An Analysis on Severus Snape

okay so today we are going to be talking about Severus Snape and when I just announced that I was doing this video didn't even state an opinion on him people were already duking it out in the comments so this should be fun so Professor Snape is a character that I have always hated growing up as a kid I saw him as a person in a position of power that was belittling humiliating and bullying children pretty easy guy to hate and I have carried those opinions throughout my life but with this last reread of the Harry Potter series that I did which if this is your first video of mine I have a whole playlist full of Harry Potter videos as I went through this last reread of the Harry Potter series and with this last reread I wanted to go in with a fresh perspective I wanted to erase all the opinions that I had previously of him and I wanted to go into this reread very open-minded and try to figure out what I think of Snape without any bias which is why in all of my review videos of all of the books I've refrained from talking about Snape at all or at least hardly at all and definitely haven't put in any opinions about him because I wanted to wait to form my opinion about him until I reread all seven books and then decide so during this reread I have written down every single scene that Snape shows up in or is talked about in every time that his name appears I took down a note and then after I was done reading through the series I spent two full days ignoring work and instead spending the entire day rereading every single scene that Snape showed up in in seven books and I started to wonder what am I doing with my life analyzing a fictional character this much but I'm actually really glad I did because I have some thoughts during this very long process of analyzing Snape I have some thoughts and I'd like to share with you a lot of scenes that Snape is in I want to dissect his motivation his character his actions and what seems to be his mentality and then I want to talk to you about the conclusions I've come to and then we'll have a civil cordial and respectful discussion in the comments I'm gonna ask that you stick with me for a little while here because I am going to go through a lot of Snape scenes and I'm gonna be brutally honest about them the good and the bad and what they mean so if you're extreme on one side or the other of Snape you're not gonna like when I'm being honest about my evaluations for the other side but stick with me and then once we've looked at all of his actions I'm gonna talk about what to me that means first nape we are going to start in Snape's childhood so I'm not talking about this chronologically for the books but chronologically for Snape we're gonna start with a childhood and we're gonna work our way through his life Severus Snape is a young boy coming from a difficult household he has mismatched old clothes that are either too big or too small his parents fight constantly he even at one point says dad doesn't like anything much we first meet him spying in the bushes on the girls and we have several lines that show us that he's been doing this for a while he tells lily that she's a witch and immediately makes friends with her but he's also immediately at odds with petunia which is both of their faults this is shown through them bickering every time they're together that we see and him even accidentally causing her physical harm he does go poking around petunias room at one point and shows Lily what he saw therefore driving an even bigger wedge between the two girls and he also shows that he doesn't have a lot of value for petunia due to her being a muggle and says things that shows his prejudice toward muggles and Mical borns pretty early on in his life we get a few scenes from lily and Snape as young kids and it's evident his very strong affection for Lily as well as his care for their friendship but the first big scene that we get from them is in Hogwarts and it's when Lily is confronting Snape about his friends she says why do you hang out with those people they're practicing dark magic on people he says it was just a laugh and she tries to explain to him that practice dark magic on innocent people is not something to laugh at and then he shifts gears talking about Potter cuz he knows that James has a crush on her and when she validates that she's not interested the conversation is over for Snape he doesn't really care about fixing his behavior he only cares that Lily isn't going to leave him essentially then again speaking in chronological order for Snape we have the scene where Sirius is bored and so James and Sirius attack Snape for no reason when challenged about why they're doing this James even says it's more that he exists if you know what I mean they knock him down bind his body make pink soap suds come from his mouth and mock him in front of a crowd then they let him get up only to knock him back down then they hang him up by his ankles showing off his old underwear and continue to mock him after Lily makes them put him down when James says that he's lucky that Lily was there to defend him snakes response is I don't need help from a filthy little mudblood this obviously hurts Lily a lot and then James hangs Snape upside down by the ankle again and says who wants to see me take off Snape's pants or underwear for you Americans we don't know if James did take off Snape's underwear or not but either way basically if you want to boil this down to muggle terms essentially what they did was knock him down when he wasn't doing anything and then kick him on the ground teasing him in front of a laughing crowd and then disrobing him this is more than just bullying now lupin does offer a little bit of an other of another perspective he does later on say that that was the most popular spell in school when they were kids you couldn't walk down the hallway without somebody getting hung upside down by their ankles and that Snape attacked James unprovoked as often as James attacked Snape unprovoked which does give a little bit of a counterbalance to that one-sided memory however Snape was ganged up on humiliated in front of a laughing crowd which I don't think Snape could have done to James and repeatedly tried to stand up and then just get knocked back down over and over again which is just it's just as much as what Lupin said adds a little bit of perspective it actually doesn't change that much anyway fast forward a little bit snake does try to apologize to Lily he says that he didn't mean to call her that and she basically says I'm out of excuses for you I've been