Admit it, you just sang that. (Only in your head counts, too.)
Disclaimer the First: As any reasonable person with internet access, I am aware and saddened by JK Rowling having outed herself as a TERF. Transwomen are women, period. Transmen are men, period. 'I respect trans lives, but...' or 'I have some lovely trans friends and consider myself an ally, but...' don't really work. Having said that, I fell in love with Harry Potter before Rowling outed herself as a transphobic cunt, and while I longer be making purchases that may end up paying royalties or profits to her, I'm also not just going to abandon the world of Harry Potter and the positivity and joy it has given so many people, myself included. Don't toss out the baby with the bath water, as it were.
Disclaimer the Second: It's been a while since I've read the books (maybe a little over a year and a half?), and my hardcopies are currently, sadly, in storage. I've read them quite a bit over the years, so I'm fairly confident in what I'm writing about, but that doesn't mean there will be no errors due to lapses in memory. Also, I don't like the movies... I think I've seen all of them at least once, but don't quote me on that. However! A lot of what I see online is from the movie-verse, and if any of that creeps into this post, well... I'm very sorry.
Speaking of the films, I do want to get one thing off my chest before I continue... especially since the only image I could find to use for this post (that I liked and wasn't fanart) is Alan Rickman as Snape: I love Alan Rickman, I do, and he did an exceptional job portraying Severus Snape (okay, I admit, I like the first two films... Prisoner was where it started going downhill for me), but... he really shouldn't have been cast. Snape was 31 years old when Harry finally popped his little magic bum into Hogwarts, but Mr Rickman was 54. This ended up pushing up the ages for all the characters he went to school with, including Harry's parents... (And one of the tragedies of the Potters is that they died so young.) It bothers me enough that I've been told by my friends, on multiple occasions now, that I don't need to bring it up every time I see Mr Rickman as Snape, because apparently I do (and don't actually realise it, woo).
On the other hand, I actually adore Mr Rickman as Snape, and I absolutely hate the fact that I'm stuck with two contradicting opinions in my own head.
...
Anywho!
Snape is my favourite character in the Harry Potter universe (followed very closely, or maybe equally, by Sirius Black, oddly enough). He is an incredibly complex, nuanced character who is not, at all, a good person, but somehow manages to be a great one. If you listen to the anti-Snape people talk, he's basically on the same level of vileness as Voldemort or, even worse, Umbridge, but I do feel that people are attributing more negativity to his character than is actually there... Which is really unfair, seeing as how much negativity he's already draped in.
Severus Snape was the son of a Muggle and a witch. If I remember correctly, Tobias Snape did not know Eileen was a witch, and was none too pleased to learn the truth. Tobias was loudly abusive to his wife, both physically and emotionally, and one can assume he was the same to Severus (which may or may not have been included in the flashback, but I can't remember). I find it very telling of the psychological effects that had on him growing up that he still lives in that same house (or one very near it) as an adult, as it's in Spinner's End that Narcissa Malfoy finds him to ask him to make the Unbreakable Vow.
Snape's only childhood friend turned out to be Lily Evans, Harry's mother. He was ecstatic to learn that she had magic like him, that she'd be going to school with him. Young Severus most likely attached to her because she was a beacon of kindness that he hadn't ever had in his life before, and that turned into an unrequited love that never left him, even after she married someone else. I have seen a lot of discourse from people calling him pathetic or predatory, basically 'one of those men who can't take "no" for an answer', but the actual presence of his love for her and the inability to let that love go doesn't actually make him a horrible person. There's no actual evidence in the books that Snape continued to pursue her or pestered her after she rejected him... In fact, I don't actually remember him revealing to her that he loved her in the first place (though, admittedly, that may have been what he was attempting to do when he was fussing at her for being interested in James in the first place, but not having grown up with any sort of good example of a healthy relationship, he was doomed to fail at that from the beginning).
Speaking of James (and I know this next bit is very contentious with fans), Severus Snape went from being abused in his home life to being abused in his school life. Sirius admits, I think in Order of the Phoenix, that the Marauders 'noticed' Snape because he was not only very interested in, but very good at the Dark Arts. The books are actually ambiguous as to who started the feud, but I'm a bit inclined, based on this information, to think it was James (and/or Sirius). I cannot be convinced that jealousy was not a factor in the feud, though. James had eyes for Lily early on, though she initially wouldn't give him the time of day, and she maintained her friendship with Snape, as best she could, up until the knob called her a Mudblood out of frustration. It's well within the realm of reason to assume that James was jealous over Severus' friendship with Lily, and Severus was jealous over James' attentions to her. (Stupid teenage shit, honestly.)
