Snape's canon opposite/ Proving loyalty (Re: Hearing from the Great Middle)

[vmonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 140173

Jen: Or canon interpreted differently?
If JKR wants readers to view Snape as pure evil, she has shot
herself in the foot by introducing his opposite into canon. A nice
person, a non-greasy, well-mannered boy who is trusted by students
and teachers (oh, except for Dumbledore), a *responsible* student
who doesn't appear to be mucking around in the dark arts. So when a
deeply horrible, not-nice, unliked boy who is 'up to his eyeballs in
dark arts' appears AND he's trusted *only* by Dumbledore, well,
forgive me if I have to wonder about him.

HBP was a study in the evolution of evil in Potterverse. Tom Riddle
was a Very Nice Boy. He was polite, studious, well-mannered,
affable. Behind his facade, he was working to unleash a monster into
the school, murdering his family in cold blood, preparing a diary to
suck the life out of a future student, studying how to form
Horcruxes using his split soul, and wooing people using
his 'considerable charm' to get whatever he wanted.

When JKR tells me Snape is a deeply horrible person, abuses his
power, is culpable in a way Voldemort is not, isn't 'too nice',
well, I get it: He's a Very Mean Person. He was not even capable of
*acting* nice like Voldemort, instead, he waved it around like a
flag of honor--'look, Deeply Horrible Person over here.'

All I'm saying is JKR has done a considerable job of shaping Snape
into a person who has very few redeeming qualities in his
*personality*. If indeed she is striving to tell us through text and
interviews that Snape is evil, well yes, I'm guilty of missing
her 'anvil size clues' on this one.

...I love the idea of the DADA curse at work for the UV, but also
wonder about the timeline. Like you said, Dumbledore wasn't certain
he could convince Slughorn to teach potions at the time of the UV.
Snape mentioned to Bella he never got to teach the DADA position, so
either he didn't know yet or he lied (big surprise). Still, it's a
very useful example of the DADA curse at work if JKR intends to give
us more about that.

vmonte:
Well there are all sorts of evil people in the world with different 
personalities and looks. Evil people use whatever gifts they have to 
get what they want. They will use their looks, intellect, and 
connections, whatever. To tell you the truth I think that Snape would 
make a more interesting villain that Voldemort. And yes, I also think 
that he is OFH, since he seems to have contempt for just about 
everybody. 

It's curious how people are always ready to make excuses for Snape. 
Now it's the DADA position that made him go bad? He had no choice? 

I guess in the end it all comes down to how JKR personally feels with 
regards to people like Snape. I despise this kind of person myself. 
In fact I dislike this kind of person so much that I would be tempted 
to redeem Tom, the person that never had anyone who loved him, before 
I would redeem Snape, who did. But I would still kill them both 
off.  :)

Vivian