defending you for years my friends don't understand why I'm still friends with you and then she even says you're trying to join a supremacy group that wants to exterminate my people and he doesn't deny it because he really does want to join Baltimore and become a Death Eater despite the fact that this supremacy group wants to kill her he again tries to say I didn't mean to call you that slur though and her response is what does it matter you call everybody else of my birth this word what's so different about me might as well start calling me that too fast-forward some more Snape is now a Death Eater he has officially joined the supremacy group he is actively working under foldy and we watch him while he's spying on Trelawney's meeting with dumbbells he overhears part of the prophecy and then goes running to his master to send him to kill some random people this is important because Snape couldn't care less of innocent people die as long as he's serving his master until his master's actions actually affect him and his master goes after someone he cares about now Dumbledore does try to explain this to Harry when Harry first finds out that Snape did it and he's furious and Dumbledore says but he didn't know he had no possible way of knowing which boy Voldemort would hunt from then onward or that the parents he would destroy in his murderous quest were people that Professor Snape knew that they were your mother and father which isn't a good defense at all he was fine with the murder of innocent people until those innocent people were people that affected him then suddenly he cared it's not a good defense stumbles fast forward again state finds out that lily is gonna die he's terrified and he goes to Dumbledore asking for help Dumbledore says could you not ask for mercy for the mother in exchange for the son he said I have I have asked him you disgust me Dumbledore says you do not care then about the deaths of her husband and child they can die as long as you get what you want hide them all then keep her them safe please and what will you give me in return anything so Snape couldn't care less about this innocent child that's gonna be murdered all he cares about is protecting the woman that he has loved his entire life never mind that her husband and her child will be murdered as long as she's safe he couldn't care less which is a pretty selfish love he doesn't actually care about her happiness at all he only cares about his happiness in keeping her alive yikes so Baltimore does actually try to do this favor for Snape and he does tell Lily to stand aside multiple times and because she's a human she refuses and protects her son she dies Snape is sad he goes back to Dumbledore and Dumbledore says you know why she died make sure it's not in vain help me protect Lily's son he agrees but tells Dumbledore never to tell anyone this is when Snape officially changes sides his actions the cause that he has been supporting has finally affected him and he sees how horrible it is and he changes sides so that he can protect Lily's son we'll dissect that more later right now we're just focusing on actions now we're gonna go through the books I'm gonna go through all seven books of big scenes with Snape big moments of seeing his actions or his motivation we're gonna look at the good and the bad that he did and it's not just one good act if we will see multiple good things that he did I wanted to spend extra time on how he started and what he became because I think that that's really really important now we're gonna look at who he was all throughout the books and I'm gonna move through these a lot faster than I did this first bit so I'm gonna start out actually really quick by saying I've heard people say then oh well you know we get everything from Harry's perspective and so it's very one-sided and probably really exaggerated and Snape really only picked on Harry and his friends he probably wasn't this way to all his students and I'm sorry but I'm gonna prove you wrong he was mean to every student that wasn't a Slytherin but anyway in the very first class that Harry has with Snape he already starts in on him calls Harry out right from the very beginning and says oh our new celebrity trying to already kind of knock him down even though Harry hasn't done anything to show that he's has an inflated head at all and Snape knows that Harry's coming from an abbey of home but Snape Rd has an idea in his head I'll show that in a minute then he just immediately starts quizzing Harry asking him very specific questions and when Harry doesn't know the answers he says Oh didn't bother to open a textbook before you came which Harry internally says well I did I did look through it but I didn't memorize it in that same first lesson Neville messes up and hare and Snape snaps idiot boy at Neville then turns on Harry and snaps at him and yells at him for not helping Neville or warning him that he was doing the wrong thing even though Harry wasn't even Neville's work partner he accuses him of intentionally letting Neville do wrong because he thought that it would make Harry look good if another kid was humiliated which is just baseless obviously and then after his lesson Harry tries to tell multiple adults that he's pretty confident that Snape hates him and both I think it's Percy that tells him and I know Hagrid does as well they both basically just say oh no Snape hates all his students don't worry and that's just in the first book but multiple times throughout the series adults continue to tell Harry no that's just Snape he just acts that way to everybody the fact that people just brush off that this teacher is so cruel to all of his students is not awesome but it also shows that Snape is mean to everyone except slytherins then we're going to jump to book seven when we're in Snape some memories again and it shows Snape from book one where he's pacing Dumbledore's office accusing Harry of a buncha staff Dumbledore puts it best you see what you want to see Severus and that's exactly what happened Harry walked into Snape's potion class and Snape already determined what kind of kid Harry was and started treating him as such never giving Harry a chance to just be his own person he assumed that he was James now let's talk about the good that Snape did in this book because contrary to popular belief he didn't have one good act at the end of his life that was supposed to be his Redemption he did a lot actually in book one Quirrell is trying to buck Harry off of his broom Snape is muttering a counter curse the entire time trying to protect him then at the