I do not, for the life of me, remember where I got the idea... I don't know if it was some fantheory or a fanfic or something popping off Pottermore or what, but there is, tucked into my brain, the idea that it was Lucius Malfoy, being popular and an older student, who recruited Snape for the Death Eaters. Even if this wasn't the case (though it probably will stay so in my head), it is canon that Snape ended up getting in with a 'bad crowd' after being sorted into Slytherin. A child coming from a broken home like that, surrounded by people who hate people like him but wanting to fit in? He was an easy target.
I think that's the part people want to ignore about Severus Snape. He was an abused and broken child, a half-blood wizard sorted into a house that prides itself on purity of blood. He probably saw Hogwarts as a means of escaping the abuse, too, but then he ends up with bullies taunting him at school (and whether he responds in kind is actually beside the point here). He hated himself and where he came from, he hated his abusive Muggle father, probably his mother, too, for not standing up to him when she so obviously 'could' have (which does ignore the mentality of someone suffering from abuse, but a child, even though they are going through the same thing, isn't going to understand that). He was the easiest of pickings for those enlisting students into this super secret, super exclusive club. He got to belong and feel important! And all he had to do was hate other people like him, which, hating himself, was probably pretty fucking easy to do.
I'm sure there will be readers who just peg me as a Snape apologist, and frankly... If being able to sympathise with an abuse victim who, sadly, was unable to properly end that cycle of abuse, then, yeah... I'll take the label of 'apologist'.
I have seen so many people who say that Snape should have just, you know, not been an arse, as if the psychological effects of his childhood are something he can easily tuck away in a box under his bed so he can be a constant ray of sunshine. This absolutely ignores the fact that it's a cycle of abuse for a reason. There are so many people who are able to rise above the trauma they endured (and being able to do so absolutely should be applauded), but there are so many others who cannot. Not do not, mind you, but cannot... Especially if they have no system of support to help them deal with that trauma and find healthy ways to stop from abusing someone else.
Is this a good thing? No. But it is a very human thing, and it's one of the reasons I refuse to decry Snape as a person. Were he a real person, it might be different, but he's not. He's a fictional character (initially based upon a teacher Jo didn't like, apparently), a component in telling a story. Would I like Snape if he was real and I had to interact with him? Hell no (though, knowing myself, if I knew about his suffered trauma and abuse, I would still sympathise with him... but I'd want to do so from a distance). Can I appreciate his suffering and humanity through the medium of fiction? Absolutely.
I initially wanted to write this post on the fact that Severus Snape is actually a good teacher, but one of my key pieces of evidence (having to do with the fact that we never see Snape teach from the book; his recipes and instructions are always on the board) fell through (we know Advanced Potion-Making is a shite book [even Hermione had trouble working straight from it], but there's no actual information on Magical Drafts and Potions [which is the book they 'used' up until sixth year])... And while I still think my point stands, without that crux of the argument, I don't see myself being able to be very convincing, so I decided to just try and use this post as a way to counter all the people who hate on Snape just because he didn't manage to turn out to be a decent person.
There is one thing from my initial idea that I still would like to touch on, though, and that is the case of Neville Longbottom. Before I get into this, I need to make it very clear that I do not actually agree with or condone the way Snape treated Neville. He was a bully to a quite a few of his students (though I don't think it's as many as Harry makes it out to be), and there isn't actually any scenario where that is okay.
However, I find it interesting how he interacts with Neville. Most of the time, when I am trying to debate people about Snape's effectiveness as a teacher, they bring up Neville and the incident with Trevor. 'Oh, he was going to kill Neville's toad!' they say, except there is no actual reason to believe that Snape would have let Trevor die. (Could you imagine how much trouble he'd have got into with Dumbledore for that, not to mention McGonagall?) Everyone assumes that the potion would have killed Trevor, but for all we knew it might have made him sprout magical flowers or turn pink or maybe made him sick for a little while... Also, with Snape's aptitude for potions, I'm sure he could have cured whatever happened to the toad, even if he let him, and thus Neville, suffer for a little bit before he did.
