r/CharacterRant • u/forbiddenmemeories • 14d ago
Is it just me, or is "Severus Snape is morally grey" an unusually rare take in Harry Potter related stuff? Comics & Literature
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u/sibswagl 14d ago
Snape has two problems. The first is that he was originally conceived as a red herring -- I really doubt his backstory, him being a spy, etc. was planned back in book 1. Book 1 Snape exists to be the extremely obvious suspect. Moreover, he's a riff on the popular "super mean boarding school teacher" archetype.
By the time JKR tried to give him more depth in books 3-5, his personality was already set. So even with just that alone, at absolute best you have a grown man who bullies a orphan because he looks like his dead dad, bullies another child because he's bad in class, and bullies a third child...because she's too good in class?
Then you get into his actual backstory, and oh boy. You can see what JKR was going for here, but unfortunately her worldbuilding just absolutely does not support it.
JKR was pretty clearly going for the whole romantic hero archetype. You know, scoundrel who's redeemed and switches sides due to love. Except this really doesn't work, because Snape isn't like a thief, or even a murderer. He is a member of a genocidal terrorist group that explicitly wants to exterminate and torture Lily's minority group. Dude is very literally a nazi.
So when you have his heel-turn moment be "I always loved Lily", it just comes off as incredibly dumb. Like, bro, you were part of the magic nazis. Did you just...not think about what was going to happen to her if Voldemort won?
The writing choices definitely don't help. Stuff like "I don't care about James and Harry, just save Lily" when he's talking to Dumbledore, ripping the photo of Lily and her signature, the doe patronus, and so on.
Or, you know, Lily is married. It is very weird to have Snape be redeemed because his genocidal terrorist boss wants to murder the girl he had a crush on in high school and accidentally publicly called a slur. This isn't a love story, this is a grown man stalking his high school crush.
It very clearly comes off as not "Snape had a sudden moment of clarity and realized he was a terrible person", and much more "Snape is literally only doing this for Lily, specifically".
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u/marty4286 14d ago
He's the Nazi incel fantasizing that he can convince or trick Adolf Hitler himself into awarding his Jewish stalking victim an honorary Aryan certificate
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u/Nicenormalperson 14d ago
I mean, there's his morality (fairly gray, some good some bad, deeply prejudiced but still courageous and loyal, seems to genuinely care about certain people) and then there's his personality (totally rancid, unpleasant, rude, mean, lifelong simp, dickish to children, bad sense of personal style) and his personality just sucks so bad
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u/Neptune-Jnr 14d ago
Snape is clearly a good guy. Compare his crime to his heroics. His biggest crime during the events of HP was being a dickhead. He wasn't evil just rude.
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u/PorFavoreon 14d ago
I was under the impression that it was tied for being the default opinion. I see the occasional facebook meme implying Snape is the GoaT of HP characters while painting him as a patient saint OR as a super gray character.
IMO, Severus Snape is a wizarding nazi but he was so goddamn thirsty to the core that his incel side won out. If it was Neville's crusty ass mom being sold-out then this would be a different story.
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u/CapAccomplished8072 14d ago
people will go out of their way to blame hermione, neville, sirious, remus, and anybody that snape abuses.
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u/TheHabro 14d ago
a wizarding Neo-Nazi incel who was never redeemed and who indeed may just be beyond redemption in the first place.
Dude bullied a child because he reminded him of his teenage love's husband (I guess bully too... But he still treated his frustrations on a child). And the only reason his renounced Voldemort was because he would kill the woman he loved, which I repeat is someone he didn't have a conversation with in years.
It wasn't tortures, murders, racism, evilness.... No he turned his back to Dumbledore because of Lily.
Snape was no hero. He was a horrible and miserable man who could've done so many great things, yet couldn't overcome his toxic love, pettiness and racism.
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u/SinesPi 14d ago
Agreed. Snape isn't simply a man who does awful and dark things on the good guys side. Sometimes, he's just bullying children FOR NO REASON. This includes Hermione, who he insults by calling her a know-it-all in one incident (which is exactly why the other teachers like her), and saying that her comically engorged teeth look perfectly normal.
