Friends Don’t Lie @ahsokalivesbitch - Tumblr Blog

Being a Snape fan does not mean we automatically like Snily.

crmediagal

my-cruel-nightmare

Lily wasn’t a good person

After watching the entire Harry Potter series again. I am now just very shitty at Lily. To not only pretty much bail on her past best friend from childhood, but to do that with the boy who bullied that friend. This type of person is one that I can’t stand. It also seems to be very typical of Gryffindoers who never get a bad rep for anything.

I find Lily very difficult.

Because on the one hand, Snape is NOT her responsibility. And y’know, the lad is clearly a difficult person to be friends with; he comes from a troubled background, he’s actively bullied by the people she lives with (and he retaliates - perhaps giving himself a reputation), and he socialises with people who despise her for being a Muggleborn.

Lily says, “None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you.”

…and let’s be honest; if Lily met Snape in the first year after they were sorted, they probably wouldn’t have said more than three words to each other. They met through circumstance, and Lily was drawn to Snape because he could explain the magical world when nobody else was able to do so. Once they got to Hogwarts, Snape was no longer special - and all of the flaws that were earlier outweighed by his magical ability suddenly returned to the fore. As a wizard vs a Muggle, he’s interesting; as a wizard pitted against another wizard, he’s full of faults.

…but the bit that slays me is the imbalance. Because Snape clearly believes that they’re still best friends, even right up to their fifth year. He’s obviously got no frame of reference - which is a bit heartbreaking - and hasn’t realised that she’s merely placating him, because I think it’s fairly clear from that same passage that she’s moved on from him, and she’s probably thinking, “Why doesn’t he get it?”

Which is absolutely Lily’s prerogative; I’m not criticising her for doing so.

But…I can’t resolve in my mind the fact that she dates his bully. It’s not a Snape vs James thing, it’s not saying who she can date or who she can’t…but I cannot think of a circumstance where I would date someone who mercilessly bullied my best friend, or even my ex-best friend.

So I see it in two ways. Either Lily was ignorant of the extent of the bullying - which is possible; she clearly witnessed a bit, perhaps she thought James bullied everyone in a similar fashion and Snape didn’t tell her how bad his particular experiences were.

Or, Lily wasn’t really Snape’s best friend, and wasn’t ever that attached to him. And then perhaps she retrospectively justifies James’ early behaviour based on what Snape later becomes, fully believing that James has turned a corner (which we know he hasn’t, because he continues bullying Snape) whilst Snape has careered off down a dark path.

Either way, the series broadly paints Lily as a saint, and any discussion of her decisions seems to result in a howling of derision, because she’s never critiqued within the text.

gawaincomic

Lily never being critiqued in the text is a huge problem for me. I never wanted to believe there was anything going on between Snape and Lily based on the Worst Memory, because I find Lily problematic in it. I never found her as ‘decent’ as Harry made her out to be. I can’t read that scene without seeing it as Lily basically performing some sort of mating dance with James and using Severus’ situation as an occasion to impress Potter. What does it for me is this passage:

“James whirled about: a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside-down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants.

Many people in the small crowd cheered; Sirius, James and Wormtail roared with laughter.

Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said, ‘Let him down!’”

So, you see your friend being humiliated like that, and you have to suppress a smile at the sight? Wow, Lily, I’m impressed. Not.

To me, Lily seems a light-hearted, charming sort of girl whose affections just aren’t very deep? I don’t think she understood the effect on Severus of the Marauders’ bullying, or of his parents’ neglect, because she never experienced anything like it. That doesn’t make her a bad person, to be sure - Snape has an awful lot of baggage and I’m not sure I can expect a young girl to deal with that. But if I’d been in Snape’s position in the Worst Memory, and my ‘best friend’ is struggling not to laugh at my utter humiliation, I would have called her the worst name I could think of too. And I would have regretted it afterwards as well.

Yes, it bothers me as well. In fact, it bothered me so much, I wrote a very long theory about it earlier in the year.

But given Lily’s reaction in the Prince’s Tale scene prior (where they argue about Mulciber/Avery and Potter/Lupin), I’m hardly shocked. Her reaction then is not one of a best friend, no matter what she insisted.

autumnferret3

Amen! Ppl with their Gry were perfect nonsense. I dont approve of how she cast him aside once she was at school. She knew his upbringing and yet…ugh!!

