deathtocapslock | Why DH left me disappointed with one of my favorite characters

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Why DH left me disappointed with one of my favorite characters

(I've been lurking in this community for a couple of days now, reading posts from way back and enjoying the discussion [and snark]. I know this topic has been done before numerous times, but I hope it's okay for me to offer my thoughts as well.)

It is over a decade later and I am still disenchanted with how Severus Snape was flattened as a character in DH by having everything connect to Lily. I rarely encounter fans of Snape on Tumblr who feel the same way, so I decided to post this here to find other people who can empathize.

From books 1-6, I found Snape to be a fascinating character. He was a mean teacher and a bitter man, but also (seemingly) on the side of the good guys with his own mysterious agenda. Despite his cruel nature, he was presented as capable of protecting and helping those whom he loathed or did not care for. He had a sense of right and wrong when it counted, even while remaining bitter. This unpleasant man left a group of prejudiced and dangerous criminals because even unpleasant people are capable of stepping away from evil. All of this made him an intriguing character full of potential, and I hoped that JKR wouldn’t waste that potential by making everything he’s done be for the Love of a Good Woman that Got Away.

But then she did, and I ended up disappointed. Snape’s character was demolished for me. No longer was he a complex man capable of both good and bad, but a man reduced to a static lovesick figure who never changed at all. Defecting from the Death Eaters, protecting innocents, working for the good guys, striving to win the war, risking his life… all for Lily. All for an ongoing obsession that made him look pitiful. He had no sliver of light or goodness of his own merit as a person; everything was for and about Lily.

It didn’t help matters that Lily was nothing more than a cardboard cutout of a character. She had no flaws. She was an angel that every (male) character was meant to adore. James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Snape were all presented as men who made mistakes. But Lily? Everybody loves her because she’s always right and a symbol of Purity and Goodness for every man in the vicinity!

And you mean to tell me that Snape, a man known for holding grudges and festering in his vindictive anger, would continue to love a woman who chose his tormentor, popular and privileged Gryffindor bully James Potter, over him? Really? Another way Lily was presented as perfect and exceptional; even Snape couldn’t dislike or hate her. How convenient (and, in my opinion, out of character).

Snape, the lower-class, ugly, greasy, mean, miserable, and unhealthy mess of a man wasn’t allowed any redeeming qualities of his own volition. No, it all had to come back to Lily, the middle-class, beautiful, popular, kind, pleasant, and perfect mother and wife. Who needs character development, growth, and depth when you’ve got the “power” of Loving the Good Woman?

I never expected Snape to become a selfless and nice saint. Of course not. What I did expect and hope for was the lesson that "good" is not always pretty and pleasant, just as "evil" is not always ugly and mean. That bravery can be found in the unlikeliest and darkest of people; that even the people you hate can still be heroic and do the right thing. I thought that was the lesson readers (and Harry himself) had to learn through Snape, whether he survived the war or not.

But I was wrong. It wasn’t meant to be complex and profound. It all came down to Loving the Good Woman. Lily was the linchpin for everything. Instead of finding it interesting or meaningful, I found it insulting, trite, and boring. Snape went from being a character full of potential to another shallow example of a brooding, broken man following the whims of obsessive love as a stand-in for morality. I couldn’t agree with other Snape fans who liked his reasoning for turning ex-Death Eater, but I couldn’t stand with people who hated every aspect of his character either. I was torn (and still am).

My ideal ending for Snape would’ve been him surviving the war and walking away from everything. With no masters, no obligations, and no need for atonement, he would have the freedom to finally control his life. He would have to question his purpose in the new world. Death is the easy way out for a complicated messy character; it’s easy to honor Snape when he’s dead, but how to deal with him alive? How would Harry see Snape if Snape had survived and remained unpleasant as ever, despite his bravery and loyalty? What would have their final interaction been like?

But that would’ve been too difficult for JKR to deal with, so let’s kill Snape off in a lame way and let’s give him the power of Loving the Good Woman to wrap everything up quick and easy. How painfully lazy.

I have long speculated that JKR never wanted her major Slytherin characters to have any depth or redeeming qualities of their own because it would overshadow the heroic Gryffindors or send the "wrong" message. Slytherins are regulated to two roles: evil (e.g. Voldemort, the Death Eaters, Umbridge, etc.) or pitiful (e.g. Snape and the Malfoys). Snape couldn't make his own choices, have his own motivations, or live his life on his terms; it had to revolve around Lily to give him the worth he didn't "deserve" for being a Slytherin.

Anyways, if anyone has read this long overdue rant of mine, thank you for taking the time. I had to let it out after re-reading the series and experiencing great frustration all over again.

Edit: Fixed some mistakes and changed to a different layout. Forgive me, I'm rusty with LJ.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

WILD APPLAUSE.

Thank you. I know all of this has been said many times before, but after finishing DH a second time in years, I had to let it out. I've read the other HP books at least twice when I was younger, but DH is the one I can't go back to more than twice. It wasn't only Snape's characterization and death that disappointed me, but it's definitely on the top of the list.

Dating for sex - rebee.*ru (del *)

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First of all, from semi-newbie to another newbie: welcome to the community :)
As far as I'm concerned there is nothing wrong in returning to old discussions. Especially since a lot of people who participated in those discussions either moved on to other hobbies/parts of internet or are not very active nowadays.

As for the subject on the hand? I have to agree.
In HP verse there is a lot of characters whom I genuinely liked in pre-HBP era, not because they were nice or good characters, but because either they were interesting or had potential to grow into something interesting.
I mean for all criticism I sling on Lucius and Voldemort in my chapter commentaries, before OotP I genuinely considered them to be 'deep' and 'interesting'. Well by HP standards :P

I think I mentioned it in some of my posts and comments, but I believe that aside from essays during her education, HP was her first written work. A lot of mistakes and writing faux-pass we see in her works (especially in her early works) mirror those of teenage writers. I can't exactly pinpoint fragments in the text, but certain parts of her books make me think that at some point of writing PS and CoS (since those seem to be written back to back) she's read one of those Write-Your-First-Novel-in-30-days! type of books.

This culminated in background characters, who are supposed to be plot devices, looking much more interesting because we don't know much about them.
Heck pre-OotP Dumbledore looks much more interesting than he is, because Jo didn't try to explore his character.

As for rant, don't worry. Under normal circumstances I rant here on weekly basis and other users of this community didn't ran me off yet :P

Edited 2019-01-09 07:32 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome to the community! =D

"In HP verse there is a lot of characters whom I genuinely liked in pre-HBP era, not because they were nice or good characters, but because either they were interesting or had potential to grow into something interesting."

For some reason, it takes a lot for me to find nice or good characters interesting. I liked Luna and the Golden Trio well enough, but I never thought their characters would go anywhere beyond their roles (although I hoped Harry at least wouldn't remain the same, but that was a disappointment too). I got ahead of myself assuming that JKR had something extra up her sleeve for her Slytherin characters, when they were meant to be nothing more than antagonists for Harry to despise, defeat, or judge.

"This culminated in background characters, who are supposed to be plot devices, looking much more interesting because we don't know much about them.
Heck pre-OotP Dumbledore looks much more interesting than he is, because Jo didn't try to explore his character."

Yes, we were allowed to fill in the characters' "empty spots" as it were, and provide them with our own motivations, background info, etc. But it seemed that nearly every character was already destined to play a role they wouldn't evolve or change out of for the sake of the plot.

I think by OotP, JKR wanted to take her series in a "darker" and more "mature" direction by playing around with the potential for shades of grey, ambivalence, and questioning the world and people around you. But, in my opinion, she never followed through with her potential. She never had her characters mature or develop along with the newfound "dark" tone the books had taken. I think that's why PoA is a favorite for many fans; it's when she peaked with her story and characters.

I have a lot of things to rant about, so maybe I'll post more in the future, but I don't want to over-stuff this community with my frustrations, ha.

Edited 2019-01-09 16:56 (UTC)

This might sound silly, but there is something that was nagging my brain so I'm going to say it: perhaps JKR cannot comprehend how anybody can like Snape because the Severus/Lily/James love triangle stands for something different for her than for us.
You might say 'duh, it's obvious!, but let's look at the characters involved in this affair:
Lily: saint, pure lady of whom love men fight
James: a man who used to be bad, but through his struggles for the lady's love he becomes better man.
Severus: a man who introduces the lady to the court, he doesn't treat her well (from author's perspective), but struggles to keep her by his side.
To me it reads like corrupted version of Courtly Love.
We know that Jo used other elements from Arthurian mythology and that she writes parodies of creatures from fairy tales (poor brownies), so it wouldn't surprise me if in her mind Severus/Lily/James was her reinterpretation of Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot.

