‘Given Lupin’s position in society… the power balance still tipped in his favor.’
Exactly. You’ve just admitted the imbalance existed, which is literally the whole point. You can’t simultaneously acknowledge a structural power advantage and then pretend it’s somehow irrelevant because Tonks ‘could make her own decisions.’ That’s not empowering her, that’s ignoring how those imbalances work in practice. You’re not being progressive; you’re recycling the same tired ‘well she chose it’ excuse that gets used to handwave predatory behavior.
‘Apparently it’s not just the books you haven’t read…’
Cute projection. But unlike you, I actually grasp what I read. You claim Lupin’s redemption arc is returning to his wife and resolving ‘inner character conflict’, as if the bare minimum of taking responsibility after bailing on a pregnant partner is some heroic beat. That’s not redemption, it’s cleaning up the mess he made.
‘Lupin is open about the wrong James commits…’
Except he isn’t. At no point does Lupin properly condemn James’s sexual humiliation of Snape — which, yes, is what public stripping is — and instead stays firmly in the ‘boys will be boys’ lane. The fact that you think ‘he’s not the one who said Snape hung out with Death Eaters’ counts as moral integrity is… interesting. Silence in the face of abuse isn’t neutrality, it’s complicity.
‘There is no evidence Snape was victimized into joining the Death Eaters…’
There’s plenty of evidence of how isolating environments, sustained abuse, and lack of social safety nets push marginalized people toward extremist groups. Not all Slytherins joined — true — but pretending Snape’s choice happened in a vacuum and had nothing to do with the sustained campaign of harassment from two wealthy, socially untouchable classmates is willfully ignoring how radicalization actually works in real life.
‘Harry took the most risks…’
Harry was literally the Chosen One. The entire prophecy put a target on him from birth. Snape chose — voluntarily — to operate as a double agent, constantly risking exposure and death to protect the exact people who still despised him. That’s a different category of risk: one you opt into for no personal glory, knowing you’ll be remembered as the villain.
‘Snape is the only teacher who appears as a student’s greatest fear…’
And? The Boggart scene with Neville says more about Neville’s own trauma responses than it does about Snape being uniquely monstrous. Being someone’s worst fear doesn’t automatically make you the most cruel, it makes you the most intimidating to that person. By your logic, Voldemort isn’t even in Neville’s top spot, so clearly he’s not that bad either, right? See how silly that gets?
‘Snape is literally obsessed with Lily… creepy & obsessive…’
You’re flattening guilt into obsession because it fits your narrative. Snape’s last act isn’t ‘creepy,’ it’s tragic: a man whose entire life since that moment has been driven by self-recrimination, asking for a glimpse of the only person who ever treated him with genuine kindness before his world collapsed. If you can’t tell the difference between longing for forgiveness and romantic obsession, maybe sit out of the psychology debates.
And no, liking complex, morally flawed characters isn’t about ‘sanitizing’ them. I don’t deny Snape’s flaws, I understand where it comes from. The difference is I can hold two truths at once: that trauma shapes behavior without excusing it, and that systemic class and social disparities matter when we talk about conflict. You seem more interested in reducing people to one-dimensional morality tests you can ‘pass’ or ‘fail.’
You can keep trying to paint this in black-and-white if it makes you feel better. But it’s telling that you call this a ‘redemption arc’ for Lupin while refusing to acknowledge that Snape’s entire adult life was one long act of penance.
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