next Quidditch match Snape was refereeing which made him really unpopular with all the teachers because they all thought that he was doing it to sabotage the Gryffindor's but actually he was doing it trying to prevent quarrel from trying anything like that again we also see Snape cornering Quirrell and trying to figure out how much he's learned about how to get to the stone he's actively trying to prevent Quirrell from getting there specifically only because Dumbledore told him to and when Quirrell lets a troll in on Halloween because apparently every adult in this series is an idiot nobody seemed to put two and two together and think hey Carl put a troll in the dungeons to protect the stone maybe this is squirrel two only snake snakes the only one that figured it out so he went running to the third floor corridor as well to cut quarrel off and keep him from being able to get to the stone which was his intent when he left the troll in keep in mind that Snape didn't become a double agent until the end of book four now Dumbledore did very strongly suspect that Voldemort was coming back and Snape did trust Dumbledore a lot so I'm sure he anticipated that as well but it's very clear that that's not why he was so horrible to his students he did that because he was a mean guy and it's also clear that he wasn't just protecting Harry for his double agent status either he he had his own he had his own motivations for absolutely everything he did in life book 2 we meet Snape again at the at the gates for the castle when herring it round crash a flying car into the whomping willow Snape immediately starts accosting them accusing them putting words in their mouths and trying to get them expelled that's a theme with Snape he is constantly trying to get these kids expelled even though he's also constantly trying to save Harry's life he's a weird guy again when Harry is found with the petrified mrs. Norris Snape immediately says oh well maybe Harry was in the wrong place at the wrong time but also probably not I'm pretty sure he should be expelled and then we also have the scene in book 2 when Lockhart decides hey let's have a Dueling Club even though I don't know how to duel Snape can be my assistant don't worry I won't hurt him so then Snape it's Lockhart with a spell much harder than he really needs to which is fine Lockhart deserved it he grabs Harry and Malfoy pairs them together and then and then when Lockhart says hey Neville do you want to be my example Snape of course has to humiliate Neville because that's his favorite pastime and then says No Malfoy Harry you should be the ones on stage and then he whispers to Malfoy a spell that he should use during the stool which he knows Harry can't defend because the second the snake is out mouth or Snape immediately goes to get rid of the snake he literally just did it to mess with Harry even though that snake isn't part of what they were supposed to be doing in the duel he he just he set it all up just so he could mess with Harry but that's pretty much all he did in book two now book three let's start with the good things he did in book three despite Snape's hatred for Lupin which I can accept because even though Lupin didn't bully Snape he was a passive onlooker and didn't do anything to try to stop his friends it seemed in that memory and I think it's quite clear that Lupin feels terrible about that Lupin kind of takes all of Snape's abuse and everything that Snape throws at Lupin that year he takes it with a lot of grace and even makes excuses for him that year and in later books as well and I think it's in large part because he really well know I know it is because he actually says in one book that he really regrets how passive he was and how he just let this stuff happen and never tried to be an influence for his friends so I think in large part that's why Lupin handles Snape so well and with so much grace but regardless that was kind of a tangent regardless Snape despite his hatred for Lupin which I get he's still all throughout the year I'm sure by double-doors request makes a potion for Lupin to make his transformations less horrible and he brings these potions to lupin without being asked even when lupin forgets to take them he still brings he forgets to take the potion he still brings it to him at the end of the book Snape also tried repeatedly to warn Dumbledore that he thinks that Lupin is letting is letting Sirius into the castle when they all thought Sirius was a bad guy now this is also jaded with his own ambitions against the people that he hates but this is also a theme that we see with with Snape all throughout the series we see him repeatedly going to Dumbledore and trying to warn him when he thinks something is wrong because really Snape is kind of Dumbledore his right-hand man throughout the series that we don't realize it until the end and he goes to Dumbledore with all these warnings partially because he's bitter and some of it is definitely jaded but also because Dumbledore really really trusts Snape I think that says a lot now we have all the bad of Snape in book three which is undoubtedly Snape's worst book we see more favoritism toward the slower ends we see more of him constantly picking on other students but gotta be one of the worst scenes when Neville is again really struggling with a potion specifically because he's so terrified of Snape that he's jittery and not thinking straight and we see that we see this I believe it's in book six when Slughorn comes into into the scene and both Neville and Harry start doing much better at potions under Slughorn's care because they're not being bullied constantly throughout the class anyway Neville is in pieces and Snape is making it worse does anything get through that thick skull of yours and then when Hermione politely offers to help he says I don't remember asking you to show off he then follows up this wonderful display by telling the entire class at the end of class I'm gonna feed this potion to Neville's toad and if I get what I want if going back when he happily goes to feed the potion to the toad at the end of class and the toad actually does shrink like the potion was supposed to do Snape looks sour and then takes five points from Gryffindor because Hermione helps him and he didn't want her to we also have the scene where Lupin takes all the students into the teachers lounge to have them face against the bog art as a great teaching moment and Snape is still mad about not being able to kill Neville's toad in front of the class so instead he just settles for humiliating him in front of the class possibly