Why do you like Severus Snape?
I covered most of the reasons here, but there are a few things I could add.
First of all - to me, he’s the most relatable character in the series, with all his flaws and whatnot. I will honestly say that I wouldn’t have answered this way if anyone had asked me about it 17 years ago, when I first got the books in my hands. However, sometimes understanding and realisation come with time. They surely did in my case. (Plus, the series was never the same in my eyes after I started working as a teacher.)
Second, Severus is so human that it’s almost scary. I sometimes think that many people (if not all) notice some bits of themselves in him (on conscious or subconscious level). Some of them accept the truth and perhaps try to change if they notice Severus’ worse traits in themselves; some others hate that truth so much that they project on Severus their own self-hatred.
Third, on my worse days, when things get to me too much, Severus is like the light in the darkness. If he could go on, so can I.
Fourth, Severus is like ogres and onions - he has layers. Many of them. You may take one layer after another, going deeper and deeper, and there still is no guarantee that you will know the real man as there are so many aspects of him. Some he shows, some he hides and some other he uses as a smoke screen to hide something else. And all of this is something that definitely appeals to me, because I like solving puzzles and I easily get bored with characters (and people) which I can see through easily.
Fifth, Severus is far away from being perfect and this is precisely what I love the most about him.
Something about the way Rowling wrote him makes him leap off the page, almost as if he’s fighting the author for autonomy. He seems to fight, from the very beginning, against the constraints of the story, and what is expected of him. Rowling almosts insists to draw him in tragic lines, and he rails against it, kicking and sneering. You can almost feel the internal struggle Rowling is having with him, as he refuses to be what everyone wants him to be. There’s something very inspiring about a character, who honestly shouldn’t even have survived childhood, who obstinately refuses to quit even when logic and circumstances demand it. He’s similar to Harry in that way, and perhaps Tom Riddle as well, the abandoned boys. They are mirrors of eachother, asking the reader to examine what suffering, human frailty, and a need to survive can do to a person. It lobotomized and tore away at Riddle’s soul. It elevated Harry, ultimately making him greater and more compassionate than his parents. Snape is somewhere inbetween these extremes. He suffered, and he struggled, and he fell…and got back up again. Even after all his mistakes, and a life lived in doubt and despair, he still fought for what he believed in, for a love that was beyond him, and that elevated him, and even in facing a ruthless and ignoble death head on…he found triumpth. You get the sense Rowling didn’t write him to be anything more than a one-note, bully of a teacher at first, and somehow Snape folded his arms, stared right back, and snarkily objected.
YES. I try to refrain from psychoanalyzing authors, so if this veers out litcrit and into amateur psychology, smack me. ;)
I think Snape got away from Rowling, yes–like many of the best characters do–but I also think that Rowling is herself conflicted about Snape. On the one hand, she’s said that she based him on a teacher she disliked, out of “revenge,” much to the teacher’s dismay–see the post on John Nettleton that was floating around. On the other hand, if you read the post on John Nettleton, you discover that he was a good teacher who employed her (newly dead at the time she was writing) mother as a lab assistant, and went out of his way to make the lab and school accessible for her (she was disabled). I found myself wondering if Snape’s love for Lily was based on Nettleton’s kindness towards Rowling’s mother. According to the article that was floating around, Nettleton remembered Rowling fondly and thought she was a bright student, but apparently that’s not how Rowling perceived the situation. Obviously, I don’t have enough information to speculate as to why they’d perceive the situation so differently, but Nettleton was apparently a bit socially awkward and Rowling was a child, so that could certainly explain it.
Leaving biography aside, Rowling seems… very conflicted about Snape. Her interviews are a bit contradictory at times. Apparently, the “Is Snape a hero?” answer changing was because someone explained to her that in the US “hero” means “someone who does heroic things,” while apparently in the UK “hero” means “role model.” And she’s very determined to insist that the character is gray, rather than black or white. But there’s something in the tone of her answers sometimes that makes me feel like she simultaneously loves and hates him and has trouble sorting those feelings out.
But generally, yes. Characters get away from authors. It happens to me all the time, and that’s when I think the good stuff happens. :D And I believe that he very much got away from her.
In other words: What @raven-star7 just said.
I also try to refrain from going all psychological about authors (mostly because I feel uncomfortable doing that to someone I don’t know), but I’ve been thinking about this since I wrote the post about John Nettleship and I’m so on board with yours and @raven-star7 replies here. I didn’t want to expand on it before, but this looks like a good place for that.
From what I read, John was a really severe teacher. He was an enthusiast of the field, had a lot of ideals about teaching and really wanted to help his best students to suceed. But that also means he pushed them. He’d see Rowling, a good and quiet student, and pressure her to answer questions in class. Being exactly like that when I was in school, I can only imagine how terrifying it may have felt for her. He was also very strict and critical with students who seemed to not be willing enough to learn, because (as the article I was referencing put it) he thought “people ought to be interested”, they ought to learn, he didn’t understand why it might be necessary, or possible, to persuade them into acting on their own best interest. He didn’t know how to be persuasive, so he was abrasive (sounds so much like the behavior of someone we know towards, let’s say, Neville, doesn’t it). Also, it is mentioned that John was going through a really bad time while JK knew him, to the point of people around him at work being wary of him, because they never knew when any contact could cause him to suddenly lash out. He was both described as a great teacher and as a scary, intimidating one by ex-students. Interestingly, even though she had problems with him and his teaching style, JK also voluntarily took optional evening-classes in Astronomy with him.
So I just get that apparently JK had really conflicting feelings about him, gratitude, admiration, fear, anger and whatnot. And of course she was an adult writing the books but whatever memories and impressions she had of John was through her perspective as a child, that probably helped lend some grandiose features to the character.
And as you all said, I feel like this is all there with Snape. The ambiguity. He not only stirs the same reaction to those around him in the book, but in the reader as well. It’s a hard to ignore character, most people seem to have a strong opinion about him. There are other characters I really like in the HP series, but no other feels as alive and human as Snape to me. I think it’s really amazing what JK accomplished with him.
Earlier today I was trying to explain to someone how I love Snape way more than the Harry Potter series itself, how I feel the building of this character in particular is on a completely different level of everything else JK Rowling did in there, and just how important personally it was for me that I came across him when I was young. Then I remembered this post. I haven’t really been here for a while, but had to come find it and reblog it again.