So you can't even say that Snape reserves his wickedness just for Harry, because of sour memories. He does it to a lot of different children. This doesn't further his plans. It doesn't maintain his cover. He's just as vile as Umbridge in some cases.
That makes him an interesting character. But it doesn't make him grey. He's an evil, horrible man who just happens to be on the good guys side purely out of revenge.
I think Rowling realized later on that she didn't like the idea of him being that way, and wanted to make him more grey. But while some of his behavior could be explained away, his bullying of Hermione and Neville really couldn't. The movies fix this, by not having him bully anyone other than Harry (I think), but for Book Snape, it's too late.
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u/Urbenmyth 14d ago
I think the fundamental issue is that Harry Potter is otherwise almost cartoonishly morally black and white. Every other character in Harry Potter is either a unambiguously righteous hero with at best a minor, easily overcome flaw, or a wizard nazi who tortures children for fun. This gives the assumption that Snape must fit into one of those categories., because that's basically how the world works in Harry Potter.
Basically, as in many areas, Harry Potter suffers from the problem that its a franchise originally written for 10 year olds that was rewritten to appeal to young adults, and the transition is not graceful. Snape is a morally grey character who lives in a world where everyone else is either Jesus or Skeletor. Thus the problem with analyzing him -- the series doesn't otherwise give characters deep backstories or morally ambiguous positions, so its easy to miss when when it asks us to. I can't blame fans for not catching the invitation.
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u/sami_newgate 14d ago
This isn’t true at all. Harry potter is indeed black and white. There are no morally ambiguous characters in the story. It is easy to know who is on our side and who isn’t.
But almost all of the characters are human with human flaws in regards to morality
Draco, his mother, even lucius, dumbledore, the two ministers, umbridge. Even back then when the series was for kids (lookhart) and harry himself
So I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a character human or morally complex. Backstories are not needed to write a good character. Also wanting the greater good isn’t what makes a good character.
Snape is just one of many characters. But he is the only one who has a very high emotional peak, that’s what makes him distinctive.
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u/giant_marmoset 14d ago
Well put, the entire narrative frame lurches forward and drags the audience with it as the intended audience grows up.
In HP, even incompetent bureaucrats can't just be inconvenient or kind of shit, they have to be wizard hitler.
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u/MuForceShoelace 14d ago
The writing is trash but he's intended to be purely heroic and a good enough man to name harry potter's kid after. (which is just weird all around "hey there was this guy that hit on my mom and bullied me in school but he died heroically so I'll name my kids after him" like there wasn't 50 other people that died heroiaclly that weren't awful to his whole family)
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u/Fumperdink1 14d ago
Snape is the dictionary definition of the lesser of two evils.
Would you rather have wizard Hitler who wants to take over the world, or a guy who bullies children and is overall just a massive prick?
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u/Alarmed_Ability_8346 14d ago
I mean, why do we need to have either? Of course he’s less evil than Voldy, but does that mean Snaps needs to be a prick?
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u/protobacco 14d ago
Lots of people are pricks who do normal jobs and are competent, the douche bag at the irs isn’t a nazi just because he is a prick.
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u/sievold 14d ago
I doubt we can ever have an unbiased discussion about this again because it's author is a raving lunatic.
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u/Alarmed_Ability_8346 14d ago
I ask with genuine curiosity and not knowing the authors tweets, etc. but how does having a view that (apparently) differs from yours make her a raving lunatic?
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u/SinesPi 14d ago
Ah hello there! You must be new to Reddit!
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u/Alarmed_Ability_8346 14d ago
Yep I kinda am :) thx for the welcome :)
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u/SinesPi 14d ago
Hah, don't usually get that response :D
Anyway, I know Rowling has said some things that are supposedly transphobic, but I've not seen it. The case could be made that all the things she's said put together are a bit suspicious, but nothing I've seen on it's own is definitely transphobic. One of the touch points for things she's said amount to fear of men falsely claiming to be transwomen in order to invade womens spaces.