no one's warned you Lupin but this class contains Neville I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear and then we get to see that he is Neville's boggart he's the one thing that Neville fears most in his entire life his teacher once again this speaks volumes we see a few scenes every book of Snape prowling around being real pissy and snapping at everyone that looks at him not wearing green robes actually they're all wearing black robes but you know slytherins and we know that a large part of why Neville is so bad at potions is due to the harassment of Snape but finding out that this man has a has harassed the at this point thirteen-year-old so so badly that this kid is more terrified of this teacher than anything else in the world man that speaks volumes and then later in the book Snape takes over lupins class and we have this whole sleeking where Snape is just whining and talking bad about Lupin and how bad of a teacher he is and he didn't leave any notes for Snape to go off of about where the kids are hermione tries to explain to him oh I can tell you what we've done so far and Snape cuts her off and tell her no I don't want to know I just want to complain about Lupin so then just NAIP jumps to the back of the book because he wants to teach them about werewolf's cuz he wants to out lupin so then he starts asking questions about werewolf's Hermione's hand shoots up Snape says oh no one can answer this Hermione's hands hand is still up Snape says how pitiful that not a single student knows the answer and then Hermione says I know the answer and tries to give it Snape snaps at her humiliates her in class it's his brand and then they just sit through the rest of the class taking notes from their textbook while Snape prowls up and down the aisles critiquing their work that's already been graded by Lupin and talking about how bad of a job he did at grading them because this work is obviously terrible and these students are awful students and then the whole scene in the whomping willow oh man it's hard it's a hard one to look at because I kind of see both sides of it again I understand Snape's visceral for the Marauders and yeah all that was when he was a kid but scars of abuse run deep and I don't I don't fault him for still really harboring bad feelings for the Marauders I I would hope I would want him to find some sort of healing and it doesn't seem like he's found any but at the same time I get it and I don't hate him for it you see Snape just about lose it where he's so excited that he's caught serious that he's saying stuff like vengeance is sweet he wants to go take serious as well as Lupin and have them both be kissed by Dementors without a trial without turning him them into the appropriate figures because he's just so excited to kill them that he doesn't want to risk losing that moment and he's just going to kill him even though they haven't had a trial especially Lupin Oh I could unpack for another 20 minutes because his pain is mixed in with his hatred and I don't think it's okay for him to want to kill these people without a trial but I do understand the level the intensity of him in this moment what I don't forgive him for is uh Harry when everybody's trying to explain to him no you missed part of this conversation you don't understand the full extent of what's going on and he won't hear it Harry confronts him and Snape says you would have been well served if he'd killed you you'd have died like your father too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in black again this is a 13 year old kid I know that Harry doesn't treat Snape well at all throughout this series either but I forgive him for it because it started with Snape he was immediately bullied by Snape and so this child's visceral for the teacher who was horrible to him from the moment he met him I understand but Snape telling a thirteen-year-old child you would have done better to have died like your father Wow and then of course Snape is just furious when the whole time Turner thing happens and you know these innocent people are set free in fact he's so furious that he lets slip that Lupin is a werewolf therefore making Lupin out of a job and actually it's really bad because we already know that werewolf's are under a lot of prejudice in this world Lupin comes into the school in ratty old clothes looking well under fed and slowly throughout this book we see him starting to look better nourished now that he's had a few solid meals in his system we can see that he's had a rough go for a little while and it's because this world doesn't trust werewolves and he can't get work if people know that he's a werewolf and they basically ruined that for him he let all these students and their parents know that Lupin was a werewolf so now he can't work at the school anymore he's not gonna be able to find another job and he's going to go back into a place of poverty and Prejudice that he doesn't deserve and Snape just did it because he was mad it's really messed up man book 4 when Harry and Malfoy attacked each other in the hall right in front of Snape's class and then Snape sup and he's like what's going on and everybody's shouting that they did it that person did it that person did it Harry spell hit oil Snape looks like oil sends him off to the hospital wing Malfoy spell hits Hermione her teeth grow all the way down to her collarbones Snape looks at Hermione and says I see no difference and then Snape and then her mind he runs away crying then later Harry has a magazine that he's reading under his desk because it says some bad things about him and Snape reads it out loud to the entire class because he feels like humiliating him that's pretty much all we got from Snape in book 4 to negative scenes that at this point are just typical Snape still not cool but just more bullying of his students book 5 we have a really important Quidditch match coming up and the silver ants have started attacking Gryffindor's in the halls and he doesn't care and in fact he ignores 14 eyewitnesses when they tried to bring it to him because his hatred does not start and end with Harry it is for every student that is nota Slytherin oh and then you also have the scene where Harry actually Snape started ignoring Harry and leaving him alone in lessons because he was so mad at him and then Harry was actually able to produce a good potion out of not being harassed during class time so Snape smashed the vial on the ground and gave him a zero because he felt like it he's a good teacher he does agree to teach Harry a clemency when Harry really desperately