Snape And Lupin Are Kind Of Anti Parallels, In That While Snape Takes A Long Time In Developing His Conscience,

Snape and Lupin are kind of anti parallels, in that while Snape takes a long time in developing his conscience, if he feels that something is the right thing to do he’ll do it, no matter the cost to himself, his reputation, or even his soul. This is something that Snape had even when he was young. Lupin is different in that he has one of the most developed conscience in the series, even as a teen. But his main flaw is that he often fails to act on it, especially if he feels that his reputation will be harmed.

Both of their character arcs are about coming to find what the other already has. Severus always listened to his conscience, he just had to develop it more. Remus always had a good conscience, he had to learn to listen to it. Snape never quite gets a conscience as developed as Remus, and Remus never reaches the level of commitment that Snape does in doing the right thing. But both do develop heavily along these lines, to the point that at the end of the series both are much better people than they were as teenagers.

“Revenge”

The whole “Snape only wanted revenge” argument is so strange. Not only does it ignore crucial pieces of info from canon (like the fact that Snape defected before the attack on the Potters, or that being successful in his role meant that Voldemort would likely never even know Snape was working to bring him down), but it also relies on reading Snape as aggressive and on the offensive. Which is… strange. I mean, just look at the magic associated with him. There is a reason that Snape’s magic is primarily defensive (e.g. expelliarmus, occlumency, countering dark curses, antidotes), not offensive.

What do you think of the neo-nazi description for Snape? (To be honest I'm so tired of people ascribing values of real life events to a fictional text. There are simply not enough parallels to label someone a Nazi or terrorist, whatever Rowling may have intended.)

I agree with you; it makes me uneasy because I think the writing in Potter about this specific issue is not deft and nuanced enough for it to be analysed and critiqued rigorously.  Nazism, and similar right wing facist offshoots are very dangerous concepts and ideologies, and I think that using the term constantly can reduce its currency and impact.

This is why Godwin’s Law was important as a concept - as Godwin himself said, he was attempting to force people to scrutinise why they instantly leapt to comparing the person they were arguing with to Hitler.  Such a statement shouldn’t be an unthinking process - and the more you do it, the more ridiculous it sounds, and there’s an argument that in doing so, you inadvertently reduce the real life horrors that were endured during that time period; Hitler and Nazism almost becomes a joke, which is unconscionable and utterly disrespectful when you consider the incredible loss of life on both sides of the war.

I also fear that we also lose sight of genocide as a problem - that too many in the West are happy to think of genocide solely in terms of the Holocaust and WWII, without thinking of other countries, other conflicts and wars.  There appears to be an assumption that it no longer happens, and won’t ever happen again, which is naive at best and ignorant at worst.

In fairness, I do appreciate that JK had these broad ideas in mind when she was writing the series, but just because that’s what the writer had in mind, it doesn’t mean that we have to critique using the same lens.  It bothers me when I see the rise of far right politicians, and I think that we’re so used to hearing accusations about Nazis that people won’t take it seriously when they need to…  The boy who cried wolf, and all that.

snape is such a fun character to make headcanons for because i feel like there’s so many ways you can go with it. like, i’ve seen a lot of people say that snape doesn’t take care of himself, like not eating well or washing his hair (lol), and i think that definitely makes sense considering his martyrdom/guilt complex and being raised in poverty. but i’ve also seen people imagining that snape is like really good at cooking and baking, which makes sense with him being a potions master but also kind of conflicts with the other point of view. i think the happy medium is that snape knows how to cook and bake but wouldn’t take the time to do them for himself, only for other people. however there’s a secret fourth option that i want to know people’s opinions on

i like the idea that snape actually does take care of himself, but he’s just kind of bad at it. like i think he tries to make his hair look decent, but it just gets greasy really fast and he tends not to notice until it’s already in pretty bad shape. and i also kind of like the idea of snape not only cooking and baking for others, but also for himself – not out of any real love or care for himself, but as a way of chasing success and distancing himself from his childhood and from poverty. like i can just picture him at the malfoys trying some fancy hors d’oeuvres and being like, oh, so this is how the other half lives. i want to get good at this. and there’s something wonderfully ironic (and let’s be real, kind of pathetic) about the idea of snape carefully preparing a charcuterie board of expensive delicacies to eat by himself in the dungeons or the drafty old sitting room in spinner’s end.

in this case, his hair and his eating habits are really symptoms of the same problem – he’s trying to run away from his past, but he just keeps failing. he tries to fit in with the upper class and the purebloods, to the point he acts like them even when he’s alone, but there’s always something that betrays him as an outsider, whether it’s his body, his loneliness, or the fact that he still lives in his childhood home. no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries to escape himself and his memories, he just can’t succeed.

