Why must JKR torture us so?

[eggplant107]

No: HPFGUIDX 141007

PJ wrote:

>Everything I've ever read of Snape,
> both in the books and the
> interviews the author gives, 
> show him to be a bad guy through and
> through. So, if JKR *says* he's bad 
> and *writes* him as bad,> where does
> the idea of "good Snape" come from? 

That is an excellent question, I just wish I had an excellent answer,
but the fact is I just don't understand why some people still think
Snape is good, or had ever thought so for that matter.

horridporrid03" Wrote:

> Throughout PS/SS he seems so obviously
> bad: trying to kill Harry, cheating at
> quidditch, threatening poor Professor
> Quirrell, forcing students to write 
> essays, etc. But then the ending comes
> and changes
everything. Snape wasn't trying to kill Harry

Until HBP came out it seemed that Snape saving Harry's life in book 1
was entirely out of character, it was the only good thing Snape did in
6 books. But I think we understand now because we've found out
something new, Snape is one of the very few people on the planet who
knows that Harry was the only one who had a chance of killing
Voldemort. Wanting Voldemort dead does not automatically make you one
of the good guys because you may just want to replace him.

> Snape wasn't trying to cheat a
> Quidditch win for Slytherin 

I respectfully disagree, it seems very clear to me that as a referee
Snape was cheating at Quidditch big time.

> JKR is being clever in putting Snape 
> in the victim role in this particular
> scene. She deliberately provokes 
> sympathy for the dark guy 

That's true, even I a confirmed Snape hater had some sympathy for the
man when I first read the bulling scene in OOTP, but my sympathy
evaporated completely at the end of OOTP after the death of Serious; 
Harry is in a near suicidal depression and Snape CONTINUES to bully
the poor boy. In the next book when Snape murdered Dumbledore my
sympathy did not increase. 

Eggplant