This Snape hater accepts Snape is good-ish

[oiboyz]

No: HPFGUIDX 138038

> lealess:
> From the little we see in the DADA class, Snape is actually teaching 
> the students a valuable skill, not indulging in a sadistic desire to 
> belittle them, nor falling uncontrollably under the spell of the Dark 
> Arts.  He is teaching defense, after all.

You touch on a point I'm not sure has been discussed much: the sad
lack of Snape-teaching-DADA scenes in HBP.  We waited six books for
this and all we get is one class on non-verbal spells?  The omission
is especially glaring when you think of the interesting scenes that
*could* have been written.  Snape teaching Harry a subject he's
actually good at for a change...

   I think JKR has said she enjoys writing Snape, and she must have
been perfectly aware of the possibilities latent in Snape being the
DADA professor, so I can't help but suspect that she had specific
reasons for deliberately *not* showing us much of Snape teaching. 
Maybe she wanted to keep us guessing at his motives, and if she showed
his classes we'd be able to tell whether he was on the good or bad
side by seeing how much effort he put into preparing the kids to fight
the Dark Arts.

   Or else we didn't get many DADA scenes because there wasn't room
for them.  Snape showed up in lots of other ways in the this book--
the Spinner's End chapter, fetching Harry on the first day of school,
his interactions with Draco, Slughorn's party, Trelawny's mention of
him, Dumbledore's mentions of him, and of course the HBP textbook.  So
perhaps JKR cut down on the actual teaching scenes just because Snape
had enough page time already.  I can't help but regret it, though.

   -oiboyz