needs to learn it and Dumbledore doesn't believe that he can teach him because he's very afraid of what Dumbo what Voldemort will do if Harry is in Dumbledore his presence so Dumbledore asks Snape to teach him Snape doesn't want to he absolutely despises this kid and he wants nothing to do with him but he agrees because Dumbledore asked this was great unfortunately he handles the situation poorly he doesn't actually tell Harry how to do anything he just starts attacking him and then yelling at him when he gets it wrong he doesn't handle this well but then Harry violates Snape's privacy in an absolutely horrible way that's how we get the memory of him being bullied by Harry's dad and then Snape refuses to teach him again and frankly I don't fault him for this I can't I even though it's very important that Harry learns ah clemency after what after Harry uh I don't I don't play honestly kicking the kid out and saying I'm not teaching you anymore after what you did it's fair what's not fair is how he kicked him out because when Snape realized what Harry saw he grabbed him on the arms so hard that he bruised him he shook him threw him to the ground on the dungeon floor and then as Harry was leaving Snape chucked a glass jar at him now we've actually crossed the line from mental abuse to actual he that was physical abuse again what Harry did was horrible but physically harming a child more horrible I'll mention this because it happened Snape does taunt Sirius for being locked alone in the mansion in the house that he was raised in by his abusive family and that's really not cool but I'm not even gonna really get into that because it's not like Sirius wasn't also not able to move past their past and also still terrible to Snape so I'm just gonna leave that now let's talk about the good that Snape did in book five because this one I think is really good not only does he give a fake Veritaserum to Umbridge when she wants to interrogate Harry but then when she calls him to her office to ask for more Veritaserum and he says no I don't have anymore Harry gives Snape a super cryptic message saying that Sirius is captured and Snape brushes him off and leaves this is of course necessary because he can't act like he knows what umbran what he's doing in front of Umbridge but he gets the message and he immediately goes to contact Sirius to make sure that he's still at the house when he does confirm that Sirius is safe he's watching for Harry to come out of the forest because he saw Harry and Hermione and Umbridge enter the forest together and he's watching for them to come out making sure that they're safe and he's gonna let Harry know that Sirius is fine but when Harry doesn't come back out of the forest he fears that Harry actually is going after serious so Snape contacts the entire order so that they'll go save Harry and then he contacts Sirius and says please stay in your house so that you can warn Dumbledore and tell him what's going on because Dumbledore wasn't there at the moment and then he from that moment which of course serious didn't listen to the warning he told creature and then you know a lot of things happened but regardless after he told series to stay put he then went into the forest to search for Harry to make sure Harry was okay this was the first moment during this reread where I realized whoa Snape actually is actively fighting behind the scenes and we just don't see it because of the perspective we're in it's not that he performed one great act at the end of his life but this was the first moment where I saw that he is doing a lot behind the scenes that we're just not seeing but he's also not just a part of the order begrudgingly on the good side because of his guilt but he's actually actively working toward the order the order is good and toward pushing forward trying to take down volta more this scene was a pretty big game-changer for me it was where I finally got to see the layers of Snape for the first time now book six we have more typical Snape scenes he's teaching the kids how to do nonverbal spells and when Ron isn't doing great Snape takes this as an advantage to continue to mess with Harry so he says step aside I'll do it and then he tries to hex Harry and then when Harry creates a shield charm so strong that Snape is knocked back but he doesn't verbally save his mad at him he also continues on with his emotional and mental abuse by making Harry serve his detention by re writing out the cards of detention slips and why students got in trouble and he intentionally tries to give Harry or intentionally does give Harry the work to write down everything that James and Sirius and the lot did wrong in their school years so just rubbing Harry's nose in the fact that his dead dad was a bully but the good he performed in book six is that he saved Dumbledore's life when Dumbledore put on the ring and it cursed his hand and the curse was going to go all the way through his body Snape was able to stop the curse and capture it in his hand so that it wouldn't continue to spread Dumbledore still gonna die in about a year or at least they thought so at that point but it gives him a little bit longer to live in this Sene Snape is genuinely upset he's upset that Dumbledore didn't come to him sooner so that he could have given him more time he's upset that Dumbledore is now cursed to die soon he's upset because he didn't get to fully protect this person that he is so devoted to up to this point also after Dumbledore drinks the potion and he comes back to the castle and he is very very weak he insists that he needs Snape Harry tries to get him out Madame Pomfrey but Dumbledore says no it has to be Severus and I think that Dumbledore is unwavering trust towards Snape also speaks volumes about what's happening behind the scenes also Snape does not want to kill Dumbledore Dumbledore has asked Professor Snape to kill him so that so that Malfoy soul will be spared and Snape doesn't want to do it he doesn't want to do it cuz he doesn't want to kill this guy that he has a lot of value for his life and he doesn't he doesn't want to do it because he knows that that's gonna mean his own death eventually and he doesn't want to die and I don't blame him but he does both of these things anyway because of his devotion toward it Dumbledore which again I think says a lot about him he also spends a lot of time in book 6 working toward helping Draco Dumbledore does not want Draco to do the things that Baltimore has him commissioned to do and he's trying to get Snape to continue to be his mentor and help him Snape spends a lot of time