One thing about Neville is that he grew up in a home with a very strict, overprotective grandmother who also didn't actually expect anything out of him. Neville himself says that his whole family thought he was a squib until his uncle dropped him out of a window and he bounced instead of going splat on the pavement. (It is quite possible that Augusta wanted her grandson to be non-magical, considering what happened to her son and daughter in law.) He is confused as to why he is sorted into Gryffindor, appearing to be suffering from an acute case of imposter syndrome. He's not brave, so why is he in a house that prides itself on courage?
Then there is Snape, a teacher who actually expects something out of Neville (granted, most of the professors did, which was probably rather a shock to little Neville in the first place). So the class is going on, and they're supposed to be making this potion that Snape has given clear instructions for (which are also on the board), and Neville is mucking it up. Snape, expecting a certain level of competency from his students, young Mr Longbottom included, is upset by the sheer level of bumbling work. He then tasks Neville with fixing his mistakes, which isn't actually unreasonable. He also instructed Neville to fix said mistakes without any assistance, which isn't what Neville did. Hermione helped him cheat.
People are indignant that Snape punished Hermione for helping Neville, but, again, she cheated. Which means Neville did not attempt to fix his potion by himself, which means Neville didn't actually learn anything. Snape obviously did not expect Neville to recover perfectly, but he did expect him to try on his own so that he would gain something from the process, as most teachers would have done. Had it not been Snape, I don't think people would be half as pissed off at Gryffindor losing house points.
'Snape is Neville's boggart!' is the next thing people push, pointing out that his parents were tortured into insanity by Death Eaters. Again, I'm going to point out that I don't condone Snape being a bully to any of his students, but I find this an interesting point as well. A thirteen year old child, probably suffering from an anxiety disorder, who grew up with an overbearing grandmother and knows his parents were tortured by deranged people upset that their cult leader 'died' is most afraid of his... potions professor.
One might think that Neville would harbour fear of the Death Eaters who put his parents in St Mungo's, and that they would be the form that his boggart would take. While he probably does a bit, this, of course, assumes that he knows what they look like... Neville was still a baby when Alice and Frank Longbottom were tortured, so he would have to see photos of the Lestranges and Crouch, Jr from books or newspapers, which he may or may not have had access to, considering. The thing is, though, all of them were safely, securely locked in the confines of Azkaban (which, if you remember, had never had a prisoner escape unaided [or at all, I believe] until Sirius Black, and he probably would not have if they knew he was an Animagus). They couldn't hurt his parents anymore. They couldn't hurt him or his family. They couldn't hurt anyone anymore, so why be terrified of them?
On the contrary, you have Snape, who has 'curtains' of black hair that help obscure his face. Who is wiry and whose wardrobe consists of black robes, black robes, more black robes, and possibly, for laundry day, some slightly faded black robes. Basically, he looks menacing. He is sour and often angry... Hell, he comes off as cross even when he's not actually. He basically exudes negativity and malice, as that's basically all that he learned growing up. He is imposing and, more importantly, he is present. Neville interacts with him for a length of time at least twice or thrice a week, sees him around the grounds and at meals. This intimidating guy who is in a position of authority and who already makes Neville more nervous than normal is constantly lurking around and can be run into at any moment.
This doesn't imply that Snape is so horrible to Neville that he trumps every other thing in Neville's life that might spark fear. It just means he's there and present on Neville's mind enough for the boggart to latch onto. It isn't like what boggarts form into is an exact science. Remus Lupin isn't actually scared of a full moon, he's scared of what results from it, of what he might do under its influence, but the moon is the form the boggart took for him.
You may notice I have not used this post to focus on Snape's good points. Those are fairly clearly present in the books, from him keeping Harry from falling off his broom in Philosopher's Stone to his death in defiance of Voldemort in Deathly Hallows. I feel it's more important, for Snape's character, to remind people of why he turned out the way he did. He was tortured his whole life, from his abusive father to being bullied at school to being burdened with the knowledge that he is responsible for the death of his one true friend and the woman he loved. His redemption is subtle, possibly even contestable, but all in all, Jo, for all her other faults (not just the TERFdom, but some of the shit she's put out about the Harry Potter universe through Twitter and Pottermore, when she really ought to just leave well enough alone), wrote an amazingly compelling character in him.
After all this time, he is still my favourite character... Always.
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