Who Loved Snape? WAS: Re: FOR DISCUSSION: Ultimate and Last

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 170997

> Kelly:
> Snape's loyalties lie with himself.  Ultimately, I think he will be 
a
> good character who will not be redeemed until he faces his own
> downfall.  I don't think he is a good character for many reasons, 
but
> an interview answer from JKR sealed it for me.**
> 
> **In reply to Snape ever being loved, JKR said:  "Yes, he has, which
> in some ways makes him more culpable even than Voldemort, who never
> has."  Culpable is defined as deserving of blame or censure as being
> wrong, evil, improper, or injurious.  I have a hard time with this
> word being used to describe the misunderstood hero of the book. 

zgirnius:
I've seen the interview comment, and remain a committed DDM!Snaper. 
I'm glad you brought it up, though, because thinking about it again 
caused me to have a (to me, anyway) novel thought.

Snape is, as you (and Rowling) say, "deserving of blame or censure as 
being wrong, evil, improper, or injurious". *More so* than Voldemort, 
even. This is a bit of a problem - the most wrong, evil, improper, 
and injurious things we see and hear about Snape doing, are done at 
Voldemort's behest. He too is cuplable for those actions (not to 
mention, Voldemort is culpable for a larger number of similar 
actions, committed over a greater span of years both by himself and 
many followers). The one evil act by Snape most central to the story 
(the prophecy business) is one ion which Voldemort is at least as 
culpable, since he personally murdered the two victims. So why is 
Snape culpable more than Voldemort?

"Because he has been loved." Aha! Why is this the important 
distinction? It struck me that this might be because while both Snape 
and Voldemort have done serious harm to all sorts of others, only 
Snape has done serious harm to someone who loved him. Poor old 
Voldemort has never harmed someone who loved him, because noone ever 
loved him.

And who, you ask, might this person be who loved Snape, and whom 
Snape harmed through his actions? Well, let's take a quick look at 
the people Snape has harmed, and see who among them might have loved 
Snape.

1) (included for sake of completeness, I do not agree) Assorted 
students he has abused as a teacher. Certainly none we have met love 
him.

2) Harry, (in the matter of the Prophecy). No love there.

3) James Potter. (Assorted hexes, one Prophecy). No love either.

4) Sirius and Peter. (Arguably the prophecy thing put both in 
additional jeopardy; in addition Snape delights me with his nastiness 
to both of them.) But neither of them harbor any fondness for Snape.

5) Remus. Nope, he is perfectly neutral about Snape, and there is a 
suggestion this reflects an *improved* opinion of our Severus.

6) Albus. I suppose it is debatable, I have certainly encountered 
arguments in favor of the idea that Albus loved Snape (I am not 
talking SHIPs here - close friendship, or some sort of family-like 
feeling). Personally, I don't think Snape's actions at the end of HBP 
were culpable anyway. Pippin may or may not be right, the 'stopper 
death' theory may or may not be right, but I am convinced that 
Dumbledore died secure in the knowledge that Snape did as he asked.

7) Nameless possible victims of Death Eater crimes - again, no love.

8) Assorted Death Eaters he may have betrayed to the Order/ proper 
authorities. Possibly they might have included friends, but the 
action in question was not evil, deserving of blame, etc., as it 
brought evildoers to justice.

Which brings me to the final person on my list (I hope I am not 
forgetting some supposed crime or other of the former Potions master):

9) Lily Evans Potter (one nasty insult, one Prophecy). Lily's 
friends, alas, are absent from the pages of those books already 
available to us, so we cannot hear their views on what, if anything, 
she thought of Snape. But if my idea about the reason for Snape's 
greater culpability is correct, she must have harbored a fondness  bu 
process of elimination. Childhood friends? Potions partners? I doubt 
romantic feelings on her part; young Snape seems an unlikely target 
for an early school crush, and by 5th year Lily's romantic interests 
seem engaged elsewhere.