trying to win Draco's trust back and trying to protect Draco Draco from going too deep into being bullies follower and then you have our final scene with Snape in this book and this one is really interesting as well because when when all of the Death Eaters are supposed to be leaving the castle Snape is corralling them all and trying to get them all out he tells Draco to run he makes sure that Draco gets out safely and then he's trying to corral the rest of them saying we need to get out before the ministry gets here but in reality they obviously have time the Death Eaters are just really enjoying wreaking havoc before they leave they're setting fire to Hagrid's hut they're continuing to harm people they're just having a good time before they head out Snape doesn't want them to continue doing damage he doesn't want them to continue harming these people snape throughout this series seems to really total ein as a follower where he does the amount that he has to do in order to be seen as a Death Eater and no more that's not speaking towards his abuse to the children that is all on him and he that that is his horrible Ness but as far as the pure evil of being a Death Eater he always is only as much as he has to be to be a double agent and Nevermore and I think that this is a good example of that because there's really no reason that these Death Eaters can't go ahead and have a good time before they head out there's no reason they can't continue harming the people around them but safe doesn't want him them to he's trying to get them out and even at one point one of the Death Eaters turns and starts cruci owing Harry and Snape tells him no he's for the Dark Lord leave him but the thing is he's for the Dark Lord to kill they can do what they want as far as torturing him there's no reason this guy can't torture Harry for a couple of minutes before he leaves if that's what he feels like doing if he's evil that whole scene with Snape and Harry in the end is also just very very interesting because you still see his absolute hatred toward Harry while he's trying to protect him he's taunting him he's continuing to throw Harry's father in his face he's furious at being called a coward we really see how much anger this man harbours in his heart while he's still simultaneously protecting this kid that he despises more than anyone else the conflicting the contradictions of Snape within himself are so interesting to me Snape's hunger for love and approval is also made really apparent in the memories from this book they're from book 7 but they're the memories are happening during book six when Dumbledore tells Snape that he for the first time that he wants him to kill that he wants Snape to kill Dumbledore in order to protect Draco's soul Snape's responses and what of my soul and that scene is really interesting to me because we know that he served as a Death Eater for years so we can easily assume he's killed several people before and his soul is already good good and damaged or at least it was at that point I like to think that it's healed a little bit right now but I don't think that this scene is snape being worried for his soul Drake a Dumbledore even says only you know if it would actually hurt your soul to kill me for a good reason and not out of hatred I don't think Snape was worried about the fracturing of his soul or the damaging of his soul here I think Snape's just more hurt that this person that he clearly values a lot he he has put so much trust and value in Dumbledore and this person that he values so much is valuing some protecting someone else's soul over his and he's hurt that he wants to protect Draco while still asking this of Snape we see this again when he and Dumbledore are walking along the grounds and Snape is genuinely hurt that that Drake bet Dumbledore won't tell him his full plans Dumbledore says I have information I need to give him and Snape says information you trust him and you don't trust me that same hunger for love and acceptance that he was craving from Lily so badly he's now put on Dumbledore and it genuinely the amount of trust that Dumbledore puts in Snape like I said I really think that Snape was basically his right-hand man throughout this entire series Dumbledore even responds to Snape by saying there are things that I've trusted you with that I would trust no one else with and Snape values that friendship that these two have developed he'd values it so much that it really hurts him when Dumbledore is putting value in someone else over him in one way or another then we skip forward to when Snape and Dumbledore meet and doubles Dumbledore's office and Dumbledore finally trusts Snape with the information he tells him you need to be the one to tell Harry because Dumbledore realizes that he's not gonna be alive so he says you need to be the one to tell Harry at the last possible moment you need to tell him that he has to sacrifice himself in order to save everyone in order to be able to kill voldie he has to sacrifice himself and and killed the last bit of the Horcrux Snape is horrified by this he says I thought all these years that we were protecting him for her for Lily he goes on he looks horrified and says you have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment don't be shocked Severus how many men and women have you watched die lately only those whom I could not save you have used me meaning I have spied for you and lied for you put myself in mortal danger for you everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe now you tell me that you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter this is touching Severus have you grown to care for the boy after all for him and then Snape reveals that his Patronus is still a doe which was Lily's Patronus Dumbledore says after all this time always so again this scene reveals so much of Snape all this time he's been protecting Harry for Lily and so Dumbledore didn't think that Snape would have any issue with Harry being a sacrifice because they paid Harry and then when Snape does have a problem with it Dumbledore thinks that Snape actually has grown fond of Harry Snape is repulsed him by the idea that someone would think that of him of course it's not for him it's still always for Lily some people view this as romantic some people view it as an obsession I'm not gonna comment on that we're just gonna keep moving forward into book seven this one will be really quick because most of book 7 was already discussed throughout the rest of the books obviously under Snape's care as a headmaster of the school descends into this horrible