I think you make a good point that the Severus/Lily/James dynamic stands for something different for JKR than it does for us. Lily is the pure lady whose heart the two "knights" fight for. James is the immature and boyish but good young man who changed his ways to be worthy of his lady love. Severus is the dark and obsessive young man who chose ambition over love and made himself unworthy of his object of affection.

Nevertheless, even if Snape were irredeemably evil, I'd still find him a more interesting character than Lily or James. Snape appears more in the books than either of them and provides an actual personality and mystery for the reader. James at least is shown to have some personality, but Lily is there to be a morality guide for the men in her life. It's not enough to spark my interest.

Even as a kid reading HP, I felt like a callous person for not particularly caring about Harry's parents and finding Lily's sacrifice nothing special while the rest of the fandom adored them. I did like Sirius and Lupin though, and still do. But I can't find it within myself to care about James/Lily as characters. Any time fans gush over them, my reaction is some variation of "meh." Different strokes for different folks.

Severus is the dark and obsessive young man who chose ambition over love and made himself unworthy of his object of affection.

Heh. This makes him sound like Young Man Ebenezer Scrooge. He obsessed over his ambition and that's why his love broke off their engagement.

I don't think it was a bad idea for Lily to be the catalyst for Snape to leave the DEs. His information, linked to his ambition, put her in danger and, in the end, got her killed. That's a huge wake-up call for anyone. That she remained his only reason for 'being on the side of light' is, IMO, unrealistic.

Well, Snape does have some Dickensian elements to his character, so maybe the Scrooge comparison fits? :p

I'm sorry to say, but I can't find it within me to like anything about the Snape/Lily plot. Having her be the sole catalyst for Snape leaving the Death Eaters doesn't show anything of him questioning the DE's ideologies or tactics. It implies that if it were not for Lily, he would be a happy little Death Eater terrorizing muggleborns. There was no goodness within him of his own personhood; he needed a perfect and pure Gryffindor girl to show him the way.

And yes, it's even more disappointing that Lily remains his only motivation. If he grew beyond her, fine, then maybe I could've stomached Lily being the linchpin for his turn. But he didn't. JKR makes it clear that he does everything for her. He doesn't care about his students, colleagues, the Wizarding World, innocent people getting hurt, Harry, Dumbledore, or even his young Slytherins like Draco. The only thing motivating him to take down a dangerous maniac is... his childhood crush that rejected him and hooked up with his bully? How ridiculous.

And incredibly unrealistic, as you've said. JKR wrote Snape as someone who's spiteful and unforgiving to those who have wronged him. But he never directs his ire towards Lily? The girl who dropped him and presumably never felt a speck of regret for their failed friendship? She's oh so special that even mean and cruel Snape can't dislike her?

And how come no one mentions Snape's supposed amazing tight-knit friendship with Lily? If they were so close, why doesn't Sirius or Lupin say something to Harry? Why doesn't Sirius throw it in Snape's face to get a rise out of him? Why doesn't Lupin (or Peter) tell Harry that Lily had another friend besides the Marauders? Why doesn't Dumbledore early on attempt to manipulate Harry in trusting Snape by mentioning that Snape knew his mother and cared for her? Why don't the Malfoys bring up Snape's dalliance with a mere "mudblood" girl? Or the other Death Eaters like Bellatrix? Why don't any of the Hogwarts teachers who knew Snape when he was a student mention his friendship with a Gryffindor girl? Snape and Lily's relationship was so significant and wonderful that NO ONE has anything to say about it to Harry? Even as an aside?

It's sloppy. JKR took the laziest and easiest route possible with Snape's character and diminished him in the process. I remember after reading HBP and thinking that the two worst things that could be done to Snape is:
1) making him loyal to Voldemort all along.
2) making him in love with Lily and having his entire life revolve around her.

The one positive thing I can say is that at least she didn't give us the first scenario. Or both. That would've been a nightmare of epic proportions....

Maybe being the sole catalyst for leaving the DEs is a stretch, but the Potters' death and Harry's orphaning would be either the pivotal point that led him away or the last straw that made him turn. For a more nuanced character, I'd prefer the 'last straw'. Snape would then have been questioning the DE mentality and his role in it as others were tortured and killed. A young zealot could overlook these things but, as he grows and matures, they would start to bother him, then when his own actions put a friend, or even just someone he knows, whose face he can clearly imagine, in the same boat, the camel's back breaks.

Totally agree that this supposed friendship would have been mentioned at some point, especially when Snape was seen camping out in front of the Gryffindor tower entrance. That's extreme, and it's very noticeable. I could see Sirius especially rubbing Snape's nose in it, and the fact that, as a DE, he'd gotten his best (only) friend killed. In fact, getting his best friend killed and having only one friend are two topics about which Sirius would have waxed long and I could very well see him doing it in front of the kids so he demeans Snape's role as teacher.

Being the hopeful fool I am, I thought Snape would be written in a more nuanced matter. Having everything be all for Lily was too simple. It's one thing, as you've said, if Lily was his breaking point where beforehand he was already questioning the DE mentality and their actions. Seeing his friend in peril would spring him to action instead of merely questioning behind the scenes. But no, Lily was the only reason, and remained the only reason, why he chose to work against the Death Eaters. No questioning of their vile actions and beliefs required. Murder and torture is fun until your pretty crush is in trouble! Jeez, how did Dumbledore end up trusting such a man if a dead woman is all he gave a damn about?

I've read meta and essays explaining how Snape did grow beyond Lily and began to care for others but was too emotionally stunted to see his actions as separate from his idolization of Lily. As interesting as that interpretation is, I don't think JKR intended it. She wrote Snape as a two-dimensional ex-Death Eater who obsessed over Lily and dedicated his life for her. As much as I'd love to think she intended for something more nuanced and different, I don't think canon!Snape was meant to be anything more than a pitiful static Lily-haunted creature. It's probably the reason why she was perplexed (and offended) in interviews when talking about fans liking Snape. What IS there to like about a man who only cares about his childhood crush and nothing and nobody else? Fans, including myself, gave Snape depth and complexity that JKR never wanted or planned for him.

And JKR conveniently having no one mention the friendship or interaction between popular Gryffindor Lily and unpopular Slytherin Snape is unbelievable. It's another example of her being too focused on creating a "sneaky" plot twist instead of writing characters as real people.

Sirius wouldn't have hesitated for a single moment throwing insults about Snape's friendship with muggleborn Lily while hanging out with Death Eaters. If I were in Sirius's shoes, I would've spat in his face how he got Harry's mother killed, his one and only friend. It would've been a spectacular way of hurting Snape and simultaneously making Harry hate Snape even more. But JKR had to keep the Snape/Lily twist hush hush, so Sirius draws a blank on the greasy Slytherin kid being seen with James's future wife.

And the teachers not mentioning anything is even more preposterous. Everyone can talk on and on how Snape and James hated each other, but Snape's connection with Lily is a big secret everyone keeps to themselves. Uh-huh.

t's sloppy. JKR took the laziest and easiest route possible with Snape's character and diminished him in the process. I remember after reading HBP and thinking that the two worst things that could be done to Snape is:
1) making him loyal to Voldemort all along.
2) making him in love with Lily and having his entire life revolve around her.

The one positive thing I can say is that at least she didn't give us the first scenario. Or both. That would've been a nightmare of epic proportions....

Actually in hands of better writer I can see a character like that working quite well and being interesting.
A double agent torn between hating his master for killing love of his life and working with people who try to kill a man with whose goals he agrees.
But for it to work author would need to do quite trough reworking of HP plot and world building. And Rowling sucks at both world building and character development.

I think Rowling is decent at world building - not extraordinary, but decent enough. Although I agree her inability to develop her characters is one of her faults as a writer. JKR's characters remain in relationships and roles that seemed to be solidified at the age of 11. They're not allowed to learn and grow as people. That's why they come across as plot devices or cardboard cutouts rather than real believable people.

And no person in this world, no matter how emotionally stunted they are, would have one single motivation pushing them through life. People are more complex than that. It's one of the many reasons why I hate the Snape/Lily plot line and can't find anything positive about it.

*sigh* I'm not saying that in this scenario Severus has only one motivation in his life, but two conflicting.
An Intellectual one (his career and political ideology) vs Emotional (his emotions towards Lily and Voldemort). This scenario isn't very original, but in hands of skilled writer could be very interesting.
As I mentioned, we would need to change A LOT in HPverse. For example Voldemort couldn't just be this stereotypical cartoon villain, but character with coherent plans and motivations.

