Favorite Snape Scenes - He's such a lovely professor, no really.

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 122543


Magda wrote:
<snip> 
> Snape's a horrible guy - EVERYONE agrees with this.  I really don't
> know why this is controversial for some people.  You can be a
> HORRIBLE person and still think that murdering people is a Bad Thing.
> Morality is not the same as niceness.
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Not everyone agrees with the fact that Snape is a horrible guy. 
> Otherwise our Snape bashing and  Snape defending sessions would have 
> died out  pretty fast. :o)
> 
> And even if I forget my doubts whether Snape now really thinks that 
> murdering people is a bad thing, I would still think that those who 
> abuse children for their pleasure are not "moral" people.

Carol responds:
Yes, I'm one of those people who doesn't think that Snape is
"horrible"--just strict, sarcastic, and occasionally unfair.
Definitely not "nice," but until and unless he betrays Harry, DD, or
the Order, I will never concede that he's evil. He is very often
*protecting* Harry. It would not be in his best interests, to say the
least, if Harry were killed. His goals are to get Harry to obey the
rules, stay out of danger, follow directions, and show respect.
Contrast the motives of the teachers we know to be evil, notably
Umbridge (impose an MOM agenda on Hogwarts at all costs) and
Crouch!Moody(kill Harry).

But what I'm interested in here is not defending Snape for the
thousandth time but the idea that a person must be *nice* in order to
be *good*. Harry, our hero, whom we all agree is good, is very often
not nice, especially in OoP. He's rude and even cruel to Ron and
Hermione, his best friends. He's definitely not nice to Seamus when
Seamus wants to know what happened to Cedric. And he certainly doesn't
turn the other cheek to Dudley; he bullies him in return. I can go
quote hunting if you like to show mean!Harry. On those occasions, has
he become temporarily evil? Umbridge and Crouch!Moody are both "nicer"
than Snape. Does that make them good? Or are meanness and evil two
different things?

Carol