place where people are being actively tortured the kids are being taught to do the unforgivable curses on each other when they get detention all of this I think is the only time that we can actually reasonably rationalize Snape's behavior as him being undercover at this point he's the headmaster of the school so the school has to descend into chaos because he still needs to look like he's on voldie side this is the only time that I accept the argument that Snape is a cruel hateful abuser for the image I think it's very clear that his hatred is deeply ingrained in his heart and not an act however I don't fully fault him for the the appearance of the school because this actually is in large part undercover in the beginning of book seven zinc does save lupins life 1 Death Eater is trying to kill Lupin and then Snape tries to send a spell at that Death Eaters hand which would put Snape at risk and then that's when George's ear is cursed off because the spell missed but this is the scene that I find so fascinating is during the Battle of Hogwarts when Snape and Baldy and Nagini are all hidden away and Voldemort is trying to talk to Snape because he's realized that he has to kill him in order to have power of the Elder Wand and Snape is desperately trying to get away he's saying let me go find Harry let me bring him to you over and over and over again and Baldy keep saying no don't go find Harry I need to talk to you and Snape keeps saying let me go find him let me go find him I need to get him for you and this scene has always seemed odd to me is he just trying to get away because he realizes that he's about to die how is that gonna help anything here and he knows he has to die what is this scene and I finally realized we see in Snape's memories that Dumbledore told Snape at the very last moment you have to tell Harry that he has to sacrifice himself in order to save everyone this is what Snape's doing he realizes that his time has come that Voldemort's gonna kill him and Snape's trying to get out one last time so I can go find Harry so he can finally tell him this is the message that dumbells left for me he's trying to get to Harry to tell Harry that he has to be a sacrifice so that it can all end the way it needs to end that's why he's so desperately basically blowing his cover repeatedly going against what baldies telling him to do trying to get to Harry in the last moment is to deliver this one last message that has to be delivered now it's really great that Harry was there to witness it all so that Snape could still give him the memory even though the Snape couldn't get out to tell him but I think that's a really cool scene for him and I think it's really interesting to look at the fact that Snape became he switched sides for bad reasons right Snape actively was fighting for a supremacy group that was murdering innocent people and he was happy to do it it's what he wanted to do and it wasn't until one of the deaths affected him that he finally switched sides and then he didn't even do it because he realized that what was happening was horrible he did it because of this obsession that he had for Lily he actively for seven books put himself in danger and fought to protect Harry while also abusing Harry he wasn't able to separate his hatred and his love the two ended up mixing into one really contradictory person his motivations for being on the right side were Lily not for being on the right side his motivations weren't for what he believed in it was for who he was fixated on but I find it really interesting that nothing changed when he realized that what he had dedicated years of his life for had to come to an end he dedicated years of his life to protecting Harry for Lily's sake and when he realized that it had to end with him not protecting Harry anymore for with Harry dying and so what he had been fighting for all this time wasn't actually what was gonna happen he had to reckon with that and that's what that whole scene was with Dumbledore and when he realized that he wasn't going to be able to continue to fight to protect Lily's child he had to make a choice stay and continue to fight for this cause or not and I find it really interesting that after he realized that he isn't going to be fighting to protect lily son anymore he's still continued to follow out Dumbledore's mission which i think is a really good display that at some point maybe even unwillingly Snape did actually change sides not just in action but wholeheartedly he was now fighting for this cause even when his motivation of Lily was removed but I also really appreciate that in the memories we see Snape going into syriza's old home and finding a picture and a letter of Lily and he took the last part of the letter where it said with love from Lily and he tucked that in his robe pocket and then he took the picture of Lily with her husband and son ripped it in half chucked his her husband and son to the ground and kept the picture of Lily I appreciate that that's in the memories too because it also shows us that even though Snape has done so much behind the scenes for the greater good he hasn't wholly changed he isn't a whole new person he still has this fixation on Lily and hatred toward her family or at the very least ambivalence toward her family we end Snape's memories on one last moment from book 7 and that is when phineas is going back and forth between his portraits and he's traveling with the kids in Hermione's purse and phineas finally realizes where the kids it are so that Snape can deliver the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry again he doesn't know why he's doing it he's just acting on Dumbledore's command because Dumbledore said so when he he was waiting for Phineas to find out where they were so that so that Snape could give Harry the sword and when Phineas finally says I know where they are he says I heard the mudblood say it and Snape snaps don't use that word and that's the Snape seeing that we end on Snape is an incredibly interesting character he devotes a large part of his life dedicated to risking his own health and goals and life to protect the physical state of Lily's son while at the same time harming the mental state of James's son and I think that says a lot about Snape he never viewed Harry as his own person he only viewed him through the lens of his love for Lily or his hatred for James Harry never got to be Harry to Snape most arguments that I see about Snape are really one-sided focusing on some scenes and kind of ignoring others he's not just a bully who did one good thing at the end of the light at