What's wrong with Mean!Snape ?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 115280


Dzeytoun:

 >Mean, asocial people can have many functions in a novel.  
Among their most satisfying is to either be redeemed or get 
 their just deserts or both.  I think most people who read HP are 
hoping one or the other or both happens with Snape.  After all, 
we  read HP to be entertained, and those would be outcomes 
that a large  number of people would find entertaining.  If nothing 
else, because  mean people in real life are rarely redeemed, 
and don't often get a> satisfying dramatic comeuppence, we look 
forward to seeing those  things in literature.  <

Some of us might find it  entertaining to see Snape accepted for 
what he is. Perhaps he doesn't deserve it, but tolerance seems 
to be the theme here, not retribution. 

There's a useful analogy with Buckbeak. Like Snape, Buckbeak 
makes no allowances for childhood and will savagely attack 
anyone who offends him, regardless of the seriousness of the 
offense. Not only that, to treat him courteously  violates a 
common notion of propriety; he's a brute beast and surely 
humans should not bow to beasts. But those who are willing to 
accede to the demands of Buckbeak's nature will gain a useful 
and powerful companion, while those who refuse are likely 
to get their arms ripped half off.

Readers understand that because Buckbeak  couldn't behave 
otherwise without becoming something other than a hippogriff, 
punishment  would be useless and unjust.

Pippin