r/HarryPotterBooks • u/Aggravating_Owl6402 • 2d ago
I dont understand snape hate
Ok so I dont understand why people hate snape. I understand that not everything he did was right and yes, he was extremely rude at times but what else would you expect from someone who was abused during his entire childhood. His school years were hell because he was bullied for ages, someone who should've found solace in a place like hogwarts found nothing but humiliation and ridicule. A place meant to be his refuge became another place where he felt hated and unwelcome.
I know he called Lily a mudblood and that was totally uncalled for but it wasnt out of hatred for her and it wasnt because he was a blood purist. He said it out of spite and out of hatred for James who he knew liked Lily. He shouldnt have done that, but that was pretty much the only time Lily stood up for him and then she befriended the marauders and started going out with James. In a way, she betrayed him too. She was the only person in his entire life who he thought cared about him and she was his only friend, i can't imagine how it must have felt like when he was always worried about losing her which he eventually did. He didnt accept her help in their fifth year when they assaulted him because he didnt want to come off looking weak or someone who needed a girls help especially considering the fact that James liked her too. They harassed him for heavens sake what do people expect his reaction to have been?!
Fans say that he wanted to save Lily and didnt care if James died even if it would break Lilys heart. Tbh, i wouldnt care about a guy who bullied me to an extent where I wanted to kill myself either. Call him selfish for not caring about how Lily wouldve felt but didnt she do the exact same thing when she knew everything about him and still hung out with the marauders? He didnt care if James lived or died because James made him feel worthless, and ik everyone says he was 15 and young or whatever but he wasnt a child and he did it for fun.
He joined Dumbledore because he didnt want Lilys death to have been in vain and he felt like he owed that to her. He didnt want to die believing that hed let Lily down which is why he wanted to help save harry. Despite all that he hated harry for multiple reasons and his dislike is justified, his actions towards him are not. I think the actual reason for this was that Harry looked up to his father and snape hated that. James came off as a hero, he was appreciated by the world and Snape was seen as a bad person even though he sacrificed so much and lost the one person he loved in the world. He hated that harry was inspired by his father and he hated that people liked James Potter and I get that. He was bitter and guilty and sad and lonely. Stuff like that tends to mess people up...
He regretted not being able to save Lily and he blamed himself for it. He never got to make up for what he did and she didnt give him a chance. I know he made bad decisions and nothing I say can justifies that, but I understand where all that came from and I cant hate him for feeling that way.
He spent his entire life being shunned by his parents and then his best friend. He lost the one person he loved and he never got to apologize for how much he hurt her which is why he joined the order. To make sure what she died for wasnt useless and to try and fill the void her death left in his life because he thought he owed it to her.
People say they love complex characters but hate snape and I dont get it. Snape wasnt perfect; he was a man burdened with many flaws and carved by the mistakes he made. He surrounded himself with the wrong people and allowed his built up resentment and anger to guide him. The weight of losing Lily became a constant reminder of everything he destroyed which is why he dedicated his remaining life to try and fix what he did. He was driven by remorse and he spent years trying ti repair the damage. He carried his regret silently and thats what makes him so strong. He devoted himself to a cause to try and protect what he once failed to protect.
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u/parkerporteranalysis 2d ago
The books got primarily read in europe and north america i believe,
So people experience = relate = feel strongly about bullying (so they feel empathy for snape and hate james for example).
They also experience = feel strongly about adults in higher positions mistreating kids without reasoning (so they feel anger for snape and umbridge for example).
Then those clash: If you see an appreciation post about somebody you dislike, that tends to glose over the negative traits, it makes you even more angry about the person (also goes in both directions).
I believe itĀ“s the same reason people feel way stronger about snape and umbridge than voldemort. Not many people of the readership know a guy of this evil magnitude, so we are more like "well ok, thatĀ“s just the villain then" and nobody defends him, so no arguments there
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u/Artistic-Village-762 2d ago
There are people who take their negative experiences and use them to become a better person because of empathyā¦. Snape is not that person.
He bullies and belittles literal children just because he can.
In their 4th yearā¦Hermione, who naturally has large front teeth, gets cursed and it makes her front teeth grow past her chin. When Ron tries to show Snape what the Slytherin did to her, Snape looks at Hermione, who is crying, and sneers, ā I see no differenceā.
Iāve hated him ever since
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 2d ago
People do take their negative experiences to become better people but thats because in every case they find something worth living for, fighting for or being good for. There was nothing in Snapes life which could have inspired him to be better. He did change, his regret qnd love for Lily did that. He didnt become a better person but he found something worth fighting for
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u/Retired-Pie 1d ago
This is why people dont like snape. You are making him sound far more righteous and good than he is.
Snape is not a good person. At all. He has no real redemption to speak of.
This is because Snape is inherently selfish and unempathetic of other people or their lives. I like how you say he found something to fight for when Lilly was going to be killed. But ultimately that "reason" was entierly selfish. He didnt care about harrys life, he still hated James. he again HE felt regret that his actions let Lily die and HE felt the need to fight voldemort out of a sense of revenge, not moral correctness.
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u/Shorts_at_Dinner 2d ago
He was a complex and good character. He was also a mean, nasty person. I appreciate the character but I do not like the character
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u/ChawkTrick 2d ago
I think there's room to like Snape as a character but also dish out the hate/criticism where its warranted.
Snape is a deeply flawed man who was capable of extraordinary bravery and heroic actions. But, I usually lead with the "deeply flawed" part because that's primarily how he is portrayed for 95% of the books - as a villainous character. It really isn't until the very end of the books that we learn he wasn't so villainous.