The note of caution I would add is that we aren’t shown how much Lily knows about his upbringing.

Severus tells her that his parents argue, and we know that he visits the Evans house…but it’s entirely plausible that Lily never steps foot over to his side of Cokeworth and never has to face the reality of what his upbringing means.

It’s therefore plausible that Lily brushes off the domestic unrest in Severus’ house as being the same as when her parents bickered over the cost of the MOT for their car - because she doesn’t have the frame of reference for it.

It is, of course, also equally plausible that she knew exactly what went on. But importantly, I think, we don’t know for certain; the text doesn’t tell us enough.

And of course, although I or you may find Lily’s behaviour somewhat distasteful, she has no obligation towards Severus; she does not have to be his friend, and she is within her rights to cut ties with him. I think it says something interesting about Lily that I personally read her as having emotionally cut her ties much sooner, but she doesn’t make it explicit and public until he does something that warrants and justifies her dropping him.

I find Mr and Mrs Evans to be rather fascinating, in all honesty. On paper, they appear to have two very different daughters - and as adults, you would think that they would understand the social cues from Severus - the unwashed, unkempt appearance, the ill-fitting clothes, the scrawny physique. I often wonder what they made of him.

gawaincomic

I am tempted to compare Severus to a doggie that Lily has petted because she’s good-humoured and nice, but then the doggie keeps following her around ALL THE TIME and what was good fun at first grows annoying after a while :/.

I think you are right and that Lily doesn’t appear to have been thinking of Severus as her best friend for a while before the Worst Memory. It seems very likely that Lily having met other wizards and witches, Severus isn’t as exciting a friend anymore. The dynamic has shifted too: before, the authority (knowledge of the wizarding world) was with him; at Hogwarts, it’s with her (she is popular, accepted and recognised, whereas he is unpopular and considered a freak - in some ways he is even a misfit in his House). She no longer needs him, whereas he needs her very much.

At the core, they don’t have much in common. I can’t really see them becoming friends without their initial isolation in Cokeworth. I’m not saying “she cast him off because he is no longer useful/exciting”, because I don’t think she’s nasty or manipulative or something. It’s just that at Hogwarts it becomes clear how mismatched they actually are. That is, it becomes clear to her, but never to him.

Yes, the Evanses. Who are those people who raised both Petunia (!!!) and Lily? XD (I have always felt they were partly to blame for Petunia’s unpleasant personality because they made her start out in life with such a horrid name. Seriously: “Meet our daughters, Lily and … Petunia.” I know I’d feel resentful too :P.)

mollymcgiftens-deactivated20200

^^^^^^^^^^

All of this.

Yes Lily really did treat Severus more like a dog than a friend.

I think there is additional naivety of Lily that’s never called on: good example is the way she thinks Snape can order other Slytherins but she won’ lift a finger about Marauders. I would agree she saw good in everyone - to a fault even, when she saw good where there was none.

I think she never realised how much Snape must’ve lost to just stick with her. He probably had no other friends because he decided to publicly stick to Lily Evans: muggleborn and Gryffindor.

He clinged to her so much because he had no other opportunity until she cut her ties off.

stelamaris

Snape did have friends in Slytherin before Lily ended their friendship. They’re explicity mentioned in The Prince’s Tale. Lily doesn’t ask Snape to ‘order’ them, she asks him to consider that his friends are using Dark Magic and his immediate response is “What about Potter and his mates?” On the defensive, not listening to what she’s saying. If Lily didn’t care about Snape, she wouldn’t be arguing with him over that and trying to make him understand why she’s upset.

And Lily does lift a finger against the Marauders, she argues with James about what he’s doing and tells him to stop, right up until Snape calls her “Mudblood” and then she’s done with him because that word confirms all her worst suspicions about what he’s become.

It’s hard to be friends with someone when they hang out with people who despise you, someone who won’t even listen when you point out that these people are bad news but who obsesses over another group of people even though they’re not half as bad.

