The Snivellus Fan Club

[cyberghostface]

You probably won't get this unless you've read the fifth Harry Potter book. Warning for depiction of bullying.

English translation: "Who wants to see Snivellus without underwear?"



Source: FabiolaCapa at DeviantArt

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

I never quite understood "Snape joined the Death-Eaters because Lily friend-zoned him." Has J.K. Rowling ever explained that?

IIRC, after seeing this, Harry once worried about how "bad" his father might be. Like, "What if James used a love spell on Lily" bad. Harry was remarkably paranoid about certain things in the books that they didn't carry over to the movies.

[cyberghostface]

According to Rowling:

Well, that is Snape’s tragedy. Given his time over again he would not have become a Death Eater, but like many insecure, vulnerable people (like Wormtail) he craved membership of something big and powerful, something impressive.

He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily’s aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/7/30/j-k-rowling-web-chat-transcript/

[md84]

Gotta wonder what Snape was thinking: "Here's a group of dark magic users who consider people like my crush Lily to be sub-human garbage! Joining up with them is SURE to impress her!"

[janegray]

It's insane troll logic, and yet it's actually very common IRL.

For example, in Nazi Germany, there were Nazi officers who supported Hitler while simultaneously caring for specific Jewish individuals; their reasoning apparently was something along the lines of "Jew are horrible vile scum, except for this one Jew guy I love, he is special!" Or, as a less Godwin-y example, people who think homosexuality is an abomination and that the USA should never have allowed gay marriage, yet they attended the marriage of their beloved gay son.

If Snape could dissociate Lily from the muggles, then he may have assumed she could do the same*. And if you do that, "I am an important member of this powerful organization in charge of our society!" does sound pretty impressive.

*and to be fair, plenty of people DO turn against their own demographic and best interests. See: gay and/or destitute people who vote for the GOP. Or those girls who go all "I'm not stupid and shallow like other girls, I'm cool like the boys!"

[norj]

Growing up in a household where his muggle father physically abused him and his witch mother because of their magic may have something to do it.

[janegray]

Yeah, there is this misunderstanding in Fandom that Snape joined the DE because Lily rejected him. This is usually used as argument that Snape was basically a Nice Guy^TM MRA and bash him as a misogynist.

In reality he joined them because of his own issues. We see that Snape resents muggles even as a very young child, and when Lily rejects him she cites the fact that he has been going out with known pureblood extremists as the reason she can't trust that calling her a slur was just a one-time mistake. While he did hope that becoming a DE would impress Lily, he was mostly pushed by a mix of resentment and inferiority complex because his abusive father trated magic and those who had it as abominations.

[selke]

Snape. <3

[janegray]

I always adored Snape, from the first time I read the first book.

He is an asshole, bitter and cynical and spiteful as hell, who can never let go of a grudge to the point that he took his self-hatred and frustration out on vulnerable children. Despite his sincere love for Lily, he never truly understood her as a person, to the point that he casually handwaved the death of the son she died to protect while crying his eyes out for her.

He is also a brilliant and extremely competent professional, strong-willed and charismatic and so bloody determined he makes the Terminator look like a wet paper bag. The mission requires you to spend years working as a mole right next to the guy with two passions: torturing people to death and mind-reading? Sure thing! All it takes is a superhumanly perfect self-control while under constant ton-heavy pressure for years with the full understanding that the tiniest slip means a slow and painful death. No biggie.

Snape is the ultimate "bullied victim who becomes the bully" example. The way his mind works is incredibly fascinating. He is capable of moments of disgusting pettiness and moments of awesome selflessness. He fucked up entirely because of his own hateful choices, and he didn't hesitate a moment to sacrifice everything he was and had and loved (his life, his reputation, his friendships, his accomplishments, his rewards, his status, his physical and mental health) to try and lessen the damage. He had more issues than Detective Comics and an inferiority complex the size of Jupiter, he lashed out at innocent people as a way to lessen his own pain and he never let go of his venom, yet he took full responsibility for his mistakes and spent the rest of his life volunteering to subject himself to terrible hardships for the greater good, and ultimately his sacrifices were instrumental to saving the world.

This is why it pisses me off when people go "LOL you only like Snape because Alan Rickman is hot!" No, fuck you, I didn't even watch the movies until I was halfway through the series.

[md84]

He's really only likable as a fictional character, of course. As you said, he's a miserable jerk who would be almost impossible to tolerate in real life. He's fascinating, but he's not a good man.

[janegray]

He is definitely not somebody I'd want to be friends with IRL, for sure.

However, I'd say he is not a nice man, but he is a good one. He volunteered to bear numerous painful hardships for the rest of his life and risk a slow and painful death for the sake of defeating Voldemort. "Being a hero" and "being an asshole" are not mutually exclusive.

[md84]

There's no excusing the way he treated his students, especially poor Neville. Rowling herself said that Snape can't be considered a saint or a sinner. Yeah, he died to save the world, but he was still a bullying teacher who wrongfully projected his hatred for James on Harry and was pretty awful to other students (granted not to the same extreme as Umbridge or the Carrows). I think that being abusive towards students disqualifies someone from being considered 'good'. It's not AS evil as typical Death Eater antics, but that doesn't make it NOT evil.

Here's a couple of Rowling's twitter posts on the matter:

"Snape is all grey. You can't make him a saint: he was vindictive & bullying. You can't make him a devil: he died to save the wizarding world"

"Snape didn't die for 'ideals'. He died in an attempt to expiate his own guilt. He could have broken cover at any time to save himself but he chose not to tell Voldemort that the latter was making a fatal error in targeting Harry. Snape's silence ensured Harry's victory."

"Snape was a bully who loved the goodness he sensed in Lily without being able to emulate her. That was his tragedy."

[janegray]

"Good" is not even remotely in the same category as "saint." So I believe the fact that he most certainly wasn't a saint doesn't disqualify him from being good, as I believe that the bad things he did are ultimately outweighed (though not excused) by the good things he did.

[md84]

I suppose it would be easier to accept that if he had ever expressed a little remorse even once for all of the bad things he's done, or at least acknowledged that what he did was wrong.

He wasn't a straight up evil man. He was even heroic and brave. But he can't be considered a good man, even at the end. Note that he never once felt remorse or regret for the way he treated his students, like Harry and Neville. He was a spiteful bitter bully even to the very end...who also sacrificed himself to ensure Harry's victory and stop Voldemort.

I guess in the end he wasn't really good or bad -- he was a very flawed human being who couldn't really be called either. I'd still put him leaning a bit towards the bad side on account of the bullying students thing -- that's just wrong, no matter how you look at it.

[janegray]

We could just agree we disagree :)

[md84]

I agree.