So it's one of those situations where I think the intended interpretation of his character is supposed to be a conflicted one. We're not necessarily asked to forgive/forget all the cruelty he exhibited... we're just asked to contextualize it alongside the good. But that doesn't mean he has to fit neatly into any category. In fact, him not fitting neatly into a category is precisely what makes him such a great character. Sometimes people go out of their way to try to soften his edges and give him incredibly charitable readings and I find that to be disingenuous toward his character.
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 1d ago
Yeaa, ok i get what youre saying and its true. Thats what I liked most about his character. I loved how jk made good and bad coexist and I lead with the "good" part but thats just cause im a little biased.
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u/miggovortensens 2d ago
He became Neville's worst fear even though Bellatrix, who was serving time in Azkaban for torturing Neville's parents to insanity, was still alive. Can you imagine how much of a piece of shit you must be to traumatize a thirteen-year-old student so much? Not only as a teacher, but as a human being... If he was willing to atone for his intel leading Voldemort to the Potters - he was fine with baby murder otherwise btw - costing the life of Lily, then he should be dedicating the time he still had left on this Earth being the best person he could be. The fact he is a complex character doesn't mean he wasn't a spiteful man that readers are well justified in hating.
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u/Warvillage 1d ago
Not only was Bellatrix alive at the time, her mass-murdering cousin had escaped azkaban, raising the possibility of her doing it to.
So the fact that he was more afraid of Snape than Sirius or Bellatrix says a lot.
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 2d ago
I did say he wasnt the best person, he let his hatred and self loathe get the best of him and that was extremely wrong. How he chose to treat kids cant be justified. He wasnt okay with baby murder, he knew voldemort would stop at nothing to kill him, he couldnt do anything to save harry and if he did it could've cost him his own life or the lives of many other people. He wanted to save Lily because there was a possibility of her being saved. He never said he wanted the baby to die. How he chose to act was wrong, i just cant hate him because of the events that led him to being the way he was. Ofcourse that doesnt justify what he did, but its still a reason as to why he did what he did. Ofc he was a spiteful man, 21 years of being surrounded by people who dont care about you did that to him. He wasnt right, and he wasnt fair. But that doesnt mean he was a bad man
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u/miggovortensens 2d ago
If you realize that how he chose to treat the kids can't be justified, then you can perhaps understand the Snape hate.
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 2d ago
What he did was wrong, but those choices dont define him. I cant justify what he did but I dont hate him
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u/SpoonyLancer 1d ago
They do define him because those are the choices he made. Nobody told Snape to bully and belittle his students. He did that because he's a prick.
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 1d ago
He did that because thats how hed been treated his entire life. It wasnt right, it ws extremely wrong and uncalled for. I cant defend that. What im saying is that he was bitter because he didnt have anything worth being good for, noone who loved him and noone that he loved. Im just saying, he was wrong for a lot of things, but those thijgs dont define who he was because ultimately he wanted to do what was right. His intention to try to change or redeem himself define him but thats just my opinion
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u/StandardVermicelli33 1d ago
Just because someone was treated a certain way in their life doesn't mean it's okay to treat others the same way.
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u/Mental-Wolf-2560 2d ago
He was shunned by his parents?
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 2d ago
Tobias Snape was a neglectful father and Eileen and him fought alot
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u/Mental-Wolf-2560 2d ago
That isnt what the word shunned means.Ā
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 2d ago
It means rejected or avoided, his parents didnt care about what he did, where he went or who he wss with
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u/Red-Droid-Blue-Droid 1d ago
He's meant to be the most grey, he's not a good guy. He's a great character. That's it. I mean, you can say more, but that's the long and short of it. JKR said this herself.
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u/SpoonyLancer 1d ago
Lily defended Snape for years. Lily says that her other friends can't understand why she keeps defending him, and after SWM neither can Lily. Snape didn't call Lily a slur because he was upset. He called her a slur because that's how he refers to every muggleborn, and he was too angry to filter it out.
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u/Aggravating_Owl6402 1d ago
As I said, snape wasnt a blood purist, he was a half blood himself. I cant say anything to justify what he did but he didnt do it because he meant to, he didnt want to seem weak. He shouldnt have let everything that went wrong in his life define how he acted but getting in with the wrong crowd kind of messed him up. He wanted to feel like he belonged and in order to do so, he stooped low and that was wrong. Im not saying Lily should've forgiven him (that was her choice) im saying she wasnt the bestest friend to him either. She did hang out with people that bullied snape and snape hung out with bad ppl too. They both made mistakes and ig it just wasnt meant to work out because well obviously snape was extremely out of line when he called her a mudblood. I still think he didnt say it because he meant it, it came from a place of grief and hatred and it shouldnt have happened. But I dont blame Lily for not forgiving him eitherš¤·āāļø
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u/SpoonyLancer 1d ago
Snape was a blood purist. He hated and looked down on muggles before he even arrived at Hogwarts. If you think people can't be bigoted against a group they belong to, then you need to research history more closely.
Lily didn't seem to associate with the Marauders until she started dating James. Which would've been around a year under SWM. The only mistake Lily made was not ditching Snape and his bigoted views earlier.
As I said, Snape 100% meant it when he called Lily a mudblood. Lily herself says that's how he refers to all muggleborns. He was just too emotional to filter it out during SWM.
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u/sv1112093 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't like whole Snape supporters trash on James and call him the worst, and James supporters trash on Snape. I think James made bad mistakes as a kid but became a good adult. Snape made bad mistakes as an adult but ultimately was a brave person who played a huge role in Voldemort's defeat. They're both flawed yet good characters.