I'm not big fan of writers who spend way too much time on world building without proper pay off, but Rowling's world building is bland, unoriginal and boring. Most of it falls into one of 2 categories: either they are borrowed from other place and twisted until they became the most boring and safe version of themselves (Horcruxes, House Elves, Vellas) or they make no sense/don't fit with the rest of world building (Voldemort's ritual).
What else we have? Action scenes? Confusing and/or boring. Interesting plot lines and character development? Nope, rejected in favour of showing off how great is Harry or how much of underdog he is. Riveting dialogue? Good joke!
About the only thing she is good at are descriptions, but even then it's very specific kind of descriptions: idyllic, homey descriptions of life. The best fragments of her books that I dismantled up to this day are description of Diagonal Alley from PS and descriptions of life at Burrow.

Edited 2019-01-14 08:49 (UTC)

I was referring to canon!Snape's motivation being simplistic, not your scenario. I agree with you that in the hands of a more skilled writer, it would be an interesting story to have a character caught between their emotional desires and intellectual beliefs, leading them to go back and forth between two masters. It has potential and certainly would've been more captivating than the flat characterization JKR wrote for Snape in canon.

As for JKR's world building, perhaps I'm being too lenient. I thought books 1-4 did an okay job, especially when they were primarily focused for children. But books 5-7 took a different tone and tried to be mature and present a "bigger" and more complicated world. I do agree there are many problems within Rowling's vision of a Wizarding World. From her portrayal of racism (muggles and muggleborns) to slavery (house elves) and other serious subjects almost being humorized (bullying, child abuse and neglect, etc), it seems like her world is backwards and lacking in innovation. I don't know how to adequately explain it, but the bigger Rowling tried to make her universe, the more lackluster it became. As I've said before, I think PoA was when she peaked in everything she had to offer as a writer, including world building and characterization.

but the bigger Rowling tried to make her universe, the more lackluster it became

At first everything was new, but as she continued to build she does not stop and think - how does this fit in with what I've already established?

If you read fan essays about the world-building of the Potterverse you need to carefully tease apart what came originally from Rowling's writing and what came from stuff fans imputed into it. I think in the early books fans assumed all sorts of stuff based on mere hints, but then when the time came for Rowling to expand on those points it all came out 'not that deep' as kids say.

"It's not that deep" is a succinct yet apt way of summarizing the HP books.

The world, the story, the characters, the houses, the hero, the villain, the conclusion - it wasn't meant to be that deep.

If JKR kept the books as a straightforward fun story set in a magical school where crazy shenanigans happen to the hero, then it would've been fine. But she teased hidden depths, possibilities for complicated moralities, and characters growing beyond what they're meant to be and...never followed through on any of it.

I have to say, I'm thankful I found a place to express my criticisms of the books. I don't hate them; I'll always have a soft spot for HP because of my childhood memories and there are some things I like. But, re-reading the books as an adult opened my eyes to the flaws and downsides.

I've been thinking about writing a post on how strangely JKR treats child abuse/neglect in her books. It unsettled me how Harry's experience with the Dursleys is portrayed as nonchalant or comical while other characters, like Snape and Tom Riddle, have their childhood backgrounds conveyed in a more serious and dire manner. I'm not sure if I want to get too into it but it's been on my mind as one of the many things that bothered me about the books.

I agree with you. I don't find anything uplifting about Snape's motivation being Lily, because of the way that it was presented and the way that it ties into JKR's overall treatment of Snape.

I think that JKR did intend for us to Lily as Snape's only motivation to leave the Death Eaters, and not because of any moral scruples on his part. Every time someone asks her about Snape, she's surprised that people like him.

But I think this all goes back to a recurring issue that started with the first book. Harry learns that Snape wasn't the villain after all and that he was actually trying to save Harry from Voldemort. Does anything change about their relationship? No, because Dumbledore tells Harry that the only reason why Snape did it was because he owed James a life debt. Nothing about Snape's responsibility as a teacher. Nothing about Snape's code of honor or duty. No, don't worry, Harry, that horrible man is still a horrible man because he hates you. And why does he hate you? Because he hated your father. So, it has nothing to do with your own behavior. It's not your fault.

And it's the same thing with Lily. No, Harry, that horrible man doesn't keep trying to save you because, deep down, he actually cares about you (which would disprove your notion that he's an awful man who hates you). Or, again, because it's his duty. No, he just wants to save you because of your mom. Again, it has nothing to do with Harry. Nothing to do with the relationship between him and Snape. It's all about people who are long dead at this point.

Really, the whole state of affairs sounds like a wild accusation that Harry or another kid in his position would throw out at a teacher they didn't like. "You only gave me a bad grade because you hated my dad! You just hate me because you're still hung up on my mom!" Only in Harry's case, Snape really is still hung up on his parents. Which means that Harry doesn't have to reflect on anything.

Also, if we're supposed to be so sad that Lily and Snape's friendship didn't make it because of his bad choices...why doesn't DH show us a Lily who really is nice and kind, who does care about Snape? Actually make us believe that they still would've been friends if Snape hadn't joined Voldemort? Because nothing that we saw in the flashbacks convinces me that any of the above is true. What we see is a shallow and self-righteous hypocrite who hangs around with Snape only because she pities him and he's the only other wizard kid she knows at the time, who doesn't bother to get his side of the story after the Prank, constantly dismisses and blames him when he tries to argue with her, and blindly believes everything that his bullies say. And this is all before she abandons him while he's being humiliated in public and puts a guilt trip on him for calling her a bad word. And she dates and marries his bully not long after, showing that she truly never cared about how James treated her 'best friend'. And yet Snape's supposed to take moral guidance from HER? He's supposed to be inspired by her example of...dumping a friend when he gets 'difficult' and turning a blind eye to awful behavior as long as the bully's hot?

Maybe it's the same problem with the treatment of Peter Pettigrew. Both Snape and Peter are meant to be bad, so every character has to read the script and treat them accordingly. Voldemort can't be wary of Peter, given his history; no, he has to constantly call him a pathetic coward. Lily can't ever show signs of liking Snape, because she's righteous and he's corrupt, so she has to instinctively know that he's bad and browbeat him for his sinful nature. Peter will forever be a coward and Snape will forever be nasty, so he needs a righteous angel like Lily in order to see the light.

I agree with your entire comment! You've eloquently articulated everything I've wanted to touch upon.

The whole Lily motivation made me consider that JKR never intended Snape to be anything more than an evil Death Eater who was "saved" because he chose to worship a Saintly Woman. He can't change or start to care for others because, well, he's meant to be evil to the core with the one special exception for a Pure Lady he puts on a pedestal. He wasn't meant to be complex or complicated: just another bad person to be pitied for his lifelong obsession....

The few times Snape shows concern for his students and colleagues, and tells Dumbledore he tries to save as many people as he can...I guess that was OOC for Snape since JKR wanted his existence to revolve around a dead woman who rejected him. Even Snape's last words have to be about Lily. I preferred the interpretation of "look at me" to be Snape's way of finally asking someone to see the real him and look at him as the man he is, not the role he played for decades. But no, it's gotta be about staring into Lily's eyes. Bleh. Even in death, the pitiful man can't have his last words be his own!

About Harry and Snape: after their duel in HBP, I was hoping for an emotional confrontation between them in DH. Even if it ended up being nothing more than a screaming match, I wanted the two of them to finally deal with their major grievances with one another and find closure. Instead, Snape died and Harry doesn't have to make the difficult choice of interacting with the man face-to-face after finding out the truth. All the possibility for tension, conflict, emotional ambivalence...down the drain. Or rather, down the Pensieve, which allowed Harry to eventually forgive Snape without, ya know, dealing with him in person.

And oh do I have some problems with Snape and Lily's supposed beautiful friendship.

"And she dates and marries his bully not long after, showing that she truly never cared about how James treated her 'best friend'. And yet Snape's supposed to take moral guidance from HER?"

I will never understand how in the world JKR wrote Snape to be deeply spiteful and vindictive to everyone BUT Lily. It makes zero sense to me. If I found out my best friend hooked up with the boy who bullied and assaulted me, I'd be pissed off and betrayed. Lily is rightfully angry and hurt that Snape called her a "mudblood", but Snape is not allowed to be angry and hurt that his close friend is canoodling with his tormentors? He continues to have nothing but undying love for a girl who dropped him for his bad tendencies to go and hang out with... a bunch of bullies with bad tendencies? Even the most decent and well-rounded man would be at least slightly annoyed. But mean and cruel Snape is magically okay with it because, of course, no one can dislike Lily! (Except Petunia, but we're not meant to care about Petunia and she's there to make Lily look more favorable as well.)

"Peter will forever be a coward and Snape will forever be nasty, so he needs a righteous angel like Lily in order to see the light."