Do you know a phrase ‘show, don’t tell’? It’s used when author of any story (movie, comic, book, etc) says something in the text instead of writing how it happens.

Like Rowling wrote Lily saying Snape hung around with Death Eater, but never showed it in any instance. We only have proof that Snape is as close to Mulciber as Lily is to Marauders: that is they share a house. Everything else is gossip or ‘he said, she said’ with nothing to support in actuall text.

Like Rowling wrote Lily tried to help Severus, but all she did was stood there and bicker with James without even using expelliarus. What we see in the text is Lily wanted to smile at public sexuall assault.

Rowling never wrote that Severus Snape was friends with Dead Eaters or that Lily did more than make herself look good.She could’ve. Before public assault James or Sirius could say ‘X r Y won’t stop us now’ - it would show Severus had any friend other than Lily outside of biased gossips.

When Lily came she could shoot expelliarmus to stop any more spells being thrown in (let her even do it on Severus) - it would let Harry connect to her with it and we would see her actually interfearing instead of throwing some empty word next to Marauders doing what they want either way.

stelamaris

Lily is a truthful character. She doesn’t lie. You can criticise the ‘show don’t tell’ method of writing but there’s no reason to disbelieve Lily because Snape doesn’t correct her or contradict her when she calls those people his friends. He doesn’t say “they’re not my real friends” or “you’re my only real friend” or anything like that, he changes the subject. Sirius also says in GOF that Snape was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all became Death Eaters, he may be biased but we see from later books that he wasn’t wrong.

Lily doesn’t ‘smile at sexual assault’. I assume you mean James trying to take Snape’s underwear off? Lily’s already gone by that time. Her expression twitches as if to smile after James flips Snape upside down - but just before that, Snape had managed to bloody James’s cheek so it’s plausible that she’s smiling at Snape getting his own back. She tells James to let him down, he does so; when Sirius curses Snape again, she yells and gets her wand out and both Sirius and James look wary, which indicates that she’s hexed them before. James takes the curse off then Snape insults Lily and Lily says “fine, I won’t bother next time”, yells at James again and leaves. She didn’t need to use a spell to save Snape because her words were enough. She was able to get them to stop without using magic. It’s only after Snape grossly insults her that she washes her hands of his defence and walks off.

Let me make it clearer: as Rowling wrote it, Snape Had NOT FRIENDS other than Lily simply because nobody but her came in when Snape was assaulted in public. We see him having no friends, so Lily saiying he has is just ‘she thinks’ contradicting ‘what happened’.

More than that, Severus asking about Marauders alludes to him having no more power over Slytherins as Lily has over Marauders. He shows her same sutiatin she talks about, not changes subject.

And I’m talking about James Potter forcing Severus to strip after he immobilised him. Lily wanted to smile at that - and in what sutiation being publicly hurt by people she knows target Severus is funny?

And she does nothing meaningfull. With ther next to them, James Potter suffocates Severus and doesn’t even bother with finite. It’s done using cleaning spell, so ew can stop with ‘but only dark magic is evil!’ already.

stelamaris

Snape’s Slytherin friends were nowhere to be found when he was being attacked but who knows, maybe they were in lessons or in other exams as they were older than him.

Snape tries to use the Marauders as a comparison but them sneaking out at night is not the same as using Dark Magic, which Lily points out. Then she mentions James Potter saving his life and Snape becomes incoherent with bitterness and dislike. Lily says that she knows James Potter is an arrogant toerag but that’s not the same as Avery and Mulciber and she doesn’t understand how Snape can be friends with them. Snape doesn’t even hear her.

I’m talking about James Potter forcing Severus to strip after he immobilised him.

And as I’ve already stated, Lily wasn’t there by that time, she had stormed off. The impulse to smile happens earlier.

With ther next to them, James Potter suffocates Severus

If you mean when he uses ‘Scourgify’, that is the moment when Lily steps forward and yells at James to leave him alone.

It’s done using cleaning spell, so ew can stop with ‘but only dark magic is evil!’ already.

