Did you LIKE Snape?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183168

Carol earlier:
> As for loving Lily, I think we need to consider what Lily seems to
represent for Snape (as opposed to the "real" Lily, who may not have
been quite what he thought she was). The Patronus is pure and
beautiful and wholly good, and Snape is not only trying to atone for
his role in her death by protecting her son but fighting, risking his
life, much like a medieval knight for his "lady" (often someone else's
wife), for what he believes her to represent--the opposite in all
respects of Voldemort, whose selfish will to power and desire for
immortality contrast with Lily's self-sacrifice and love. Snape may
not wear his heart on his sleeve (or his lady's token on his lance
like a medieval knight), but his Patronus shows what he values and
what he is fighting for and what he thinks he has lost in Lily's death.
> 
> 
> Winterfell:
> I agree that Snape's image of Lily wasn't quite what she really was,
but rather an idealistic and perhaps even obsessive view instead.
However, I don't agree that Snape is like a medieval knight in his
character or view toward females other than Lily.  He openly ridicules
Hermione with his statement of "I see no difference". That type of
behavior would never be found in a medieval knight, as it would be
against their code of chivalry. Snape's behavior toward many of his
students would hardly fall under an umbrella of chivalry.  His courage
in battle and his loyalty to DD, however would.
>
Carol responds:
I didn't say that he was like a medieval knight in any respect other
than his view of Lily. The comparison referred solely to his devotion
to an idealized "lady" (albeit a dead one), and I noted that, in
contrast to a medieval knight bearing his lady's favor on his lance,
Snape did not display his devotion openly. 

His ridicule of Hermione (which I mentioned in two posts in this
thread and which I don't approve any more than you do) has nothing to
do with his feelings about Lily. Nor does his view of women in general
(his gentlemanly treatment of Narcissa and respectful dealings with
Professor McGonagall, in contrast to his scornful treatment of
Bellatrix and Umbridge or his dismissal of Hermione as "an
insufferable know-it-all," which, IMO, she really is though he should
not have said so) have any bearing on the matter. Again, the
knight-and-his-lady comparison relates solely to Snape's devotion to
Lily (who, I'm glad we agree, was not quite the pure and saintlike
being he envisions her as being). I was talking about what
Patronus!Lily represents to Snape. He is fighting for that ideal
without in any way representing it himself. It's *Lily*, Snape's pure,
beautiful, idealized Lily, who represents that ideal--to Snape, if not
to the reader--and we see that ideal embodied in his Patronus.

But I said nothing about Snape's being chivalrous in general (much
less pure and beautiful!). It was, after all, the not-so-gentlemanly
James who upheld the banner of chivalry from the time he was eleven,
not Severus, who valued brains over the showy style of courage at the
same age.

Carol, thanking Steve (Winterfell) for posting but hoping that he'll
read her words a bit more carefully next time (or not read into them
what isn't there)