At least the men were allowed to have flaws and a personality in the first place. Lily was given neither. As I said in the OP: James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Snape were presented as men who made mistakes. But the sole female character of the group is never presented as making any mistakes? I hate it when a woman exists in a story to be a beacon of light and morality to the men around her rather than being presented as human. The perfect partner to James (doe to his stag), the perfect mother to Harry (Harry criticizes his father but never his mother), and the perfect symbol of Goodness to Snape (because he can't have his own redeeming qualities). That's all Lily represents. And it's damn boring.

As you can tell, I can rant about this all day....

The ironic thing of course is that she actually wrote Severus as the person who did the most to protect Harry, protect students in general from all kinds of (physical) harm, especially in an environment like Hogwarts where it is a wonder that students aren't getting killed in droves. He does so while being insulting so it apparently doesn't count.

In the world of HP, students go to a school where incompetent professors are hired, a basilisk slithers in the pipes, a three-headed dog guards a stone, detentions are spent in a forest, staircases move, ghosts float about in bathrooms, and all sorts of chaotic things are considered acceptable. It makes Snape's vicious classroom behavior seem just as over-the-top as the rest of Hogwarts. It's hyperbolic and fantastical.

(Although, I do find it strange how Harry's background with the Dursleys is written in a black comedy sort of way, while Snape's sad childhood is played straightforward with no humor. Similar to how Tom Riddle is shown to be psychopathic from a young age with no hope of change. But this is a different topic.)

Even so, it's true that Snape protects the students from physical harm. Before DH, I thought this meant the man was a human being capable of caring for the safety of others regardless of how he personally felt about them. He was mean, but not wicked.

But I suppose JKR had a different vision. Any time Snape shows concern for another person, it must be because his guilt over losing Lily is driving him to act decent for a few seconds! It can only be about Lily, not anything else!

I'm being half-way sarcastic, although I seriously wonder if that was JKR's intention all along. "No, Snape wasn't capable of both bad and good; he was ALL bad with his only good quality being love for Lily."

I wish that weren't the case, but I think that's what JKR meant for the character.

/JKR wanted his existence to revolve around a dead woman who rejected him/

He is just never allowed to be given the benefit of the doubt. He went alone to the Shrieking Shack? Oh, it wasn't to rescue the Trio, it was just to go after Sirius and Remus. He hated James? It's just because he was jealous and he should get over his childhood grudge. He made an Unbreakable Vow? It wasn't for Draco's sake, it was part of Dumbledore's master plan. He tightly gripped a chair when he heard that a student had been taken to the Chamber of Secrets? He...actually, I don't know what the fan explanation for that one is.

/staring into Lily's eyes/

To think that when JKR mentioned that Lily's eyes would play a role in DH, fans were imagining all these theories. Nope, it's just that Harry's eyes are the same color as hers. That's it.

/Pensieve, which allowed Harry to eventually forgive Snape without, ya know, dealing with him/

Harry and Snape were simply never allowed to have a civil conversation with each other. In PS/SS, Harry doesn't ask Snape about what happened; he hears all of the answers from Dumbledore, so that's it, as far as he's concerned. He doesn't apologize to Snape or thank him for trying to save his life. They both tacitly agree to keep acting like they hate each other. And every time that Harry feels less than dislike for Snape, it's when he doesn't know who he is or when Snape doesn't look like the man he hates. They were never allowed to just TALK. They either scream at each other or Snape sneers while Harry fumes.

/JKR wrote Snape to be deeply spiteful and vindictive to everyone BUT Lily/

The entire chapter of "The Prince's Tale" read like a fanfic to me. From the cutesy nicknames that Lily gives Petunia and Snape to Snape's characterization, it just didn't seem to fit.

I remember reading a comment from someone about how they'd written fanfics prior to DH that featured the Death Eaters and their reasons for joining Voldemort. In these fanfics, one of Snape's motivations for desertion was his love for his wife (an OC created by the author), who was in Azkaban after Voldemort had framed her. The fanfic author wryly noted that the people who bashed the OC were the same people who loved Snape/Lily when DH came out.

People on the Internet have mocked Snape x Female Character fanfics for years, but at least in those fanfics, those female characters, you know, LIKE Snape? They actually want to be his girlfriend/wife, instead of his judge and prosecutor? I don't see how Snape being in love with someone who doesn't care about him is supposed to be better than a story where he's with a character who does, no matter how badly that story may be written. If Snape had to fall for someone who did nothing but tell him how awful he was, there were plenty of candidates other than Lily.

/Snape is not allowed to be angry and hurt that his close friend is canoodling with his tormentors?/

He's not even allowed to be angry that Remus almost killed him in werewolf form (and that his 'best friend' doesn't care that he could've died). Nobody in the series cares about Snape's feelings.

/the men were allowed to have flaws and a personality in the first place. Lily was given neither/

She was, just not flaws and a personality that I think JKR intended. We're supposed to see her as a strong woman who bravely stood up to that loser Snape who was already in awe of her, bravely talked back to her soulmate without actually doing anything to help the situation, and bravely threw herself in front of her baby without trying to do anything else to stop Voldemort.

/That's all Lily represents/

And when you think about what happened to Ginny, it's almost like her characterization in HBP was foreshadowing, because, in the same way, Ginny is the perfect girlfriend to Harry. She's a pretty and fiery redhead who's quick to put that loser Ron in his place, but stays out of battle when her soulmate tells her to. She righteously attacks the people that Harry dislikes, but she's not a part of the Trio and doesn't go with them on their adventures. And when Harry finds out that she was just using her ex-boyfriends to make him jealous, he thinks it's fine. No doubt James thought the same thing about Lily's rejection of Snape.

"He tightly gripped a chair when he heard that a student had been taken to the Chamber of Secrets? He...actually, I don't know what the fan explanation for that one is."

Well, uh, let's see: Ginny has red hair, and Lily ALSO had red hair, so once he found out the taken student was redheaded Ginny, he really was thinking about, um, Lily being hurt and didn't give a damn that a student was in danger of dying. Uh-huh. Let's go with that. =P

"Nope, it's just that Harry's eyes are the same color as hers. That's it."

Lily and Harry are the only people in the Wizarding World with green eyes apparently. I'm surprised JKR didn't take it a step further and had Snape weep every time he was forced to look at his house colors. "Is that Slytherin student wearing green? Oh no, better be reminded of LILY'S EYES!" (Okay, now I'm being silly, but that's the mood I'm in.)

"Harry and Snape were simply never allowed to have a civil conversation with each other."

Yeah, I found it weird how JKR made the decision to "reset" their interaction back to hostile even after providing Harry with information that Snape wasn't downright evil. Not only after PS/SS, but OoTP too. I thought Harry learning that his dad and the Marauders were less than kind to Snape would be the light bulb moment for Harry to start considering that maybe there's more to Snape than meets the eye. It kind of happened...until Sirius died and then it was back to blaming Snape for everything.

I didn't expect the two of them to have a heart-to-heart session in the middle of school. That would've been too much for either of them, especially for a distrustful and bitter man like Snape. Too much bad blood for that to work. But, as I said before, I did expect a confrontation in DH and was let down when JKR chose to wrap things up between them in a convenient manner: kill Snape, have Harry see the memories, show Snape was working for DD, and...that's it. No conflict, no difficult choices, no closure. It would've been more profound to me if Harry forgave (or at least learned to understand) Snape while the man was still breathing, but oh well.

"People on the Internet have mocked Snape x Female Character fanfics for years, but at least in those fanfics, those female characters, you know, LIKE Snape?"

I'm sure the average fanfic writer would do a better job of convincing me of Snape/OC than JKR did with Snape/Lily. And having Lily call Snape "Sev" was very fanfic-y. The whole concept of poor unattractive geeky boy in love with middle-class pretty popular girl is cheesier than most fanfics I've read.

"She was, just not flaws and a personality that I think JKR intended."

I agree. Readers can interpret Lily having flaws through her behavior in the text, but that wasn't JKR's overall intention. And I never quite got what set Lily apart from other mothers who choose to die for their children. It's something any decent parent would do for their child.

As for Ginny: I was never a fan of Harry/Ginny. I understood the appeal of Ron/Hermione, and at least the two of them got 7 books of build-up, but H/G? Ginny went from being an ordinary little sister to a hot, popular, and feisty Quidditch player with minimal page time. Harry barely acknowledged her existence aside from rescuing her in CoS and conversing with her in OoTP, but by HBP, the chest monster took over and Ginny was his ultimate soul mate.

I do think that JKR wanted Harry/Ginny to be James/Lily Version 2.0. So Ginny had to be made "worthy" of Harry by becoming a fiery, sassy, and athletic witch. Well, sassy enough to be cool but not cool enough to tag along with the Golden Trio and be as important as them. She was regulated to Harry's love interest as Lily was James'.

