The dude can teach others to brew glory and fame and stopper death. He's never once, in any of the books, talked about wanting those things for himself. In fact, our only information about what Snape wants is brought to us via other characters who are somewhat unreliable. Snape himself has never given up anything in the way of information. If all he wanted was fame and glory, then he'd have brewed a truckload of all of and moved to Hollywood. Again, what would he be preserving himself for? To live another day so he can annoy Harry Potter. To become the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?
And Snape wouldn't be the first character who acted in a manner that goes against the house he was sorted into. the truly horrible Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor, lest we not forget.
Snape isn't a classic villain in the way Voldemort is. Classic villains always have a goal in mind. They want something. Voldemort wants eternal life and power and Harry is an impediment to that. One would think that Snape wants Harry dead, but he's spent the last six books saving him from that fate -- which is good for Dumbledore, good for Voldemort, but what does it do for Snape. We already have a character in the book who's out for himself ... Peter Pettigrew, who Snape also hates. What would be the point of a character with the same goal?
Are you kidding me? We're talking wizards and betrayal and murder and you bring up Jane Austen? No offense, but Jane Austen has little to do with Snape and his evildoings.
First, let's explore Snape's motivation. He has accomplished much without the help of Voldemort and the support of Dumbledore. He has achieved great prestige and respect as a Hogwarts professor. But there are two things he has yet to achieve: power and immortality.
He is motivated by both. He makes no secret that he wants to be the Defesne Against the Dark Arts professor, a position of greater power than potions professor, and one that is believed to be cursed. Either Snape has the arrogance to believe he can brek the curse or he believes becoming the Defese Against the Dark Arts professor will lead to greater respect and prestige among the wizard world.
But his ultimate motivation is self-preseveration. As a member of the House of Slytherin, this is an inherent characteristic. All Slytherins fear death. Snape is no different. He will do anything, including murder, to secure his own existence. He has no loyalties, save unto himself, and fears death more than Voldemort or Dumbledore.
Snape is still evil. And I am beginning to think so is Jane Austen.
This has been the central question and mystery of the Harry Potter series and for this alone, it will be Snape whose character lives on in literary history as one of the most complex ever written. Here's the bottom line: Voldemort's gonna buy the farm. There's no mystery there. We just don't know how Harry will accomplish his classic Hero's Journey toward offing the bad guy, so the mystery, the climactic "gasp-worthy" moment, must come from another character in the form of either a betrayal or a redemption. Some believe that has already happened when Snape killed Dumbledore. I don't agree.
Snape has has no motive for continuing to be a servant of Voldemort. What would Snape get out of being Voldie's minion now with his all enemies dead? Power? Hardly. He's a master potion maker who is quoted as saying that he can can "teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death." What does he need Voldemort for? The babes? A cozy cottage in the Cotswolds and time to write his novel?
I think Snape is much like the Fitzwilliam Darcy character in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." Darcy is socially stunted and not very charming. And you don't really know if he's an upstanding guy because every encounter with the protagonist, Elizabeth, is a bad one. Since the book is written from the point of view of Elizabeth Bennett, we don't know what's really happening with Darcy or what kind of man he is until she knows it. However, we're repeatedly told that he's a great chap -- just misunderstood. This estimation always comes from other characters in the story who know him far better than Elizabeth. Elizabeth refuses to believe it because she's stubborn and chooses to believe lies, rather than the truth that was right under her nose. We can't disregard this literary device of "you can't judge a book by it's cover." It's a classic structure, and Jane Austen is one of Rowling's favorite authors, so ... you do the math.
It's the same here with Snape and Harry. Except for a few choice scenes, the entire book is written from Harry's point of view. Harry has no idea what Snape is really up to. The only people who know for sure are Snape and people close to Snape: in this case, Dumbledore, whose high estimation of his potions professor is repeatedly voiced by him in every single book.
Snape is a character whose off-the-page time is his real storyline -- good or evil. I'm not suggesting that he's actually a happy-go-lucky fellow who's playing the role of a cranky old coot. No, he's really a jerk. But there's something mysterious going on with him and has been since the very beginning of the series. and since the very beginning, Snape's off-page time has been more essential than any other characters', frankly, because has been a spy and may still be one. Snape is the only character in the all of the books who has actually been identified as a someone who spied in the past and spied in "real time" during the course of the books. And that's important to note. Spy stuff is supposed to go on under the radar until it's time to come forward (or be outed by, but that's a post for a Keith Olberman blog!!) The central conceit of a spy is that he or she acts in secret to achieve a goal. His off-the-page time is integral to the real-time plot even if we don't know it's happening. In other words, not all is what it seems when you're dealing with a SPY!!
Now, for Tim Haddock's cry of murder. First, I'm not condoning murder. And if Snape did murder Dumbledore, he should be strung up by his toes or be forced to spend 45 days with Paris Hilton. But if I may indulge in a bit of CSI Hogwarts-style criminal detective work, the circumstances surrounding the Headmaster's death are a little dodgy, not the least of which is how he reacted to the killing curse that night on the Astronomy Tower. First rule of Potter club? If Rowling repeats a fact, she means for you to remember it because it's important. His death was very different than the way its effect has been painstakingly described more than once in the books.
When you're hit by the Avada Kedavra curse, it is described, a person just keels over. No flourish, no acrobatic maneuvers, no drama. Dumbledore, on the other hand, did a dismount off the Astronomy tower that would have made Kerri Strug jealous. Then there was the exchange made between he and Snape right before the dastardly deed was done. Was Dumbledore pleading with Snape not to kill him or was Dumbledore pleading with Snape to settle up details of a previous agreement that may or may not have included killing Dumbledore as some sort of sacrifice? I think we have to set the issue of morality aside until a final book answers those questions.
Snape has always been a bad guy. He has treated Harry horribly from the beginning. It stems from a hatred of Harry's father James and godfather Sirius Black. They were all classmates at Hogwarts. Snape was mercilessly picked on by James and Sirius, among others, while they were in school. Now Harry is feeling the brunt of Snape's vengeance.
Snape begins to reveal the depth of his evilness in The Order of the Phoenix.
Sure Snape has done some mean things to Harry in the first four movies and books. Snape has taken away points from Harry's house, accused him of stealing potions and given him cruel detentions. But none of that compares to what he does to Harry in The Order of the Phoenix.
But it's what Snape does in the Half-Blood Prince that makes him a truly evil character.
He kills Professor Dumbledore.
For those of you who only watch the movies, sorry. Big spoiler there. But for the rest of us who are two books ahead of the movies, this is Snape's most evil deed.
There is no way to justify murder. Snape commits the greatest betrayal, the most vile thing one person can do to another: take his life.
For this reason and this reason alone, Snape is an evil character. He is a death eater, will always be a death eater and Dumbledore was a fool to trust him as long as he did.
It's not the only foolish thing Dumbledore has done throughout the books, but that's another discussion.
Suffice it to say Snape revealed his true self in the Half-Blood Prince: a cowardly, vengeful wizard looking to save his own skin rather than sacrificing it for the good of others.
He is the one character who deserves to die in the Deathly Hallows. Although I have a feeling his fate lies along another path.
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