Dark Magic is evil. That’s a fact of the series. And Lily doesn’t have to use magic to save her friend when her words and outrage are enough to defuse the situation. Her stepping forward and defending Snape shows that she’s still his friend, why does she have to use Expelliarmus or Finite Incantatem to prove it?

literallyjustmemyselfandi-deact

James Potter immobilised Snape and forced him to take off his clothes - there is no magical ‘only full nudity counts’ when it comes to forced removal of clothes.

He did it in front of Lily - to which she came and told him off. Then she saw James Potter suffocate Severus and told him off again. We SEE that her ‘talking’ doesn’t do anything because James attacked Severus AFTER she told him off while she was still there. He’s back to sexuall harrasment right after she walks away (which says even more of her shalow character than anything else).

Her talk does nothing.

She culd have used expelliarmus. I’m not saying attack anyone - just disarm them. To actually stop the situation, not jut jump to partake in it.

And unless you can explain what exactly is Dark Magic and in which ways is it different from other magic (how is Sectusempra worse than Diffindo for example - something Rowling never did, but feel free to try), Severus’s argument is sound and it’s Lily who doesn’t listen to him.

smuglyslytherin-blog

Not to forget that as a prefect she was obligated to stop the bullying. Instead she was flirting with James. Severus has no friends who would stand up against the Marauders - not even Lily. Her assertion that he is friends with Death Eaters wannabes is just an assumption on her side. Snape probably talked to them, since they are in the same house and share a room, but in no way is he responsible for their misdeeds.

brokenwandmirror

#harry potter#severus snape#anti lily evans#anti marauders

From my part, I’ve never thought Lily was the saint everyone makes her into. I just think she was friends with Snape out of pity, and to know about magic and Hogwarts… Then when they go into Hogwarts she keeps being his friend out of pity, but she’s not into it, that’s why she laughs when James was threatening to take off Snape’s pants. If I had a “friend” like that, I think I would have broken the friendship right away. Everyone keeps saying Snape was toxic to Lily yadda yadda, but I don’t think Lily was a very good friend too, Snape-wise. Also that sentence ‘people can’t believe I’m even talking with *you*’. Wow. get off your high horse Lily? That’s not nice. And they were in 3rd years, if I’m not mistaken, so there’s not even the ‘bbbbuttt Snape woz DH gnegne’ excuse. It’s because he was a Slytherin. If Snape had any other friends and a supportive system, he would have probably let go of Lily with time. Well, he kind of did, actually. He choose his way, he choose to be a DH despite Lily saying she didn’t like it. So yeah, Lily was not a good friend match for Snape. I don’t think their friendship was that deep or pure or honest.

my-cruel-nightmare

Lily wasn’t a good person

I find Lily very difficult.

Lily says, “None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you.”

Which is absolutely Lily’s prerogative; I’m not criticising her for doing so.

Either way, the series broadly paints Lily as a saint, and any discussion of her decisions seems to result in a howling of derision, because she’s never critiqued within the text.

gawaincomic

“James whirled about: a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside-down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants.

Many people in the small crowd cheered; Sirius, James and Wormtail roared with laughter.

Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said, ‘Let him down!’”

So, you see your friend being humiliated like that, and you have to suppress a smile at the sight? Wow, Lily, I’m impressed. Not.

To me, Lily seems a light-hearted, charming sort of girl whose affections just aren’t very deep? I don’t think she understood the effect on Severus of the Marauders’ bullying, or of his parents’ neglect, because she never experienced anything like it. That doesn’t make her a bad person, to be sure - Snape has an awful lot of baggage and I’m not sure I can expect a young girl to deal with that. But if I’d been in Snape’s position in the Worst Memory, and my 'best friend’ is struggling not to laugh at my utter humiliation, I would have called her the worst name I could think of too. And I would have regretted it afterwards as well.

heapoftroubles

Today I saw someone calling that single fucking “mudblood” word b u l l y i n g of Lily. Well, poor Hogwarts students are not enough for them anymore. I honestly do not know how un-empathic you have to be to come up with something like that. Holy Sally, if I was humiliated and hurt and publicly displayed, while that Prefect (a fucking authority figure whose duty it was to do something) was discussing her dating preferences I would definitely call her a mudblood. And a bitch. And a whore. And a moron. And many other things, honestly. Even them I wouldn’t be a bully. I didn’t have power over her, I was was in stress and had a pretty good reason to be. One word that was later apologized for can NEVER be bullying. Proposal: Severus could not end his friendship with Lily. Based on how Lily act in SWM, It was done long before that.

smuglyslytherin-blog

And this is why I don’t give a single fuck about Snape calling her a Mudblood. He never used it again afterwards and only Lily’s pride was hurt, never her feelings.

my-cruel-nightmare

Lily wasn’t a good person

I find Lily very difficult.