It was good to get some more Snape-love near his birthday! And I do agree Snape, like every other character, was diminished by DH. I don't agree it destroyed his character, though. A couple of things:

Rowling, whose work is actually very derivative, has two clear models for Snape/Lily. They are Dante/Beatrice and Heathcliff/Cathy. Those are rather divergent models, to put it mildly, and I don't think she ever thought through what her characters would have been like as human beings, rather than pawns on a chessboard.

Here's what I mean. Snape, at 21 years old, realizes he got his best friend killed. Of course he's shattered by guilt! Who wouldn't be? We see Dumbledore coldly and deliberately manipulating that guilt in order to use Severus as his tool. Yet he is "the epitome of goodness" and Severus is "deeply horrible"? Please!

People are complicated, and literary characters should be likewise. Of course young Severus would be shattered by guilt after Lily's death! Of course he would never forget her, and try to live his life in expiation. But--

What sort of person is capable of feeling those things? What sort of person is (1) as a kid, so needy that he clings to Lily like a duckling that bonded to her? (2) So desperate to save her that he risks his own life, twice, to do so? (3) so honorable that he tirelessly works for years to keep his friend's child safe and keep his promise? Again, this is not a particularly nasty, deeply horrible human being. Immature? Unsure? Holding grudges? Juddgemental? Yes, to all of these, but also brave, loyal, and capable of growth.

That's what Rowling actually shows us. Then there's what she tells us. She tells us Snape is guiltier than Voldemort, deeply horrible, motivated only by his love for Lily, and so on. And she shows Lily-shows, not tells-as a fairly commonplace, self-absorbed young woman. We're supposed to think her sacrifice was effective because, unlike the German mother, Voldemort truly gave her a chance to live. But I don't see it.

One point on which we're in full agreement: Harry and Severus should have had an actual confrontation. It was Severus, not Voldemort, who was Harry's adversary. Voldemort was merely a bogeyman. I also think they should have reconciled. Oh, the original confrontation should and would have been violent, for sure. But the whole story, right up to the end of HBP, was leading up to a final meeting between Severus and Harry and a final reconciliation. I also think that Harry should have died, while Severus survived. I was convinced it was Severus who was the "prophecy child", and Severus who was going to kill Voldemort.

Oh, well. I'm rambling. Thanks again for the post.

"We see Dumbledore coldly and deliberately manipulating that guilt in order to use Severus as his tool. Yet he is "the epitome of goodness" and Severus is "deeply horrible"? Please!"

I do notice how in the overall HP fandom, Dumbledore's moral ambiguity is often ignored or more readily accepted than Snape's. Truth be told, I'm perplexed when it comes to Dumbledore and what JKR intended with him as well. I don't consider him the "epitome of goodness" either. He's just as flawed as Snape, albeit with a nicer exterior.

I agree with you that a man who feels immense guilt over the death of his former and sole best friend is not an evil man. He told Dumbledore he wished he were dead instead. Snape spends the rest of his life risking his personal safety and being miserable in exchange for nothing. With Lily dead, he won't get anything from her. Her friendship and approval is gone. Absolution cannot be given by her either. I don't think a man who is horrible with no goodness within him would bound himself to a life with little to no personal reward.

But, at the same time, I don't think JKR meant for Snape's character to be taken that way. As you said, she tells us that Snape is horrible and only motivated to do good by Lily, implying that if Lily were not threatened by Voldemort, Snape would've continued being a Death Eater and wouldn't have cared if innocent people were targeted, killed, or tortured. It's only through Lily that Snape was "allowed" to have a sliver of humanity while the rest of him is nefarious.

And I found it disappointing because I thought Snape was a man capable of bad and good actions on his own. I thought he'd left the Death Eaters of his own volition, even if it started from self-preservation and later evolved in disagreeing with their views. But it seems this wasn't the vision JKR had for him. It was all for Lily. "Always." Ugh.

Lastly, as I've mentioned before, the lack of confrontation between Snape and Harry was also disappointing. All the hatred between them, all the build-up to something explosive after their last duel... and nothing came out of it. You make a good point that while Voldemort was Harry's "bogeyman" or the distant monster he had to slay, Snape was the human adversary in Harry's story, close-by and more personal. To "solve" the animosity between them by having Harry see the truth through a Pensieve instead of forcing them to interact was too convenient and lazy for me. I've read comments from long ago speculating JKR killed Snape off to make things easy for Harry, and I agree.

As for Harry dying, I never expected it to happen. I wasn't moved by Harry's "choice" to die either since it was obvious he was going to live and get his happy ending. There was no suspense in what would happen. He would re-emerge, fight Voldemort, and be victorious.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I have a tendency to ramble on and on. (As I'm sure everyone's noticed!) I'm thankful I've found this community to share my opinions with and read everyone's thoughts as well.

Oh, I'm glad you can see where I was coming from. I don't think I was terribly coherent. The main thing about the way Rowling presents Severus is that it's not believable (the ascribed motivations, I mean, not the actions). And then, as Aikaterini says, she deliberately limits HARRY'S growth. Harry never has to do the hard work of truly reconciling with Severus. He never has to apologize to anyone; he never has to grow up. But I've ranted about this many times.

Don't know if you're into fanfic at all? I have some Snape stories on my live journal, and one of them (written pre-DH) is actually my theory as to where the story would go, and (a bit) why. It's called "The Last Horcrux". Speaking of which, I got mocked by a Rowling fan for insisting, pre-DH, that Harry was the last horcrux. Well, he was, wasn't he?!

I finished reading the fanfic you wrote and enjoyed your portrayal of where the story could've gone in DH! The scene where Snape takes Harry to Voldemort reminded me a bit of Darth Vader taking Luke to Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. One of my favorite scenes from Star Wars is when Luke chooses mercy and compassion over killing his father and giving in to the dark side. He rejects the hatred that Palpatine attempts to inflame within him. In his rejection of violence and revenge, Luke is saved by his father and Vader is redeemed.

One of the things I love about Star Wars is the compassionate view of conflicted "dark" characters. Characters who struggle with their villainy and feel a pull to the light are humanized and shown as capable of being more than the monster they think they're "destined" to be. Sinister men like Palpatine, who revel in their evilness, are seen differently than the men who struggle with it. And the light side characters are shown as flawed and capable of failing others (such as Yoda and Obi Wan). It's, in my opinion, a more emotional and spiritual story than HP.

Ha, sorry for rambling about Star Wars. I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that I sensed a lack of compassion from JKR towards her "darker" characters and the Slytherin house in general. It seemed that, by age 11, you were destined to stay the way you are no matter the choices made later in life. Maybe that's why so many of the characters end up being stagnant; they're already the people they're meant to be the moment their house is chosen for them.

Thank you for the fanfic! The ending was beautifully written. (It also seems you got it right with Snape being bitten by Nagini, although it played out differently in canon of course.)

Oh, I'm so glad you liked it! If you'd like to take a look at the bookends, as I call them--"The Blessing" and "Gift and Burden"--I'd love to know what you think.

And I don't at all mind your rambling about Star Wars! I loved Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi, and also at the end of the Last Jedi. Yes, it's all about compassion, and the realization that (1) you can do wrong even if you're on the right side, and (2) no one is all bad, and redemption is possible. The way Luke reached out to the boy he'd wronged so many years ago, and refused to do him violence, was inspirational to me. The whole time he fought, he was holding out his hand to his nephew, and there was a real choice for Kylo Ren. Just as there was for the boy's grandfather, when Luke himself was Kylo's age.

One of the things that really shocked me, when I suggested an ending like the one I wrote, was people claiming it was derivative. What story isn't derivative in that sense? The story Rowling had written through OOTP actually demanded reconciliation and redemption, and there was none. I've never in my life been as disappointed with a book as I was with Deathly Hallows.

Thanks again for taking the time to read my story!

I found "Gift and Burden" and enjoyed the interaction between Neville and Snape! As much as I like Snape's character, his treatment of Neville in canon was unjustifiably cruel. It's good to see how you handled potential reconciliation between them and how compassionate Neville is. If Snape survived the attack by Nagini, I wonder how he would perceive the fragile and timid Neville in his class to the heroic boy who slayed the snake in battle.

I know many people had a problem with Luke's portrayal in The Last Jedi, and I can understand why, but I thought his confrontation with his nephew at the end was riveting. Luke force-projected himself not only to help the Resistance escape, but also to apologize to Kylo Ren and prevent him from making another mistake. He helped everyone without taking a single life other than his own. His words to Leia "no one's ever really gone" encompasses the hope inherent in Star Wars.

I do think that Kylo Ren will be redeemed in Episode IX, but even if he isn't, I appreciate how much depth and humanity was given to his character.

As for the ending to your fanfic, I fail to see how it could be any more "derivative" than Rowling's epilogue. Her ending was saccharine and simplistic. What do we learn from the epilogue other than our heroes got married, had kids, and everything ended happily ever after?

