Did you LIKE Snape?

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 183144

Mike:
> 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.

Montavilla47:
More.  But then, for me, it was quite obvious what was going to 
happen to Harry.  He was going to have a hard time destroying
the Horcruxes and then he was going to vanquish Voldemort.  The
only question about all that was how.

I was also pretty sure where Snape stood--the why was a bit more
of a question.  But, I never thought for a moment that he wasn't
Dumbledore's man.  

Of course, I'm an adult (not to say that people who dislike Snape
are children).  As an adult, I go into PS/SS knowing that snarky does
not equal evil, or greedy, or disloyal.  So, I never fell into that 
line of thinking with him.

And, in GoF, when we find out that Snape was a Death Eater,
I already had enough knowledge of the world to know that people
may espouse ideas in their youth that they don't in their later
years.

As Pippin might point out, JKR shows us that through the 
storyline of Hermione and the Elves.  As a fifteen-year-old, she
holds a rather rigid political view of slavery.  Her view becomes
more nuanced when she reaches the more mature age of 
seventeen and eighteen.

Mike:
> 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?

Montavilla47:
I don't have such a negative view of Lily love being the *only* known
driving force.  It wasn't negative before DH, anyway.  And the only
reason it's unpalatable to me now is because he simply wasn't a 
very attractive sweetheart.  Which, come to think of, JKR warned us
about.  ("That's a very horrible thought.  Who would want to be in 
love with him?")

No, he's most unattractive, with the hungry eyes and open-mouthed,
panting intensity.  Too needy.  Too clingy.  If you are going to invest
in a ship, you sort of want the lovers to have chemistry.

And Lily with him was just as unappealing.  Can you imagine them
day to day?  "I've been defending you for years!  My friends all say
you don't take out the garbage enough!  If you really loved me, 
you'd wouldn't complain about picking up my feminine hygene
products!"

I had imagined that Snape would be in love with Lily, but shy, 
thinking he wasn't good enough for her.  Little did I know how
much she'd agree with him about that!

Oh, but that wasn't your question, was it?  You wanted to know
if there was more than Lily love driving him in canon.

I think so.  Someone else pointed out the clue where he seems
genuinely protective of other students.  I sensed a friendliness
between him and McGonagall that was almost affectionate.  (He
may be making a horrible face when he shakes her hand in PS/SS,
but he is shaking her hand.  When she returns in OotP, he greets
her enthusiastically.)

He does have some kind of relationship with the Malfoys, pre-DH.
(In DH, they might as well be strangers.)  He smiles when Draco
suggests talking to his father about making Snape headmaster.
He gives Draco the idea for that cool snake spell in CoS.  Draco
runs to him for help with Montague in OotP, and Snape interrupts
fights between Draco and Harry in both GoF and OotP.  

He has some odd reaction when Harry talks about Lucius showing
up in the graveyard.  He doesn't react to the other names, although
they are also the fathers of his students.

And, of course, he agrees to make an Unbreakable Vow to watch 
over, protect, and finish Draco's mission if necessary.

As we can see by the end of the series, Voldemort didn't just
kill Lily.  His return threatened everything the Malfoys had built
since his disappearance.  He took away Lucius's reputation, his
power, and his freedom.  He tried to destroy Lucius's son.  

I think that was part of the reason Snape worked against
Voldemort--although it was a difficult maneuver, since 
working against Voldemort also meant working against
Lucius.

Mike:
> 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?

Montavilla47:
See above.  But I'll agree that we don't see any epiphany.  More like
the opposite.... what is the opposite of an epiphany?  I mean,
the closest thing we see is Snape's depression after Lily's death
 and Dumbledore's shifting Snape's focus onto Harry.  

But you do want to see Snape GET it at a certain point, and
we never see that point.  What we get instead are those 
glimpses of that horrible Dumbledore-Snape relationship in 
which we get hints that Snape did get it--but never really
when or how.

Mike:
> 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? 

Montavilla47:
Yes.  The more I saw of him, the more I liked him, whether it was as an
adult, a teen, or a child. 

Mike:
> 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! ;-)

Montavilla47:
I don't think it would have been up to me as to whether I would have
been mates with him.  I think I would have liked him as far as I knew
him.  I would probably have been sorted into Hufflepuff.  We like 
everyone. 

He's not a person who is going to be immediately attractive.  He's
the kind of person you have to make an effort to know before you
get to see any of his good points.  

Had I been given the opportunity to work on projects with him--
like being paired in a class, I think I would have noticed and liked
his work ethic, creativity, and general snarkiness (which, 
presumably would have been directed at someone other than me.)

Had I been close to him, though, I think I would have been 
disturbed by his friends--much like Lily was.  However, I think 
I would have had more sympathy with his situation and I would 
have tried to handle him differently than she did.  And no,
I don't blame her for dropping him.  I respect her choice.

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

Montavilla47:
I didn't like him bullying Neville--not because it was so 
outrageously mean.  It was only rageously mean.  I didn't like it 
because it wasn't an effective teaching method for Neville.  

I thought the "no difference" remark to Hermione was uncalled
for and unprofessional.  

I didn't much care for his handling of Harry in the first day
of Potions class.  Again, it was uncalled for.  

However, I have no complaints to make about his handling
of Harry on any other occasion.  He wasn't always right about
Harry (for example, Harry didn't steal the gillyweed), but he 
was right more often than he was wrong.

Mike:
> 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.

Montavilla47:
I want to build on something that Leah said in a later post. She 
said she didn't see why people think Snape should have had an
epiphany upon hearing the prophecy.

I agree with her.  I was thinking about this the other day and it
occurred to me that, had it not been Voldemort he took the 
Prophecy to, we wouldn't be talking about it at all.

In HBP, Harry overhears something that causes him to think
that there's a threat against Dumbledore.  He goes to Dumbledore
at the first opportunity and tells him everything he knows about 
that threat, never once considering what that might mean to 
the person (Draco) that he's telling on.  Why should he consider
Draco?  He shouldn't.  

In both cases, the consequence of telling about the
threat was similar--someone's family getting killed.  But, even
if Harry knew that Draco's family was being threatened, 
he still would have told Dumbledore.