Chapter Text
Final Conclusion
Snape wasn’t meant to be a teacher, his role was first and foremost to be a spy. He needed extensive psychotherapy, especially when it became apparent that he was regressing whenever Harry was near, but there was no semblance of mental health awareness in HP. He shouldn’t have started to teach at 21 years-old, let alone in the same school where he got intensely bullied while his teachers did nothing… but he had to. It brought out the worst in him.
Snape at his worst sets himself apart as one of the best teachers of Hogwarts and a notably good teacher on his own. He didn’t need Death Eaters right inside the castle to start doing his job as a protector, he was doing it years before that. Despite Harry’s biased and unfavourable point of view, despite a background that could have brought him to perform the absolute worst, Snape proves to be a teacher with great accomplishments and whose shortcomings rarely reach the level of his colleagues.
If raging against most of the Hogwarts staff, posting about how horrible they are, seems ridiculous to you [screenshots], then why is it accepted when it’s about Snape? Why is he the exception among the fans?
Well, he’s popular. Extremely popular–ranking first many times as a favourite character, so discussing HP more often than not gravitates towards him. He's in many ways good, but he's also not very nice (at least, not where the main narrator can see, and when Snape's nicer side is brought to our attention, it's often directed at characters that we'd despise, like the Malfoys). He proves to be particularly hateful and petty against the protagonist. In turn, because the reader tends to identify with the protagonist, Harry plays a major role in urging us to hate Snape back, brushing off his merits, while tolerating or even loving the other teachers as long as they feel nice to him.
Snape is a teacher that we easily relate to, because he feels real and his actions are within our norms and expectations (it is no wonder that some fans just cannot stand him, if he reminds them of bad experiences with teachers). Except that Snape is not set in a normal school; he is the exception among adult characters whose actions are so absurd, so insane, that they get forgotten, brushed off or easily forgiven. Everyone can remember a time where their teacher was a strict and unfair dickhead. Hardly anyone can remember a time where their teacher almost got them killed as a punishment, or because their teacher was a coward who put their own reputation over the welfare of their students. On the other hand, I doubt any of you can claim that their teacher was a spy who saved their life and even the whole school.
Raging against Snape for using a toad as a test subject for potions is as relevant as raging against McGonagall for essentially making her students kill kittens in Transfiguration class and perform horrific mutations on animals. Raging against Snape for being Neville’s Boggart when it supposedly must have been his parents’ torturer is as relevant as raging against Lupin for making his students confront their worst fears and traumas in class, forcing them to reveal potentially horrible secrets like the fact a girl’s uncle is a paedophile. And it goes on and on.
Considering all this , does Snape as a character deserve to be so widely infamous for his performance as a teacher? Is it fair to stamp down on his status as a hero and a realistic example of redemption? To always bring up his flaws as a professor if he’s even mentioned?
No. It isn’t.
You can say all you want about how Snape reminds you of abusers among the teaching staff – and your feelings are valid! But it is absurd and supremely hypocritical to claim that Snape is not a HP hero for being a mean professor in a fantasy school where teachers regularly abuse their students without it being seen as a character flaw and when most of those instances of child abuse are in fact provided for comic-relief . Snape is no exception on that last point. Believe me or not, but many of Professor Snape’s interventions are actually hilarious, either because he comes off as…
- witty: [HBP Ron Harry example]
- immature: [movie: Snape and Harry looking at each other when it’s revealed Harry did not steal the ingredients]
- or because the overall scene is funny:
- [he was not having hallucinations]
- [no parts of your body are allowed in Hogsmeade]
- [“thank you Severus”]
- [movie: Snape wacking Ron’s head with a book]
- [movie: shoving Harry and Ron’s heads in GoF]
- [movie: locks himself in the potions cupboard just to slam the door at Harry’s face]
Snape has proven that he deeply cares about his students, whether or not he hates them; that is the beauty of this character, and that is what the books have chosen to celebrate.
It is evident that, for the narrative, Snape's major flaw as a teacher has less to do with his performance and more because he doesn't like Harry, the protagonist, a boy who doesn't think bad of a teacher who assaults children and nearly gets them killed as long as he believes the teacher's intentions are good towards himself.
That is why, when Harry finally understands his professor's true motives and intentions, when he finally knows where Snape comes from and where his heart lies, the books make a point of honouring Snape as a hero and as Hogwarts' bravest Headmaster: Harry and Ginny name their son Albus Severus, Neville unknowingly avenges Snape's death, and Rowling once wrote that he became Albus Severus' godfather ( source 1 ; source 2 ; source 3 ), stressing on the idea that Neville respected or even forgave his ex-Potions teacher.
Clearly, Snape was not meant to be considered evil or unredeemable, and the elements are there to prove it, both from the narrative and from a more objective point of view . In-book "Snape apologists" like Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid, Arthur, Molly, Hermione and especially Harry would be the first to argue otherwise.
We could discuss Snape as a teacher to the death, but hopefully by now, we've made our point.
Useful links:
- Snape is not a child abuser and he’s possibly the best teacher at Hogwarts (Pet): https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/g7699f/snape_is_not_a_child_abuser_and_hes_possibly_the/
- But Snape is just nasty, right? (Whitehound): http://members.madasafish.com/~cj_whitehound/Fanfic/good_or_bad_Snape.htm
- What Snape didn’t do as a teacher (Knight)
- The abandoned boy and his problematic fathers (Ashes): https://www.tumblr.com/ashesandhackles/647003597686636544/the-abandoned-boy-and-his-problematic-fathers
- Harry identified and reluctantly admired Snape even before the Prince’s Tale (Adreamermusing): https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/l2sbpt/harry_identified_and_reluctantly_admired_snape/
- Snape is grey (DDD, Raptured-Night and Idealistic Realism):
https://raptured-night.tumblr.com/post/616866567867727872/snapedom-ff-louloulouloulouloulouloulou
- Thoughts on Hagrid (Muffin): https://at.tumblr.com/thecarnivorousmuffinmeta/do-you-have-any-thoughts-on-hagrid/acoh4dec3y8c
- Snape and the Order’s intervention at the end of OotP: https://sideprince.tumblr.com/post/720837942881419264/do-you-think-snape-had-anything-to-do-with-the-why
- John Nettleship and the roots of Severus Snape: http://www.whitehound.co.uk/Fanfic/A_true_original.htm