![severus-snape-my-eternal-prince:
“ Where do the potion ingredients come from by JoaRosa
From the artist:
[…] Where do the potion ingredients come from? Well, I think one can’t just buy all of them in the Diagon Alley (especially those for bottling...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2f517bbe9ff6f23158aa86c6ec7cc5a4/tumblr_ntas503poV1rn3wi6o1_1280.jpg)
Where do the potion ingredients come from by JoaRosa
From the artist:
[…] Where do the potion ingredients come from? Well, I think one can’t just buy all of them in the Diagon Alley (especially those for bottling fame or brewing glory). The Potions Master has to get them somewhere else […].
Incredibly beautiful!!!
This piece of art is really pretty!
I don’t think enough people give Maggie Smith enough credit as an actress. If I picked my top favorite actress from the series it would be her every time. Her acting skills are amazing & I admire her for the way she bravely battled breast cancer during filming of Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince. She is an example of a true Gryffindor & I don’t need a sorting hat to tell me that.
just look at them, just look how much they enjoy making Lockhart life miserable af
This scene was great. Absolutely great. So much sass.
draco malfoy was a rich, attractive, pureblood blood supremacist boy who never missed an opportunity to bully harry (making fun of him for being an orphan, losing his godfather, being scared of dementors, etc), make fun of ron and his family for being poor, insulting neville, and constantly calling hermione a ‘mudblood’. he does not have a redemption arc, and is never seen being sorry for any of the horrible things he has done in his life. people excuse his racism because it’s ‘how he was raised’ and talk about how he did the things he did out of outside pressure. he lets death eaters into a school full of children to kill someone. bill is mauled with an injury that affects him for life; dumbledore is murdered. but apparently being unable to murder someone in cold blood counts as ‘redemption’. the only evidence that he changes at all is jk’s handwavy ‘he’s a better person when he’s older’ stuff. there is nothing in canon. he’s a favourite among fans, and people talk about him like he’s a wonderful person who should be praised and let off with everything he’s done. it’s perfect acceptable to have him as a favourite, and to ship him with anyone (even hermione, the main victim of his racist bullying).
james potter was a rich, attractive, pureblood boy who never missed an opportunity to bully snape (making fun of him for being ugly, a slytherin, unclean (most definitely a product of his neglect), etc) .he bullies him because ‘he exists, if you know what i mean.’ and because lily and snape are friends, and lily won’t go out with him. he walks around ‘hexing anyone who annoys [him] just because [he] can.’ and constantly harasses lily. -asking her out, threatening to hurt her, trying to emotionally blackmail her into dating him, etc. he gets away with bullying for years, bases his relationship with lily on a lie (that he’s stopped bullying), and yet people idolise the ground he walks on. they think he’s funny, good looking, charming. that he’d be a feminist. there are countless people who blog cute headcanons about him and his friends without once talking about his bullying. or worse, they claim it didn’t happen. or, even worse, they go full victim-blaming and say snape had it coming. that an eleven year old boy deserved to have his school years made hell because he ‘exists’ and is friends with a girl. the fact that he was a good friend and fought for the light means everything bad he did doesn’t matter. it’s perfectly acceptable to have him as a favourite, and jily is praised as a perfect ship.
severus snape is a poor, ugly, halfblood boy, who was canonically abused/neglected by a muggle as a child. he has one person in his life who is kind to him. all adults treat him terribly - either condoning his abuse, treating him like he deserves it, or acting like he should thank his abusers. after being neglected/abused his whole life, he goes off to hogwarts (a place that he should finally be able to be himself and feel safe and like he belongs) and within moments of even stepping foot onto the train he’s singled out by sirius and james and a victim. they then spend the next seven years bullying this boy ‘relentlessly’. snape faces huge pressure from outside sources to join the death eaters, but he holds off for years. he’s unable to exist as an island with only one friend, and is forced to spend time with his housemates. he gradually is immersed further into their company, till his morals and self of self are blurred. while being borderline sexually assaulted, he lashes out and calls lily a ‘mudblood’. he’s vilified for this forever. he doesn’t complain about it, or try to threaten her. he doesn’t act the victim and make excuses. he doesn’t say ‘what is it with her?’ like james when lily doesn’t want anything to do with him. he’s genuinely apologetic, and when she asks him to leave her alone, he does. forever. without anyone who cares about him, he loses his reservations and joins the death eaters. he has an unintentional role in lily’s death, and he feels so guilty that he dedicates his life to protecting her son, because he knows how much he means to her, and wants to do right by her. when she dies, his grief and guilt is manipulated by dumbledore to convince him of this. but, since he’s physically unable to just, idk, make himself stop loving lily (which everyone can