I remember after DH came out how some people said they were glad Snape didn't survive and reconciled with Harry or other characters because it would've been too "sappy." Well, the epilogue is the epitome of "sappy" to me. "Albus Severus" is sappy. So is the awful Snape/Lily story. Having Harry address the conflict between him and Snape that endured for 7 books wouldn't have been sappy whatsoever; you don't build up a contentious relationship between two important characters and give it barely any closure.

And you're welcome. When I have time, I'll be sure to check out your other works.

Yes! I found the entire thing about Snape obsessed with Lily to be annoying; or, rather, that being such a major part of his character. This is often a problem with thematic writing; characters are shoe horned into being something that essentially stunts that character's development, or deprives them of agency. to make them secondary to another character's story along a theme.

Even with thematic writing Rowling isn't all that great. It seemed that Harry and Hermione was going to be a thing. Rowling instead pairs her up with Ron Weasely. Why? Because of Rowling's real life wish fulfillment. Ron represented some real life guy she had wanted. Which might have worked if Harry, Hermione, and Ron weren't already developed characters.

I didn't like Lily either. Or James. For all the reasons often stated by others. I would have liked Ginny if she were her own character, not grafted onto Harry in the vacuum of Hermione being grafted onto Ron.

I'm glad I never let myself get invested in the characters in the series. I saw early on the direction the story was going and kept disengaged.

I think JK Rowling is decent at world-building, atmosphere, and plot-driven writing, but she's mediocre at character-driven stories and giving her characters growth and depth. And she's terrible at writing romance!

I liked Harry/Hermione when I was younger, but by GoF, it became obvious Ron/Hermione was going to be endgame. I was okay with it, even though I found R/Hr's bickering to be annoying rather than entertaining. All their "sexual tension" felt forced to me. They seemed more like an older sister and younger brother sniping at each other with Harry in the middle.

I know people often criticize Harry/Hermione as being too cliche because of the whole "hero gets the girl" trope. But I find it hypocritical because Ron/Hermione is ALSO a cliche! A guy and a girl who argue all the time but secretly, deep down, love each other? How is that not cliche? Belligerent Sexual Tension is a classic trope found in many romance stories. Not to mention the "funny average guy" paired up with the "studious over-achieving girl" is beyond predictable....

I will give JKR credit for building up Ron and Hermione's relationship over 7 books, so at least they didn't come out of nowhere and spent a great amount of time together. Which brings me to how Harry/Ginny is one of the worst romances I've ever had the displeasure of reading....

On second thought, I'm not going to rant about that. I've ranted all over the place here and it'll take all day for me to be bitter about the awfulness of Harry/Ginny's "romance."

But yes, the female characters get subsumed by their relationships to the men in their lives. Hermione with Ron, Ginny with Harry, Lily with James and Snape.... I would also add Bellatrix with Voldemort, and Narcissa with her son Draco. Not to mention the atrocious way JKR handled other female characters like Cho, Lavender, Fleur, and Pansy. Reading the books as a girl and only having Hermione and Luna as two solid female characters to enjoy made me wonder if JKR had something against flawed yet complex women. But her male characters stay just as stagnant and two-dimensional as well. With the exception of Neville, none of the characters evolve as people.

I think the simplest answer is, she had three main characters, one of whom was a girl. She had one of these characters' little sister as an occasional secondary character that she showed more than she showed other girls. Our Hero couldn't marry outside of this tight-knit group, and neither could the one Sidekick. Sidekick can't marry his sister, therefore he gets the main female while Hero gets the sister.

I think JK Rowling is decent at world-building, atmosphere, and plot-driven writing, but she's mediocre at character-driven stories and giving her characters growth and depth. And she's terrible at writing romance

I've seen other comments that JKR is great observer of people. The people she describes really captivate our imaginations. But her weakness is in understanding their motivations. When she tries to get into their heads is where it doesn't work.

So often find myself thinking, but that does not make sense for the person you decribed to be thinking or feeling that way!

Well said!

Some of the characters JKR created appear charming and/or interesting on the surface. For the first few books, where JKR was primarily writing a story about a naive boy experiencing the wonders and dangers of a magical boarding school world, her characterization was adequate enough.

However, by the time OOTP was written, it was obvious she wanted to take her story on a "deeper" level. Voldemort was back, Cedric was dead, shades of grey were introduced, and new dangers in the bigger and darker world arose. Harry needed to grow up. Her characters needed to mature along with the world she was attempting to broaden. But they didn't.

She forced her characters to stay on their predestined paths. Snape especially was treated more like a plot device in DH. It made me realize that JKR has the characters act a certain way to move the plot forward, instead of writing them as believable people with understandable thoughts, feelings, and motivations.

JKR wanted to have her cake and eat it too; she wanted the cozy and easy morality of her magical boarding school adventures in the earlier books. But she also wanted the praise of being a Serious Adult Writer by introducing heavy themes in OOTP. She failed on both accounts. The easy wonderment was gone and the shades of grey she teased in the later books ended up staunchly black and white - simple and straightforward like her characters.

I've been lurking here on and off for years, and thank you for the above! This is exactly how I feel about the character and how JKR flattened him (and many other potentially interesting characters) out. It really does her entire story no favors. She missed so many fantastic opportunities to explore some fairly complicated moral choices. No one in canon even mentions the traumatic choice for Snape of watching his own students make the same terrible and potentially fatal choices he made as a teen, but be unable to be honest with them because he had to keep his cover for Dumbledore's plan. If he cared about his own students at all, that must have been agonizing. But of course, because they're just Slytherins, they are regarded as already a lost cause and not a true sacrifice.

Thank God for fan fiction! The only consolation I've found for the whole unsatisfying mess was to write my own post-DH stories to have some character growth and resolution. If it helps at all, I've developed my own headcanon over the years, which I've included in my own stories to try to mitigate the awfulness of how DH played out. In my conception, Snape had many reasons for turning against Voldemort, crushing guilt about Lily's death being only one of them (along with seeing Death Eater friends get completely corrupted by violence, or commit suicide by Auror to get out of the cult). However, he knows that when it comes down to getting Dumbledore to believe he's reformed, or to get Harry to trust him enough to carry out Dumbledore's plan, Snape knows that only a simple black-and-white "true love" reason will convince them. He knows that he'll only have a few minutes to get Harry to believe him at the end, and that Harry is completely obsessed with his parents, so leading up to the last battle, Snape has selected and edited and practiced just enough memories to give Harry one narrow view (I <3 your mom!!!) that he'll accept without question.

I mean, it makes sense that he's NOT in love with Lily any more, even if he had a crush on her as a stupid 16-year-old. His patronus is a doe. A shy, gentle, cautious doe. That is nothing like Lily whatsoever. Harry assumes it stands for her, of course, because he views her as James' One True Mate (tm) and James is a stag, therefore Lily is a doe (which is so problematic anyway). But a doe just doesn't fit her character, and Snape certainly would NOT view her as James' One True Mate. So who is the doe? Maybe a close friend from Slytherin whose life was squandered in service to Voldemort? Maybe Snape's mother who had her soul crushed by her unhappy marriage and dead-end life? Or just an aspect of his own personality that he can't express? Who knows? But if he could use Dumbledore's and Harry's assumptions to convince them of his undying love for Lily, and therefore his virtue, so much the better.

Hello fellow lurker!

The Slytherins being treated as a lost cause is strange and unsettling. I find it hard to believe how an eleven year old is already "doomed" just by being sorted into the house of cunning and ambition. Bravery is elevated above all else to the point where Dumbledore's comment of "sorting too soon" to Snape doesn't help the Gryffindor bias within the books.... As if Snape is only "worthy" when he's brave and dedicating his life for another Gryffindor.

It's another reason why I can't stand Snape/Lily. I wanted there to be one major Slytherin character who chose to reject the Death Eaters on their own terms and principles. I thought the message JKR wanted to send with Snape is how a mean bitter man who dislikes children is still capable of having a moral compass and rejecting evil values. I thought Snape was the epitome of the "Good is Not Nice" trope; a man who's harsh and cruel, but not immoral.

Instead, what I got from JKR is the message that Snape's only saving grace was his childhood crush - a pure, perfect, pretty, and popular Gryffindor girl whom everyone adored. I found it so underwhelming, off-putting, and asinine. Everything about Snape's character - his motivations, feelings, and background - became all about Lily Evans. And now that's what his character is known for. "He loved Lily!" Ugh, no thanks.

However, he knows that when it comes down to getting Dumbledore to believe he's reformed, or to get Harry to trust him enough to carry out Dumbledore's plan, Snape knows that only a simple black-and-white "true love" reason will convince them.