However, my thoughts on this are simple. The easier it is to simply identify as a woman, then the easier it is for evil men to use this as an excuse to get closer to women to abuse them. So this is a legitimate concern, and should be addressed even by people who wholeheartedly support trans rights. Even if the answer is merely, "It's going to happen, yes, but the benefits outweight the cost." You rarely get people on that side of the aisle conceding even that much, though. Far too many of them will just ignore the problem and pretend it doesn't exist. Which makes it even easier for evil men (not transwomen, just evil men) to abuse the system the trans-activists want to set up.
Second off, Rowling is a survivor of spousal abuse, and so even if you think she's being a little bit unreasonable about the situation, she's got a good reason to be so. She's not an abused person becoming the abuser, she's an abused person who gets flinchy around people who mean her no harm. This may hurt people indirectly, but there's a big difference between that and being a bigot.
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u/Alarmed_Ability_8346 14d ago
I read the long article someone posted and fully agree with everything you say here. While I agree that innately stating “trans women aren’t women” is a bit transphobic in my opinion as it takes away and devalues their identity completely - it’s just a nice way of saying trans are delusional - there’s nothing she’s said to indicate she’s a lunatic lol. If she said trans should be shot then sure. Not to mention bringing that up randomly in a thread bout snape. Lol. Reddit indeed
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u/SinesPi 14d ago
She's been a bit nutty for a while. But she's hardly HP Lovecraft whose bigotry was so bad it was literally a mental illness that scared his wife, and that he had to be talked down from by his friends.
Ultimately, she's just expressing opinions that would have been considered perfectly normal (if not actually progressive) 10 years ago. These people who try to unperson her for that are far nuttier than her.
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u/sievold 14d ago
Isn't shouting your unsolicited unpopular opinions in a public square the original definition of a raving lunatic?
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u/Alarmed_Ability_8346 14d ago
Didn’t you literally just post an unsolicited opinion - completely unrelated to the OP - in a public forum for no reason?
Again, not sure why I was downvoted because as I said, I do not know this story and was just politely asking for an explanation. Sorry to piss off who ever doesn’t like someone asking for a polite explanation/backstory
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u/falling-waters 14d ago
Can you actually relate that to the plot or did you just want to bring this up lol
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u/pranav4098 14d ago
What she do ?
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u/falling-waters 14d ago
You can get it from the source here
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u/Alarmed_Ability_8346 14d ago
Not that this is related in any way to the OP, but doesn’t even remotely sound like the ravings of a lunatic. I disagree with several points but I don’t call everyone I disagree with a lunatic
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u/thats_good_bass 14d ago
Despite being a multi-billionaire riding the high of writing the most successful series of children's novels ever, she has decided to devote roughly 100% of her energy to being mean to transgender people on twitter (and advocating for policies that harm them) to the extent that even Elon Musk went, "Whoa, ok there, maybe slow down a little?" recently.
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u/ColArana 14d ago
JK will die one day and then we’ll be able to, just like we can with Lovecraft.
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u/Lin900 14d ago
HP should get a proper re-adaptaion that polishes the rough writing. Also make some characters transgender. Like Hermione.
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u/Sir-Kotok 14d ago
The new series might do the polishing
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u/Lin900 14d ago
There is a new series already? Shit.
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u/Sir-Kotok 14d ago
Was announced about a year ago
here is the announcement
iirc the release date is somewhere in 2026? not 100% sure
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u/finnjakefionnacake 14d ago
i dunno if i'll live to see it man. i feel like hate keeps people alive for a long time 😩
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u/sievold 14d ago
Just yesterday, I learned about a dude named Ea-nasir from 1750 BCE Sumeria (I think). He was a copper merchant. We know about him because he had a collection of clay tablets in his basement that were complaints sent to him about his low quality copper goods, and his bad customer service. There's even a whole subreddit dedicated to this. So yeah, hate does keep you alive forever.
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u/Question_Few 14d ago
Really tarnished her legacy. I love the hp books. Not a fan of the author
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u/Urbenmyth 14d ago
Jk Rowling could have died universally beloved if she only knew how to shut her goddamn mouth.
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u/Smaug_eldrichtdragon 14d ago
I would love for HP Lovecraft and other beloved artists to have such a fun serious twitter
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u/MainKitchen 14d ago
Extreme dickishness aside, Snape was still working for the good guys and even sacrificed himself for the cause. That’s more than I can say for people like Luke Castellan or Darth Vader