do, ofc), he’s entirely seen as a creep, unfeminist, a misogynist. never mind that he never once complains about lily not choosing him. never mind that he refers to her as ‘lily potter’ because he recognises that she chose to marry james, and won’t take that away from her (like a misogynist would). he calls neville names, and treats harry unfairly, and occasionally insults hermione. his experiences have shaped him into an unpleasant, bitter, rather cruel person. he’s also one of the few teachers that consistently protects the children in his care, and never intentionally puts them in danger (unlike mcgonagall and hagrid). he puts up with harry and co being shits to him (anyone remember that time they set him on fire) they steal from him, disrespect him, and harry p much constantly assumes he’s the big bad of each book and treats him accordingly. (it’s pretty much everyone saying ‘seriously, harry, it’s not snape.’ with harry replying ‘it’s fucking snape, i know it.’) snape complains to dumbledore, and treats harry worse in retaliation (their relationship is just one big example of escalation). snape is forced (by that person) to kill the only person he trusts (and who doesn’t think he’s evil and irredeemable), he’s forced to go through torture, face the person who murdered the only person who cared about him, forced to lie to everyone he knows, and is never allowed to talk about the things he’s been through because it would break his cover. he’s probably the richest, most complex character in the series, and people ignore his canon experiences and actions and write posts with tens of thousands of notes praising draco and james, and simplifying snape to a ‘friendzoned child abuser blood supremacist who wanted to bang lily evans’. anyone seen talking about snape in a positive light, or god forbid liking him as a character, is immediately attacked. they’re told they ‘condone chid bullying’. they’re treated like shit, because they like the character. nevermind that most people who like snape do so because they identify with him (the person who identifies with him the most, is, funnily enough, harry –but people don’t want to think about that). the exact same things that you use to excuse your faves, you use to demonize snape. People will say ‘I know it doesn’t excuse his actions, but I really think people need to take snape’s childhood and the kind of pressures he would’ve faced with his life and being a half-blood in slytherin at the time.’ and they’ll be accused of making excuses for him. even though that’s the thing that gets most people to forgive draco. there’s no ‘he was 15! everyone’s an idiot when they’re 15!’ boys will be boys BS for snape, just james.
Look. If you’re a james or draco fan that likes them but doesn’t deny/ignore the bad things they’ve done, because despite the bad you can still see the good and can relate to them, then brilliant. I respect you. keep on keeping on. that’s how we feel. this isn’t aimed at you, and sorry I’m being callous about your faves. this is entirely aimed at those people who will idolise draco and james and completely ignore the fact that draco during his Hogwarts years is completely pro blood purity and that james relentlessly bullies a vulnerable, disadvantaged boy for seven years with no punishment. I’m very tired of snape being held to this ridiculous standard and being demonized for things that other characters easily get away with. you want to say that snape being unfair in regards to points with harry and frequently calling him arrogant in class ‘because he hates his father’ makes him an irredeemable child abuser? okay. where are the hundreds of 50k notes posts discussing the time that hagrid’s pissed with Vernon so he decides to physically disfigure his 11 year old son? Dudley is terrified to the point of hysterics at the idea of magic for years because of that. he needs surgery. because hagrid lost his temper and decided to physically hurt the man he was mad at’s son to deal with it. we aren’t going to talk about hagrid making fun of a young child’s weight? really? what about the countless other times teachers have mocked the kids? McGonagall insults neville’s intelligence in front of a large number of the school and his peers twice. she locks him out of Gryffindor when there’s a mass murderer on the loose because he made a genuine mistake. he could very easily have died. where are the posts calling her a vile child abuser? she’s hermione’s boggart. if you claim context isn’t relevant to neville’s boggart, then it isn’t to hermione’s. it’s mcgonagall, and that’s all that apparently matters. I am sick of this.
your opinion on a fictional character does not define you as a person. If you acknowledge that the characters have faults and don’t ignore the bad things they have done, then go ahead and like them all you want. you should not try to force people to have the same opinions on fictional people as you do. stop it.
Thank you!!
I have been seeing confessions saying how Snape is not a good person, or how hateful he is. Although I don’t deny that he has certainly been the antagonist for many parts of the book (I remember seriously disliking him when I read the first few books), it is rather sad that some out there continue to believe how Snape should never have been forgiven, or how he is less of a ‘good’ person than, for example, James Potter. And so, after many days of thinking about it (and free periods to think about it), here’s a short analysis of why perhaps, we should appreciate the complexity of this character more rather than continuing to hate him.