I've seen this headcanon before, and I like it as well. I can picture pre-DH!Snape rolling his eyes at over-sentimental Gryffindors and having everything be about the Power of True Love.

I've also seen some fans headcanon Snape's devotion to Lily not being one of romantic love, but rather using her as a symbol of goodness. Since her friendship was the one positive thing in his life, he puts her on a pedestal and deifies her as a saintly figure to follow. I can see that being closer to canon, even though I am not fond of Snape/Lily in any form.

His patronus is a doe. A shy, gentle, cautious doe. That is nothing like Lily whatsoever. Harry assumes it stands for her, of course, because he views her as James' One True Mate (tm) and James is a stag, therefore Lily is a doe (which is so problematic anyway).

Lily's identity being subsumed in relation to James is gross, and I don't even like or care for Lily as a character! And I agree - a doe doesn't suit the glimpses we get of her. When I think of a personality type relating to a doe, I think of someone who is gentle, timid, and sensitive, and that doesn't sound like Lily to me. Lily's seen as fierce, vivacious, and tenacious. Not doe-like at all. She's only a doe because James is a stag; she doesn't get her own identity, which pretty much describes her role as a female character. She exists to guide the men around her without having a personality of her own. Wife, mother, and crush.

And I fail to see how Snape would be comfortable with having a patronus that connects back to James Potter and Harry, since both of them have stags. Congratulations Snape, your One True Mate is a Potter. :p

But seriously, I don't like the idea of "soulmates' being expressed through patronuses (patroni?). Does this mean Hermione's otter patronus turned into a dog to match Ron? And is it always the woman in a heterosexual relationship who gets her patronus changed to match her male partner, just as we see with Tonks having her patronus change into a wolf to match Remus?

Also, how did Dumbledore and the rest of the Order not know about Snape's patronus? Did he never communicate with anyone using it? I'm imagining Snape sending a message to Sirius with his doe patronus and Sirius flipping out. That's a scene I'd want to see. Ah, missed opportunities.

Anyways, thank you for your response! I enjoyed reading it and I'm grateful to hear from others what they think about this topic.

Edited 2019-01-18 14:03 (UTC)

Thank you! Exactly: the missed opportunities!

I think that's what keeps me in the fandom and writing stories: the missed opportunities. I can see the series as starting with fairly simple morality and choices and getting slowly more complex as the books went on... but that just never panned out.

Just imagine what we could have had if Rowling actually got close to addressing the Slytherins as human characters - a fantasy series examining how teenagers get targeted and radicalized by extremist groups, and how hard it is to get out again. Instead we got the ridiculously reductive black-and-white House morality that no one in the series questions because the author doesn't question it herself.

And then there's Rowling's very simple conception of love, or maybe that should be Love. It's pretty clear that she was going for a "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" thing with Harry. But of course, isn't it in fact a greater love when someone lays down their life for their enemies, just because they know that it's right? And that's what Snape does(and even Draco got close to this, risking his life to not identify Harry).

Oh, the patronuses... I think I remember Rowling saying something very silly in an interview at one point about how Snape is the only Death Eater who has a patronus (because Evil People (tm) have no happy memories??? Who knows.) I can kind of see that if a patronus is a generated by a very happy memory, and you happen to be head-over-heels in love with someone when you're casting and use a memory of that person, then the patronus would be a symbolic representation of that person or relationship. I remember one fanfic from way back that managed a plausible explanation of the doe as a genuinely sweet friendship moment when young Snape and Lily found an injured doe in the woods and healed her... but really, I think all Snape/Lily patronus explanations have to be a bit forced because of Rowling's sloppy characterization. I prefer to think of the doe as a representation of a hidden part of his own personality that he never gets to express.

Ugh, anyway, I could go on for quite some time on all the missed opportunities and bizarre choices (don't get me started on the stupid elder wand, my friend).

I can see the series as starting with fairly simple morality and choices and getting slowly more complex as the books went on... but that just never panned out.

Exactly what I think! It's so frustrating going from the potential for maturity shown in OOTP to the disappointment in DH.

Just imagine what we could have had if Rowling actually got close to addressing the Slytherins as human characters - a fantasy series examining how teenagers get targeted and radicalized by extremist groups, and how hard it is to get out again. Instead we got the ridiculously reductive black-and-white House morality that no one in the series questions because the author doesn't question it herself.

Yes to everything here. It seems that JKR never planned for her Slytherin characters to be anything more than antagonists for Harry. They're a myriad of bullies, villains, cowards, bastards, buffoons, and faceless goons.

Regulus Black and Slughorn are often given as examples of "good" Slytherins, but Regulus is deemed heroic for his sacrifice, not for any typical traits associated with Slytherin. And Slughorn, despite his niceness, is portrayed as bumbling, vain, and too focused on status. To be fair, Slughorn does stay behind at the Battle for Hogwarts and I believe is the only Slytherin to do so. Even so, exceptions are just that - exceptions. Similar to how Peter Pettigrew is the sole example of a bad Gryffindor because of his cowardice.

Overall, Gryffindors are overwhelmingly shown as the good guys while Slytherins are either the bad guys or just plain unpleasant and/or pathetic. Harry's choice to reject Slytherin in the first book is seen as the right choice.

And then there's Rowling's very simple conception of love, or maybe that should be Love. It's pretty clear that she was going for a "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" thing with Harry. But of course, isn't it in fact a greater love when someone lays down their life for their enemies, just because they know that it's right? And that's what Snape does(and even Draco got close to this, risking his life to not identify Harry).

Rowling's idealization of love confuses me. Her depiction of romantic love comes across as adolescent and static. The person you become infatuated with as a child or teen is the person you'll be stuck with for the rest of your life. Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny, James/Lily, and Snape's unrequited love for Lily - all of it seems so... humdrum (for a lack of a better word). Even the "side" relationships the characters have (Ron/Lavender, Harry/Cho, Hermione/Krum, Ginny/Dean) are treated as superficial because their "rightful" mate has already been chosen from the first meeting. I don't know, maybe this is just my way of saying that Rowling's vision of romance is not interesting enough for me. And if she struggles to follow through with her characters as individuals, the romances suffer for it too.

And motherly love is placed on a pedestal to the point where Merope is admonished by Dumbledore for daring to die in childbirth, while Lily is exalted for doing what nearly every parent in the world would do for their child. Every time I read that passage in HBP where Dumbledore tells Harry that Merope "never had your mother's courage" it makes my blood boil. The fact that JKR places so much praise on sacrifice and throwing one's life away rubs me the wrong way. Except, of course, that praise does not extend in a profound manner to "unfavorable" characters like Snape.

Oh sure, Harry calls the man brave and names his son after him, but Harry is never forced to reconcile with Snape while he's alive. It's easy to idolize an unpleasant man who died in a war, but it's not easy to look the same man in the eye and accept him for who he is and what he's done, both terrible and valiant. I am convinced that JKR killed off Snape to make it easy for Harry and to avoid any teamwork or equality between a Gryffindor and Slytherin.

And yes, compassion for one's enemies is a almost a requirement for the good guys. Everyone has compassion for their friends and loved ones, but it takes real maturity and willpower to extend compassion to the people who are in conflict with you. Harry gives Voldemort a chance at remorse, but we all know that it's an empty offer. Voldemort is beyond saving. For the most part, empathizing with one's enemy and seeing them as human isn't given much weight in the long run. Harry isn't forced to concede on his views of people whom he shared mutual hatred with. He pities Draco and forgives Snape, but neither has any impact on the overall story or Harry's growth as a character.

Oh, the patronuses... I think I remember Rowling saying something very silly in an interview at one point about how Snape is the only Death Eater who has a patronus (because Evil People (tm) have no happy memories??? Who knows.)

I remember that! You would think that even "evil" people have the capability to feel happy like everyone else on the planet, but apparently not? Bellatrix seemed pretty damn giddy at times to me. But she's evil, so any happiness or love she feels is rendered irrelevant. Evil people aren't human, after all....

And that's a cute idea of Snape and Lily healing a doe. Maybe if their friendship was shown as an actual friendship instead of Snape clinging onto a girl who was too good for him, maybe, just maybe, I could've warmed up to it. But, to me, it's another example of a Gryffindor being too Good and Pure for the Dirty and Doomed Slytherin....

As you can tell, I can go on and on too. Sorry for the long response, I couldn't help myself and was forced to split it into two parts! (I'm with you there on the elder wand. The whole business with wands and wand ownership in DH was needlessly convoluted.)

DH was so frustrating for me because it felt like JKR chickened out of things the entire rest of the series had been leading up to. Well, it started before that when she decided not to kill Arthur in OotP, I think. But in DH she really yanked all the characters back into the outline she sketched out years earlier instead of letting them end up where they'd naturally evolved. So Dumbledore is a dubious character... but it doesn't matter, because his plan still worked and was the best. The kids are all hardened by living in the ruthless wizarding world and fighting a war, but that isn't damage, it's heroism! Harry never learns to reach out and ask for help.

