Severus Snape

I really like that he's in the Harry Potter series. I love how he looks and acts like a stereotypical villain but he's actually on the good side! I don't agree with everything he does, but I really like him as a character and reading about him on fansites is what got me into Harry Potter in the first place (and I didn't want to read the series if he turned out to be evil all along).

Oddly enough for a Snape fan, I like him in the books more than the movies, because the books make him more seem Obviously Evil (since him being ugly is played up there) and the fact that the movies have him looking older (although Alan Rickman otherwise does a good job) makes me have to correct people who think that Snape was once Voldemort's teacher!

I also find his Base Breaker status to be amusing, with the way he inspires such love and hate from various Potter fans, so much that my nickname for him is the "Prince of Controversial Characters."

edited 26th Nov '10 8:43:31 AM by Rainbow

He's a really interesting character, but I'd never want to meet him in person.

His name is an ear worm.

I really really really like Alan Rickman's voice.

"I AM SNAPE, THE POTIONS MASTER."

I've done that Potter Puppet Pals skit in French. I was Snape. His French name is Severus Rogue, which lacks some panache.

Great Ronnie, now I can't unhear the similarity to Squidward's voice -_-;

^ Like, literally "Severus Rogue"? That doesn't sound good at all!

Ripred from The Underland Chronicles really reminds me of him.

I think he deserves to burn in hell.

"The Prince's Tale" was the best chapter in book 7. I cried SO HARD the first time I read it. I still cry when I read it sometimes. They better not fuck that up in the last movie.

^^well he isn't a nice guy but could you explain please? That's rather extreme.

I thought he was the best character until book 7 made him a creepy stalker.

^^well he isn't a nice guy but could you explain please? That's rather extreme.

How about he is a teacher with the enough maturity to redirect his rage in to psicologically torment 3/4 of his students? The books claims that he is "the bravest guy" that harry knew, but too me he is just a pathetic bitter man who couldn't move on from a heartbreak.

The more I think about it, the more I think about the painter from Psychonauts. I thought he was well fleshed out. It was clear that when it came to Harry, because he looks like James and Lilly, he just flat out wasn't rational. Given the fact that in the first book, he chose a logic problem as his defense against theft, I'd say he was aware of that, and that it probably made him even crazier.

The books claims that he is "the bravest guy" that harry knew, but too me he is just a pathetic bitter man who couldn't move on from a heartbreak.

This. It's easy to face death when you have very little to live for in the first place, and it's easier by far to spend your days obsessing over someone you could never have than moving on and risking that same heartbreak happening all over again.

That being said, that he deserves to "burn in Hell" is silly, and he's still my favorite character in the series. He's more sad than evil.

I am not fond of abusive teachers

edited 30th Nov '10 4:00:32 AM by Bluelantern2814

Bad experience?

I admit it was hard to read his character when I first read the Potter series when I was 12, it was too hard for me in general to read about Snape and the Dursleys and I didn't like it at first (I had only read the first book). Then I later ended up reading some things about Snape on fansites, and I got curious about his character. Then after Deathly Hallows came out, I finally read through the series and ended up liking it. So I owe it to Snape for making me like the Harry Potter series in the first place.

Snape was indeed obsessive - he loved Lily to the point of choosing her above all others. However, looking from Snape's point of view, James and Sirius gave him 6 years of hell. 7 if you count cursing Snape when Lily wasn't around/looking.

There are cases IN REAL LIFE where the victims of such bullying have ended up in much worse cases- some have pulled out of school, some have committed suicide, there are others that have gone nuts and carried out shootings/massacres. I would not begrudge Snape the way he turned out after all he's been through. Very bitter maybe, but he still managed to carry on even though he hated everything/almost everyone else involved in it.

In a school of Magic, the situation would possibly be the same as in real life if not for one thing: Magic, and the fact that children are handed deadly weapons at the tender age of 11. Would you forgive that easily a person, or rather, a group of people who tortured (probably worse than bullying in schools these days) you constantly for 7 years just because of "the fact that he exists"?

Furthermore, if that wasn't enough, James "stole" Lily from Snape. James, his biggest rival, his archenemy (I would say to a greater extent than Draco/Harry) took away his best friend and his first love. True, it was his fault because he believed that he could reconcile being a DE with loving a woman of Muggleborn descent, but can you imagine the bitterness that would bring about? To see Lily's eyes, her most distinguishing feature (so rare in the magical world) return in the face of the person who made his life hell? He's got no reason to like Harry. Every time he looks at Harry, I would think he would be reminded of the enemy that ruined his life, stole his love and had a child with her. And he would be looking him in the face every single day for 7 years.

Like him or not, he's certainly an interesting character. I like how he's a Double Reverse Quadruple Agent.

Obligatory.

He is an absolutely fascinating character, but he had no business being a teacher. His blatant favoritism, bullying, and mistreatment of students should've gotten him moved to a no-children-ever position a long time ago.

Yeah, his students learned a lot, but was it necessary to have them tormented and abused the whole damn time? *has a seething hatred of abusive teachers*

Being played by Alan Rickman makes it all okay.

EDIT: Haven't read the first four novels since before Sorcerer's Stone was released in theaters, so I can't remember much of his literary depiction.

edited 29th Jan '13 5:47:42 PM by RLNice

His literary depiction was an antisocial, emotionally abusive asshole who preferred to berate and publicly humiliate students in lieu of bothering to explain things (with the exception of the House he ran, who mysteriously won every event he oversaw), and his grudge match with a dead guy completely precluded any semblance of civility when interacting with said dead guy's progeny and everyone in said progeny's House. Really he did like five things in the whole series that weren't needlessly obstructive, and most of them were in the last book.

So basically, even worse than in the movies, minus Alan Rickman.

edited 30th Jan '13 4:39:36 PM by Pykrete

I think what annoys me about Snape far more than the actual character is the fangirls who insist he's just a poor tortured martyred soul and Lily is an evil bitch for not shacking up with a guy who supported those advocating murdering her and everyone like her.

Yeah, character's fascinating, but he's not a good guy and painting him as such is a disservice to all the work JK did in making him complicated.

Severus Snape is Holden Caulfield. They're both flawed and broken characters who are interesting because they're flawed and broken, but half the fans just smile and look over the flaws for no apparent reason.