Reasons for reactions to Snape (was: Reactions to Snape's death)

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 175775

I asked Alla for her reasons for hating Snape, and
Alla said:
[snip]
> But absolutely I wanted Snape to change towards Harry first and
> foremost and Neville. Comes book 2, book 3 – nothing and Snape's
> cruelty only keeps escalating. I still hope and when I read GoF, oh
> man, I so hoped the handshake will go somewhere and in the next book
> Snape finally sees Harry for who he is.
> Well, I saw nothing to the effect, I saw Snape's unchanging hatred 
to
> the innocent kid, whom he probably helped made an orphan ( Snape's
> being an eavesdropper was one of the few predictions I got right,
> hehe)
> I still thought he is loyal to DD in OOP – well for the most part
> anyways, but yeah, I hated him by then. I suppose, yes him being a
> teacher like that is the primary reason – not that I liked him being
> DE, but I thought he changed.
> Comes HBP, here comes Snape killing DD. That crossed out everything
> for me including Snape's loyalty and I hated him even more.
> And I hated, hated, hated upon reread to realize that Snape treated
> this way the boy whose life he himself helped to shape.
> To me this was not how remorseful person acts and since I am
> perfectly satisfied that Snape hated Harry as person till very end
> (when he replies to DD question and I take JKR statement as support
> too), I cannot forgive Snape, because I do not believe he changed in
> his view of Harry, even if he did not want Harry dead.

Thanks, Alla, for answering my question.  So, if I understand you 
correctly, what makes you hate Snape is primarily how he treated 
Harry, especially since (by giving the prophecy to Voldemort) Snape 
contributed to Harry's being an orphan. You also feel that if Snape 
were truly remorseful for giving Voldemort the prophecy, he would 
have behaved (and felt) differently towards Harry.  Have I gotten 
this right?

I think that one reason I see Snape so differently is that I never 
perceived him as hating Harry. Yes, I knew that Harry believed Snape 
hated him, but Harry was often wrong about Snape's motivations and 
intentions, starting from Book 1 and continuing until Snape's death.  
So, I figured Harry was probably wrong in thinking that Snape hated 
him.  I did perceive Snape as disliking Harry a lot, but I never saw 
Snape as HATING Harry. 

As for Snape's role in making Harry an orphan, I am a very long-time 
believer in the theory that Snape loved Lily. As far back as early 
2002, long before Book 5 came out and told us that there was a 
prophecy about Harry, I believed that Snape was the person, mentioned 
in Book 3, who went to Dumbledore and warned him that the Potters 
were in danger. Like you, when we learned of the Prophecy in Book 5, 
I figured that Snape was probably the one who heard it and informed 
Lord Voldemort. But, since I was already  convinced that Snape was 
also the one who tried to save the Potters, this didn't make me hate 
Snape.   

One important factor in my feelings towards Snape is that I always 
thought that he wanted to save Harry for Harry's own sake.  When I 
read in Book 7 that Snape was only saving Harry for Lily's sake, I 
was really surprised.  Had I known this all along, it would probably 
have made me like Snape less, although I think I would still have 
liked him some. 

Of course, this raises the question of why I believed that Snape 
actually had concern for Harry, rather than just wanting to save him 
because Lily wanted Harry to live.  This is complicated, so I'll make 
a separate post about that later.

Jack-A-Roe, I really wasn't trying to start another thread where some 
posters attack Snape, and others defend them. There's been a lot of 
back-and-forth posts on Snape lately, and I don't think they're 
really getting us anywhere.  (So, I'm not going to try to defend 
Snape from the claims in your post.)  Instead, I was trying to find 
out what those opposed to Snape saw as the causes for their own 
emotional responses to the character. I was hoping for the sort of 
post Alla made where she discusses when and why she developed her 
emotional responses to Snape.  Reading your post, Jack, I couldn't 
find an answer to my question – what do you see as the primary reason 
for your disliking/despising/hating Snape?    

-JudySerenity