the end of his life he clearly did many many many acts behind the scene for the greater good he's also not just a broken hero who was bullied as a kid and therefore we can justify the bullying he does as an adult we can't brush Snape's abusive and hateful behavior under the rug but we also can't just ignore the many many sacrifices that he made I honestly can't imagine the mental toll it would take to be a double agent for a Nazi supremacy group having to watch horrible things happen to people that he knows like his coworker that was rotating above the table and at the beginning of one of the books and he just has to act okay with it he watches horrible things happen to people it has to seem okay and sometimes probably even participate in these horrible acts while at the same time trying to quietly and under and undercover do what's right that would take a lot out of a person's mental state Snape was unnecessarily cruel and hateful toward a lot of people not just the students but he was really awful to his co-workers the teachers that he worked with and they all really didn't like him either because of how constantly mean he was and that's on him Snape harbored a lot of hatred in his life and I don't subscribe to the idea that if you're bullied you're damned to become a bully I don't subscribe to the idea that we can dismiss someone's abusive behaviors if they themselves were abused I can certainly have a lot more compassion for them if I see a damaged person damaging others but I will not excuse that behavior I think a lot of this discussion comes from the way Snape's character was executed his actions are either utterly vile or absolutely incredible and his motivations half the time aren't even good they're they're rooted in an obsession but you can also see his devotion and his hunger for approval and love when we start to see a lot of the things that he did behind the scenes as well as when we see the connection and relationship he had with Dumbledore I think that Snape is one of the most complex and interesting characters to dive into and I think a lot of the problem that the Fantin the fandom has with agreeing with him or even just being on such polarizing sides of how they see him is in his execution through six books we almost exclusively see him as this horrible abuser and it's in such an extreme way and then in book seven we see that he did he sacrificed so much and he did so many great acts and both things are done in such extreme ways and in ways that are completely removed from each other that it seems like a lot of times the fandom will latch on to this and ignore that or latch on to this and ignore that and I think with more nuance we would be able to more clearly see the many many layers of him that he is neither only an own abuser or only a hero but there are a lot of layers to him and while at the end of this when I finished all of this thinking about a fictional character that's not even real I think in conclusion I've come to about this character is that I feel like I understand him and appreciate him so much more than I ever have I respect the many many sacrifices he made and I now see his actions behind the scene of trying to actively protect Harry and trying to move forward the orders mission working as a double agent and doing horrendous acts that he genuinely didn't want to do I see his great sacrifice and I respect it so much more and I I have a lot more respect for this character than I ever have before but I'm also just not going to brush under the rug the many many many horrible things that he did he was so horrible to the people around him he harbored so much hatred and he was so mentally abuse to these children that simply didn't deserve it and I'm not gonna brush that under the rug because he did perform heroic acts he was a jerk he was a horrible horrible person but also an incredibly sacrificial one it's probably true that if old amor went after Neville instead of Harry and Neville's family died they may still be a Death Eater that's very possible because we see that his motivation throughout the entire series was wrapped around Lily not around the good of wizard kind so yeah that's probably accurate which is why I think that it's terribly wrong to view Snape as simply a hero but I also see the amount of sacrifice that man made physically and mentally for the greater good and I see that when the lily protecting Lily's son was removed from the equation for Snape he still continued forward and I think that says a lot about the personal growth he had but I don't think that his personal growth was holistic enough to justify him being viewed as a black and white hero because it didn't change the fact that he still was an abuser and someone who had so much hatred and harm toward others I think that it's really hard when you've identified with one part of Snape's character it's really hard to separate that in the discussion especially since the thing that people seem to latch on to is abuse but they latch on to it in different places the people that love Snape latch on to the abuse to the abuse that was that was given to Snape and they feel for him and they sympathize with him and they can understand and write off the abuse that he caused and instead just love the good things he did and then the other side of the people who hate Snape latch on to the abuse that Snape caused and they reject all of the good things that he did I find it interesting that no matter what side of this of the Snape spectrum people are on they latch on to abuse they just either latch on to the abuse that was done to him or the or the abuse that he did to others either way wherever you fall he's a very complex character that if you dig in has a whole lot of layers and even though I hate so much about who he chose to be i man I'm glad that he's a character and in these books because he was complex and I really had fun digging into his character in these last few days I've been filming for two hours oh my goodness be sure to tell me what you think about safes character try to be civil about it let's not attack each other please I post videos every Sunday Tuesday Thursday and Saturday I'll see you guys [Music]

Channel: Merphy Napier

Views: 393,585

Keywords: An Analysis on Severus Snape, severus snape, professor snape, snape, read, reads, reader, reading, booktube, booktuber, book, books, harry potter, harry potter snape, was snape good or bad, was snape good, was snape bad, what professor snape good or bad

Id: IpCZs872b5U

Length: 54min 10sec (3250 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 26 2020