Did you LIKE Snape?

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 183133

We've had a recent thread that mourns the passing of Snape. I don't, 
but that led to this query. In the interest of full disclosure, I am 
a Marauder fan and Sirius Black is my favorite character. So I am 
naturally biased towards despising one Severus Snape. OK, now on to 
the show. ;-)

JKR admitted Snape was "a gift of a character", and I'll second that. 
Whatever your leanings I don't see how you could not be entertained 
by the enigma that was Snape. JKR made sure we would all want to know 
where exactly Severus stood and why he stood there, as much as we 
wanted to know what was going to happen to Harry. For some of you, 
maybe more.

In that respect, I too liked Severus Snape. I too wanted to know why 
he was the way he was. I even color myself slightly disappointed that 
his love for Lily was the *only* driving force that propelled him to 
do what he did for Harry and the good side. I wanted to see something 
more. Maybe some of you did see more, if so maybe you could cite some 
canon for your belief? 

For me, I've adapted myself to the Magpie school of interpreting 
canon: if it's not in the book, it didn't happen. Some will say that 
Snape took up Dumbledore's banner not just for Lily, but because he 
had some epiphany about Voldemort. I say I expected that to be part 
of his change, but I didn't see it. Up until the very end, all we 
were shown was that Severus did it all for Lily. The Doe Patronus 
followed by his answer to Dumbledore: "Always"; his keeping Lily's 
signature and tearing her picture from James and Harry to take out of 
12 GP. Do you have some canon that can convince me that Snape had 
some other motivation besides Lily?

But that wasn't my question, was it? ;-) I wanted to know if you 
liked Severus Snape. I don't want to know if you liked having his 
character in the books, I've already said that I liked having Snape 
in the books and I hate the guy. I'm not really asking if you 
sympathize or empathize with him. Heck, I sympathize with the young 
Severus in the playground with Lily, per-Hogwarts. No, what I want to 
know is if you *liked* Severus? 

If you were in the Potterverse, would you be mates with him? If your 
answer is yes, is it unqualified? That is, would you have been mates 
when he was just pre-Hogwarts, during Hogwarts as a student, only 
after he returned to Dumbledore to plea for Lily's life, or do you 
have no qualifications? If your answer is no, are there times in the 
life of Severus Snape that you wouldn't have minded being around him? 
If you wanted to be more than mates with Severus, umm, ... I don't 
want to know! ;-)

Is there any part of his behavior you disliked, abhorred, or just 
thought was a little too over the top?

You see, I'm curious. I could never understand the attraction. I 
guessed, as did practically all of us, that Snape was ultimately on 
the good side. But there were too many things about him for me to get 
past to like him. I didn't take Lupinlore's approach that his 
teaching was child abuse, but I did agree with Alla that it was 
abhorrent behavior. And though I laughed at some of his wittier 
lines, that didn't supplant my dislike for the overall character.

I didn't place most of the blame on him for James's and Lily's 
deaths; in fact I put him third after LV and Pettigrew. But he does 
get some blame there that cannot be expunged in my eyes. That he was 
redeemed for that act, that he spent the rest of his life serving 
penitence for that mistake, does not make me like him for it.

I have a particular revulsion for the Snape in PoA, in the Shreiking 
Shack scene. I've expounded on that enough, I won't continue to bore 
you. Funnily enough, I was most entertained by Snape in PoA, too.

I get that some people identify with Snape, just like lots of people 
identified with Harry and I identified with Sirius. Did that make you 
like Severus, or understand him, or both?

Please, explain to me the attraction!

Mike, who hopes that Carol gets her computer back before all the good 
lines are taken ;-)