In Defense of Snape (VERY long)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 122240


Alla wrote:
> 
> First and foremost I keep asking this question all the time and I 
> did not get the satisfactory answer yet.
> 
> So, maybe you can help me out :o) 
> Since when in order to be a good human being, you don't have to 
> be "nice" human being?
> 
> I hear this argument all the time. Snape is a good man, but he is 
> not a nice man. You know, in my book " not nice" quite often 
> equals "bad" in a worst sense of this word.
>

Hi, Alla. Here's my answer, which I know in advance you won't agree
with. First, nice doesn't equal good. Look at Crouch!Moody and
Lockhart, who were both a great deal nicer to Harry than Snape but
neither of whom was good. Rita Skeeter at times also tries to seem
like Harry's friend, but we know she isn't. Or how about Umbridge
nicely offering Harry tea or coffee in her office? And the opposite is
also true--McGonagall is not always nice--witness the way she
humiliates Neville when he loses his list of passwords--but only a few
people have argued that she's evil.

Snape, we all agree, is not a nice man, though he can be civil when he
chooses. And he has been a DE, at which time he certainly could not
have been good. But he has (unless DD is wrong) changed sides. He is
now not only serving but risking his life for the side of good. He is
a member of the Order, doing everything in his power to stop evil in
the form of Lord Voldemort. And compared with other characters in the
story, notably Voldemort, Bellatrix and her fellow Death Eaters, and
Umbridge, the "evil" he still does is very small potatoes. He does not
Imperio his students or turn them into bouncing ferrets like
Crouch!Moody; he does not make them write lines in their own blood or
attempt to Crucio them like Umbridge.

There are purely evil characters in this series; there are mostly good
but fallible characters (DD, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Lupin, McGonagall,
et al.), and there are "gray" characters with both evil and good
traits, notably Severus Snape and Sirius Black. I'm not sure that I
would call Snape a good man, but he has virtues--loyalty and
courage--that should be weighed along with his sarcasm and unfairness
in judging his character, and I will bet you a year's supply of
butterbeer that there *is* a redemptive pattern to Snape and that
JKR's surprise was not because the interviewer was wrong but because
he had anticipated Snape's redemption in Harry's eyes in Book 7.

Carol