One must realise that circumstances surrounding Snape had been very different from that of James Potter and even Harry Potter—in fact, it could be said that he is the most unfortunate out of the three. In Snape’s memories (Deathly Hallows), we were shown how Snape came from an abusive household, and how much he had hoped to go to Hogwarts where he would learn magic and, it seems, be accepted as a normal person there and be treated equally. We also learnt that before he entered Hogwarts, he made his first and only true friend—Lily Evans, who also became the love of his life.
Yet, Snape quickly learns that Hogwarts is not all that he had dreamt to be. His first taste of it was during his journey on the Hogwarts express, where he expressed his desire to be in Slytherin and was scorned by James Potter and Sirius Black. Luckily for him, Lily stood up for him, and the matter was laid to rest. However, as he continued his studies in Hogwarts, he saw how James Potter and his merry gang of Gryffindors (apart from Lupin, though he did not stop the bullying), was constantly ganging up against him and not serving any punishments he felt they deserved. He saw how James Potter got more famous and liked by many teachers as Snape suffered through his bullying and despite how Snape felt Potter had less talent than himself. It would not be far fetched to suggest that Snape was perhaps also alienated by others due to him being a Slytherin and his love for the dark arts (I think he knew deep down that those ‘friends’ he had who later became death eaters were not good in any way, but they were the only few who were willing to be with him then), and this combination of alienation and unjustice felt in Hogwarts, along with the final straw of losing Lily forever to James Potter, provoked him to take on the Dark Mark. By then, he couldn’t forgive James Potter, who had everything he did not have.
James Potter VS Snape
As I have hinted in my second paragraph, James Potter’s circumstances were very different. James Potter grew up in a well loved household and was also well liked in Hogwarts. His bullying of Snape was constantly cheered on by his fellow Marauders and no one took any action to stop it (apart from Lily). In short, his time in school was glorified. And therein made all the difference: school for Snape was not fully a place of respite, but a place where he was still bullied—his time all the way till 17 was not a good one (if he ever had a good year, that is; only the times he shared with Lily were his best), and Lily had left him due to his mistakes in his later years in Hogwarts—stopped defending him and became close to his bully. James could thus have understood what a terrible bully he used to be and changed his ways to become a better person, but Snape was bitter for all the injustice he had received which had been etched into his mind (as they say, childhood bullying has a most profound impact on individuals) and could thus never have forgiven James Potter. James Potter had been labelled a bully in his mind, and he most probably had a bad impression on the Gryffindors in part due to the Golden Boy James Potter was in his house.
Rather unfortunately, his time back in Hogwarts, seeing all the Gryffindors again and the child of James Potter and Lily Evans, a constant reminder of his mistakes and of how Lily left him for his bully, did nothing to improve his already messed up situation and he took to bullying the students and blatantly showing favouritism towards his own house, something he had experienced from others during his time at Hogwarts, perhaps knowingly doing something his teachers used to do which he hated them for.
Harry Potter VS Snape
Harry Potter’s situation is very different from Snape’s: Harry may have grown up in an abusive household, but he was loved and appreciated, even revered in Hogwarts. Despite the blatant bullying from Snape, he had his best friends who stuck to him always and teachers and even the Headmaster who was on his side. He never took to bullying others because he had always felt loved from so many people, and Snape was never that lucky—his head of house then probably cared not much for him as an individual.
Harry was also never tempted to join the Dark side for two reasons: he was already loved by people in the Light, and Voldemort had killed Harry’s mother, thereby sealing him from ever becoming a Dark wizard. On the other hand, Voldemort had never done anything bad to Snape when he joined; but most importantly, when Snape learnt that Voldemort had killed Lily, he was willing to help the Light (driven by guilt and his love for Lily), although he knew that he would never be appreciated or loved for all that he had done—in the end, his change in sides was motivated by love. In the end, his crucial role in the Wizarding War redeemed him. Also, Voldemort had given him the appreciation he so thirst for when others did not, when others only saw how good James Potter was. This did not mean that he was all for blood purity for all that—he was only asking for something which he was never shown as a child: appreciation (which Snape may have confused with love when he was younger). His taking of the Dark Mark meant that he was serving the Dark Lord, and he could not see a way out of leaving Voldemort’s service whilst not being less appreciated or loved than James Potter (or even unloved, for he was already branded with a Mark he could never take away). The only person he felt ever loved him as an individual was dead.
Overall, circumstances were different between all three, and these circumstances made all the difference to the character of all three. Whilst I do not deny that Snape is a horrible teacher as he bullied and showed favouritism to students, his situation is much too complex to define him as being an evil bat because of this. In a way, I feel most sorry for Snape (which I’m sure he would hate me for) for he never felt much love in his life and was constantly undertaking dangerous tasks during the war. He is indeed a most complex character in the Harry Potter series, and I thank JK Rowling for creating him.
(I might do a more in depth analysis in the future if I have time)