Lily says, “None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you.”

Which is absolutely Lily’s prerogative; I’m not criticising her for doing so.

Either way, the series broadly paints Lily as a saint, and any discussion of her decisions seems to result in a howling of derision, because she’s never critiqued within the text.

truth---hurts-deactivated201502

One clear sign that Snape and Lily’s relationship was pulled out of Rowling’s ass, it was never brought up by out side parties. Dumbledore never used it for Harry to trust Snape. Sirius never used it to be dick. Remus never mentioned it without thinking.

From the first book it was hinted that Snape would always be a good guy, but I think that Lily crap was added in the last minute with little thought to Snape’s character.

I don’t think so. Alan said that JKR told him something that made him think differently about Snape, I don’t think it was simply “Snape is not a bad guy” but something else, probably that? And anyway that was like a big revelation after all, a bit pointless if the others characters told Harry before those final chapters of DH. My 2 cents.

mrs-sardonicus

Well, Snape made Dumbles promise not to tell anyone, and this time he kept his promise… Sirius and Remus..? Who knows. I think she said herself that she told Alan R about it at the beginning (even tho he won’t talk about it), but I agree the execution of it as something that just ties it all together and explains everything is a bit clumsy / sloppy-feeling almost. (Exhibit A all the ignorance on display on this site in reaction i.e. “Creepy” “NiceGuy TM”…) I think also it allows the point to be missed that there could have been more motivation to it than just her & her son because once Dumbles reveals that Harry is to die anyway, he could have just walked away at that point

I’m pretty sure a shady, but helpful guy like Dumbledore would find a way to mention it to Harry…or at least get him to ask questions. Then again Harry is a dumbass, he probably wouldn’t even notice what Dumbledore is talking about.

mrs-sardonicus

Hmm yeah this kind of thing is where they start to look less like real human beings in hindsight… what would be cool is if she would have hidden little sly hints throughout the books that people say about Lily and/or directly or indirectly about Snape with the intention that Harry puts 2 + 2 together but he never does, until the Prince’s Tale is a big reveal of all those comments that sailed over his head lol

slythindor-khaleesi-394-deactiv

This is what I mean how it feels like it was added at the last minute regardless of Snape’s character. It just doesn’t add up.

And its frustrating to me at least, because I know Snape has some major potential as a character.

I was looking for fan art and suddenly it just hit me again what a disgusting mary-sue character and awful support Lily was for Snape. And then right after that I felt happy I don’t have a thing for tragic otp’s.

truth---hurts-deactivated201502

From the first book it was hinted that Snape would always be a good guy, but I think that Lily crap was added in the last minute with little thought to Snape’s character.

Rowling told Alan before the seventh book I believe. I mean he read the final book before it came out. And when I say last minute without any thought to it, I mean like in the fifth book.

Hardly a big revelation when Snape’s Worse Memory implied it to us that there was something before that…Just looking back on it, their friendship didn’t seem put well together and other than plot convenience, I don’t see why it should have been hidden. It just makes the whole thing hallow.

truth---hurts-deactivated201502

From the first book it was hinted that Snape would always be a good guy, but I think that Lily crap was added in the last minute with little thought to Snape’s character.

This is what I mean how it feels like it was added at the last minute regardless of Snape’s character. It just doesn’t add up.

And its frustrating to me at least, because I know Snape has some major potential as a character.

Being a Snape fan does not mean we automatically like Snily.

crmediagal

From the first book it was hinted that Snape would always be a good guy, but I think that Lily crap was added in the last minute with little thought to Snape’s character.

tayefeth

Also, JKR didn’t like Snape and didn’t understand people who do, so the possibility that Snape might have changed sides and protected Harry because it was right thing to do didn’t occur to her.

nerdbgone