I am with you on killing off difficult characters being a cop-out. I feel like she took the easy way by killing Snape, and Lupin too.

And would it have been so hard to add just a few sentences rounding out Snape's motivations somewhere in the course of seven books? Even things we wouldn't catch until we'd read the end and could look back and re-evaluate? Like, yes, Voldemort is getting a lot of his friends killed, and others are turning into much worse people, and listening to one of them gleefully recount torturing Muggles drives home how wrong this all is... and then he gets Lily killed, and that's the last straw.

And he could have resented her for a few years for abandoning him and marrying his bully, but still been torn up over her death--that's the kind of thing that sometimes makes people remember the better times and regret not doing things differently. Given that "don't make me hex you" are words most people wouldn't ever put in a character's mouth unless they meant to signal "Future Domestic Abuser Here," Snape could wonder whether Lily's life was awful by the end, and whether she might not have been as vulnerable to James's manipulations if he hadn't hung out with baby Death Eaters. He could have looked at Voldemort and Dumbledore both recruiting schoolchildren and getting them killed and decided to do whatever it took to end the war. There were so many missed opportunities.

But in DH she really yanked all the characters back into the outline she sketched out years earlier instead of letting them end up where they'd naturally evolved.

I read somewhere that JKR wrote the epilogue and kept it a secret for over a decade before she finished the series. If that's true, I can see how she would try to keep her characters as static as possible to fit the exact ending she had planned.

The reveal of Dumbledore being morally dubious was an interesting facet of his character, but you are correct in saying that it doesn't matter because he's still positioned as being the good and kind mentor figure whom Harry (and the reader) should listen to.

While I agree with wanting Harry to put aside his pride and acknowledge that he needs help, one other thing I wanted the most from Harry was for him to stand on his own feet and make decisions without idolizing an authoritative or parental figure in his life. As a young boy, it's understandable he would see Dumbledore and his parents as infallible, but his journey to adulthood should've involved him questioning the people he saw as foolproof in their virtues. Instead, he walks off to his death obediently, has the spirits of his parents giving him encouragement (which I found creepy rather than comforting, but that's just me), and peacefully interacts with Dumbledore in the "limbo" area of King's Cross.

The idolization of these figures in Harry's life keeps him child-like, in my opinion. Even in the epilogue, he names his children after the dead. James Sirius, Lily, Albus Severus.... It should be a nice sentiment, but it falls flat for me. And while I understand that naming his child after Dumbledore and Snape was a way of honoring and forgiving them, I think it would've made more sense to honor them some other way. Maybe a funeral or mourning scene where Harry could speak in recognition? I think that would've been more mature and appropriate.

And I think presenting the Golden Trio as hardened rather than damaged is unsurprising. It's rare for heroic main characters to be shown experiencing the negative symptoms of trauma or abuse. Harry can grow up with the terrible Dursleys, go through near death experiences, fight in a war, see his friends tortured and killed, cast Unforgivables, and walk off to his death and be perfectly fine (with the occasional mood swing or reckless behavior). Harry should've been emotionally and mentally run-down and hurting, but heroes are only allowed to be good survivors - the kind that rarely show long-lasting pain or negative effects on their psyche.

I am with you on killing off difficult characters being a cop-out. I feel like she took the easy way by killing Snape, and Lupin too.

Snape being dead made things ridiculously easy for Harry and JKR herself. No need to figure out how to integrate this messy, complicated, remarkably flawed, and problematic man into the overall story and ending; just have him standing there, waiting to die. It made no sense to me why Voldemort would sic Nagini instead of using his trademark AK to take down Snape, nor did it make sense how Snape didn't have a back-up plan to get the necessary info to Harry. If Harry hadn't been conveniently around the corner, he wouldn't have gotten the memories from Snape and known the truth.

And poor Lupin and Tonks. Tonks had to be killed off by association. I know it was JKR's way of showing the senselessness of war, but I'm sorry, I find that excuse boring. Yes, boring. Everyone already knows war brings senseless deaths. Children know this. Adults know this. None of the deaths were shocking to me because they all happened to either peripheral or easily disposable characters. The Golden Trio are safe from the senselessness of war.

Lastly, I'm with you on how JKR could've added more to Snape's motivations. Resenting Lily but regretting his role in her death, disliking the horrors of the Death Eaters, disliking being a pawn to two masters, wanting to end the war not only for the sake of others but for his own sake and finally being free to live his own life - so many possibilities for Snape's character to be deepened. But nah, let's have it all be about Lily and his never-ending devotion to her. Nothing else matters.

Harry only ever seem to be able to work with people as either a child hoping an adult will solve everything (I think you're right about that--and it's an understandable place to start), or as a closed-off person who has trouble interacting with his peers as, well, peers. Which, again, is an understandable starting place, given his upbringing! It would be hard for him to see anything other than "with me or against me."

I think what's missing for me is catharsis. Harry starts out damaged, and a lot of his behavior is consistent with that--but he's still in the same or worse state when the main narrative ends. I don't expect him to have resolved all his emotional issues while fighting Voldemort, but some narrative acknowledgement, some beginnings of healing or at least a sign that it's possible, would be nice. Instead it just stops when the plot runs out.

If she wanted to show the pointlessness of war, and thought killing Arthur would be too distracting in OotP, why not kill Arthur and Molly along with Fred in DH? (Or one at a time throughout the book, even.) Then Lupin and Tonks could live to struggle on instead of being conveniently tidied away, and we could still get some tragic supporting character deaths. Harry trying to comfort Ron would be more meaningful than wondering if he can get a sandwich, too. And instead of killing off Charity Burbage at the beginning, someone whose name we've never heard before, what about someone we know?

At least we have the handy excuse for Snape that he only had time to give Harry the memories with one simple motivation Harry could understand. He could have had others. It's not like he'd sit and have heart-to-hearts about it all with Dumbledore, either. But it would have been nice to get more hints in the books. Things we'd only notice in hindsight, at least.

I don't expect him to have resolved all his emotional issues while fighting Voldemort, but some narrative acknowledgement, some beginnings of healing or at least a sign that it's possible, would be nice. Instead it just stops when the plot runs out.

I think that's one of the reasons why I dislike the epilogue (besides the overly cloying nature of it). It's an opportune way of JKR relying on telling rather than showing us. She tells us that "all was well" rather than showing the aftermath of the war. She tells us that Harry has forgiven Snape without showing us the process he went through to get there. She tells us that Harry is content without showing us how he healed after the hardships he went through.

I understand JKR can't spend hundreds of pages displaying every little detail or introspective moment in Harry's life - I get that. Nonetheless, it would've been nice to have maybe once small chapter showing the efforts to rebuild and reconstruct and what it means for Harry and others.

If she wanted to show the pointlessness of war, and thought killing Arthur would be too distracting in OotP, why not kill Arthur and Molly along with Fred in DH? (Or one at a time throughout the book, even.)

It's interesting how the only Weasley she was capable of killing off was the "spare" twin (as cold as that sounds). I think it's because the Weasley family is effectively Harry's family at the end and his key to a happy ending. Killing off too many of them or the parental figures would've been too much for Harry to deal with (along with Ron, of course). Lupin and Tonks were easier to dispatch and put aside. Their deaths were treated as almost an afterthought.

And speaking of Molly, she could've died trying to protect Ginny in the duel against Bellatrix. To this day, I still don't understand how a housewife was able to take down a dangerous and skilled witch. I'm guessing it was JKR's way of showing Bellatrix's hubris in her sadistic glee of the fight while further celebrating the power of motherhood and love. Can't have the bad guys be competent or skilled, I suppose....

I may be imagining this, but didn't JKR admit one time that she considered killing one of the Golden Trio, specifically Ron? I wonder how that would've gone. I like Ron, but I would've been more shocked if she actually went all the way with her "senseless" deaths and knocked off someone who wasn't easily disposable to Harry and/or the narrative.

At least we have the handy excuse for Snape that he only had time to give Harry the memories with one simple motivation Harry could understand. He could have had others.

Yes, he couldn't have shown Harry everything in his life. It at least gives us a chance to fill in the blanks and try to expand his existence beyond Lily.

It's so painful though; I remember reading fanfics and speculation back in the day and people had all sorts of backstories for Snape and his decision to part with the Death Eaters, work for Dumbledore and gain his trust.... I don't think I'll ever stop being bitter over JKR choosing to make everything about Lily. If anything, my bitterness has grown. Guess I can't let go just as Snape couldn't :p

Edited 2019-01-22 09:31 (UTC)

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Why DH left me disappointed with one of my favorite characters

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