

Sirius' attitude was "it was a joke that went wrong but nobody got hurt so what's the big deal?" And I think JKR expected most of us to go along with that.

She didn't expect some of us to agree with Snape that Sirius got off way too light. She never thought that Sirius' actions required any further justification or remorse.

Goblet of Fire
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I doubt JKR ever pictured Snape's revelation of his Dark Mark to Fudge as a heroic moment. In the movie, it is actually omitted.

JKR's point was not that Snape was brave enough to risk his standing in the Wizarding world to reveal himself to Fudge, so that the Ministry would get on with fighting Voldemort. I honestly believe that her only point was to end the speculation and reveal that Snape really WAS a Death Eater.

At this point, we're supposed to see him as an unpleasant, Dark Arts obsessed Slytherin who was actually a follower of Lord Voldemort and must actually have done REALLY BAD THINGS. Probably murder. And torture. At the very least, brewing potions that were used to kill people.

When Dumbledore asks him, at the end of Goblet, if he is prepared, we're supposed to worry that Dumbledore is trusting Snape too much. Not imagine him possibly going off to a martyr's death.

Order of the Phoenix
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We were supposed to see Harry's reaction to seeing James bully Snape in the pensieve as an over-reaction; not as perfectly appropriate or maybe even too little. The Marauders are like Fred and George, a generation earlier. And of course, we're not supposed to see Fred and George as bullies at all. The students they bully are either nameless, take it in good fun (like Neville) or deserve it (like Percy and Umbridge).

In the same way, the Marauders may have gone a bit overboard in the "pants" incident, but after all, Snape deserved it. Hadn't JKR just established in the previous book that the Marauders were right in considering him a Death Eater wannabe? That he actually did become a Death Eater and do REALLY BAD THINGS?

Lily wasn't just sticking up for a victim of unprovoked bullying, like any decent person with enough guts would do. She was showing how truly good and brave she was by standing up for a future Death Eater.

I think this is what we were supposed to take from that scene:
1. James sometimes got carried away and did things he shouldn't do. He wasn't perfect.
2. Lily was a brave Gryffindor who stood up for people whether they deserved it or not.
3. Snape obviously hated Lily because he called her a mudblood.
4. Harry is being really mature and sensitive because he understands better than his father did at that age that you shouldn't bully even mean people.

JKR doesn't seem to understand what Fred and George and the Marauders look like to their targets.

She thought we would see an unpleasant teenager who studied evil magic and hung around with future Death Eaters. She actually expected us to be *surprised* that Lily could even like, let alone be friends with, such a person.

We weren't supposed to see a smart kid tormented by bullies for being interested in stuff the bullies didn't approve of. She didn't expect that we might actually think the bullying could have been at least partially to blame for him joining the Death Eaters.

Our reaction to Remus Lupin surprised her too. We were supposed to see him as the somewhat bookish Marauder who was so nice, and wanted to be liked so badly, that he actually felt bad about the bullying the Marauders did. We were supposed to see that as an *over-reaction*, underlining how *nice* he was.

I doubt very much that we were supposed to see Remus' attitude as nothing more than the absolutely correct and mature attitude to have towards what they did during their school days. We weren't supposed to think that Remus was actually *right* -- just a bit too soft-hearted.

We weren't supposed to hold Sirius accountable. We weren't supposed to believe that he owed Snape an apology and should show the kind of remorse Lupin did, only more so. She didn't expect that quite a few of us would have to make excuses for Sirius, based on his family life and years of Azkaban, so that we could still like him.

Half-Blood Prince
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Even here, we are not expected to think Snape ever justified in his treatment of Harry. Even though Harry almost kills Draco, we're supposed to think Snape is being excessive and mean for making Harry miss Quidditch for the rest of the school year.

Snape's comment about Harry's use of Sectumsempra, asking where Harry learned such "dark magic", was never meant to be a parallel between Harry's use of Dark Magic and Snape's. It was supposed to reinforce that Snape really was *that* bad when he was still a student. Not just when he became a Death Eater.

I think that by the time she wrote the part where Snape killed Dumbledore on the top of the tower, JKR realized that some people would come up with the theory that Snape did it because Dumbledore told him to. But I don't think she understood why, except as a sign that some fans were, for some reason, crazy about Snape.

Deathly Hallows
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And so, it was no surprise to a large set of fans that Snape and Lily were friends. Nor was it very surprising to find that Snape was in love with Lily. Nor, for another set of fans, that it was his love for Lily that led Snape to turn his back on the Death Eaters and change his life. (My personal theory was that he had already been working for Dumbledore, even when he joined the Death Eaters originally.)

But it was a big surprise that, in the end, none of Snape's efforts were any more instrumental to bringing down Voldemort than, for example, Neville Longbottom's.

Given that Snape was just not all that important and that, in fact, he never did stop being mean to Harry, it is a measure of Harry's maturity and generosity that he gives one of his sons the second name of Severus. He didn't name any of his children for Neville, after all, and Neville actually destroyed one of Voldie's horcruxes.

In the end, we saw that Snape wasn't "ever so evil," that he had loved, that he had left the Death Eaters and that Harry came to admire his bravery.

And that's supposed to be enough.

JKR's view of Snape is significantly different from that of many of her readers.

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