…almost like how even when he’s trying to be a good person, he still has to kill someone he cares about to be one. he’ll never be free of his past, he’ll never be firmly on one side or the other. he’s just kind of doomed.

basically the takeaway here is that any headcanon can be true if you frame it the right way. also we should read way too much into everything forever. ok byeee

“Of course, it became apparent to me very quickly that he had no extraordinary talent at all. He has fought his way out of a number of tight corners by a simple combination of sheer luck and more talented friends. He is mediocre to the last degree, though as obnoxious and self-satisfied as was his father before him.

he’s sneak-complimenting hermione

Snape kills Dumbledore knowing that it will result in his own death

In a previous post, I argued that Snape’s killing of Dumbledore reflected Snape’s growing faith in his own moral judgment, and that Snape not losing his way and continuing to protect as many possible in a hostile environment displayed true, hard-earned moral resolve.

Here I would like to take a moment to appreciate the magnitude of that decision, given that the hostile environment of which I spoke is increased exponentially because of his choice.

In HBP, Dumbledore says the following about Voldemort:

“Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Voldemort is no different! Always he was on the lookout for the one who would challenge him.”

If Voldemort was wary of challenges in the first war, he is even more so in the second war, as he extends that paranoia to his inner circle. His own followers are among those he oppresses, especially after they’ve let him down so spectacularly during the 13 years he was trapped in his intolerable bodiless state. He subjects them to threats and torture and constant legilimency. He dispenses with masks and singles out his followers by name, forcing his followers to take accountability, and pressuring them to fall in line, deride one another, and compete for his ever-elusive approval and the wholly nonexistent material benefits of his favor.

All that to say, with a tyrant like Voldemort, one needs to be careful of doing too little OR doing too much for him. Up until now, Snape has only had to worry about falling into the first category. But now, by killing “the only one [Voldemort] ever feared”, Snape and Dumbledore understand that Snape would be painting an unavoidable target on his back.

Dumbledore does not bother trying to convince Snape that killing him would help his standing with Voldemort. Besides the fact that his other arguments appealing to Snape’s protective nature are much more persuasive, it would simply be incorrect to assume that murdering Dumbledore would cause Voldemort to “trust [Snape] completely” (I hate you movies sm for this line change), and they both know it. In the books, we see Portrait Dumbledore actually outright contradict this line of reasoning by warning Snape, even after he has been killed by the man, to take precautions as he carries out tasks for the Order, as he’s “counting on [Snape] to remain in Lord Voldemort’s good books as long as possible”. Snape and Dumbledore know that there is no such thing as Voldemort’s “complete trust”; they seem fully aware that Snape will have to continually prove himself to Voldemort to remain alive, and even that is only for “as long as possible”. Whether it’s because of his threat to Voldemort’s position or his treachery being discovered by magnified scrutiny, after he kills Dumbledore, he’s on borrowed time.

And yet Snape accepts the charge anyway. His concerns for himself do not center around his life, but his soul, and his desire to protect other lives and souls and his respect for Dumbledore weigh out over the increased difficulty of his path that, at this point, he knows ends in death.

(Dumbledore, of course, ensures this by secretly saddling Snape with the Elder Wand. Given Snape has agreed to commit an act that he knows places him in a race against the clock to complete as much as possible before his time is up, Dumbledore might have let him fully own the decision to possess the Elder wand… but Dumbledore’s tendency to bundle risk onto his most precariously positioned men and his tendency to undercut Order members’ agency with needless secrecy is a infuriating well-established pattern. But more on that in another post…)