I can never understand how Snape apologetics can stand up for him when he CANONICALLY does this shit.
I can maybe, maybe, understand those who haven’t read the books standing up for him, because honestly the movies don’t cover all the horrible stuff he does. But those who have read the books and still stick up for him baffle me.
I mean, you don’t see anyone sticking up for the Dursley’s or Umbridge, when they do the same stuff to Harry as Snape. How is Snape any different?
I was extremely disappointed when it was revealed that Snape was actually “a good guy”. The Snape of DH didn’t match the Snape from the beginning of the story in a rather ridiculous way. I remember being one of the only one of my friends that was hoping that Snape would in fact be evil in DH. DH ended up being such a disappointment and I really felt so detached from what had started off as such an incredibly strong story.
From the beginning, Neville is hugely intimidated by Snape. Snape bullies him relentlessly, insulting him in front of his peers and even other teachers. As a result, Neville is a completely incompetent Potions brewer. It’s stated outright that Snape made Neville’s performance significantly worse.
To be fair, Neville isn’t particularly talented in any of his
other classes either. But I genuinely think Potions could have been one of Neville’s best subjects.
Think about how much Herbology and Potions have in common.
Both subjects:
involve methodical work
don’t require actual wandwork
must be done in a specific order, where doing it wrong will lead
to safety issues and disaster (extracting something from a dangerous
plant vs. brewing a potion)
require a high comfort level with gross/weird substances
are highly tactile
involve plants/plant-based ingredients
So a good Potions teacher would have looked at Neville and said, “if
you can be good at Herbology, then you can be good at Potions. You
already know that Valerian root is used as a sleep aid, now we’re going
to use it in a dreamless sleep potion.”
But that didn’t happen.
So I really really really hope that at some point in his adult life, Neville realized that Potions might not be so awful after all.
Dumbledore is a complex and interesting character and I appreciate that the Wise Old Mentor is actually very flawed, but this does mean I sometimes think about the shit he pulled and just get FURIOUS, like of course this asshole thought leaving Harry alone with the Dursleys to maintain the blood ward was the right call, we saw him being perfectly willing to leave every single Hogwarts student from first through fifth year, and those willing to take NEWTs, alone with Severus “I regularly make children cry” Snape for over a decade.
And why? Dumbledore could’ve just testified to keep Snape out of Azkaban after the first VoldieWar and then cut him loose to make his own way as a (very skilled) potioneer, if it was just for his spy service the first time around. But no. He kept him close. He wanted a reliable spy on hand because he was sure Tom Riddle wasn’t really dead, and he was willing to sacrifice the education and mental/emotional wellbeing of uncounted children for it. Look how Snape treated Neville, and Hermione, and how few students made it to the NEWT levels.
What fucking greater good did that serve, Dumbledore? What hypothetical future were you saving by giving that bully authority over children and leaving hundreds of them alone with him? Fuck you.
I still can’t get over the fact that Snape was considered more of a hero then Regulus Black who basically died at the age of 18 to bring down Voldemort single handedly and it actually makes me cry that Reggie is forgotten by a lot of people. Regulus Black didn’t die for you guys to label Snape as the Slytherin hero.
someone added these tags to my post and i figured while we’re at it how about a friendly reminder that snape gave the man that killed the woman he claimed to love the information that convinced him to target her in the first place while he was working for said man of his own accord, and that he admittedly did not care if the woman’s husband and infant son were murdered.
and how about another friendly reminder that this person he was working for completely voluntarily at the time was actively trying to commit genocide against people with the same parentage as the woman he claimed to love.
he’s a complicated character and you can make of him what you will but let’s keep these things in perspective, buddy.
“Arthur Regulus Potter, you were named after your mother’s father, who took me into his family when he didn’t need to and treated me like one of his own, and after an actual hero who wasn’t an abusive asshole fuck Snape ehhhhh lmao” *high fives Ginny*
Cheloneuniverse 