Snape: Good or Evil?

[nico]

I am a major Snape supporter, I trust him all the way in spite of what happened in the book. I know I sound like a crazy person but unlike most other crazy people I have evidence. I've twisted more than one Snape-Hater to my side, plenty of them close friends. Seriously, if the final book comes out and I'm wrong I'll be eating a whole flock of crow, I won't hear the end of it for years. I've staked a lot on the theory that Snape is a good guy, so here it goes, my evidence:

Evidence 1: Before Snape killed Dumbledore their eyes met, both men were skilled. Eye contact makes it more potent. It also said in the book that Snape had a look of utter revulsion on his face, perhaps for the task he had to perform rather than the man. Continuing with the Legilimens theory the only thing Dumbledore said "Severus, please", it is so incredibly OOC for him to be begging for his life, I believe he was instead pleading for Snape to kill him for some unknown greater good. (Compare Dumbledore forcing Harry to feed him the poison for a greater thing with Dumbledore forcing Snape to kill him for a greater thing)

Evidence 2: Ginny mentions in the book that she and others had taken the potion "Harry, if we hadn't had your Felix potion, I think we'd all have been killed, but everything seemed to just miss us -..."
Now it was mentioned in the book that Hermione was watching Snape's room, she had a run in with him during the battle with the Death Eaters. If Hermione had taken the potion she would be having the luckiest day of her life and would have stopped him, but because she did not it may have been luckier for her to let him past.

Evidence 3: Dumbledore never Trusted Tom Riddle, and he appeared far more innocent than Snape ever could. Dumbledore wasn't stupid. Besides, if I am wrong and Snape is an evil Death Eater then that means the Dumbledore always was just a foolish idealistic old man. Thematically it doesn’t make any sense, even during the funeral McGonagall said that Dumbledore always hinted he had an iron clad reason for trusting Snape, I do believe that’s foreshadowing. Keeping with the spirit of the books it only makes sense for Snape to still be on the right side.

Evidence 4: When Hagrid over heard Dumbledore and Snape arguing in the woods Dumbledore wanted Snape to do something that he didn't want to do. It's possible that when he was taking the UV Snape was expecting to allow himself to die so that Dumbledore could live and what they were arguing over was which one of them would be the one to die.

Evidence 5: (One of my favorite bits) When Harry (stupidly) attempted to persue Snape he wasn't hurt until he called Snape a coward. How must it feel to have the kid, whose life he'd saved multiple times, who he could have killed any time over the course of six year, call him a coward? After he'd just killed the only person who ever believed in him. Honestly I think he must have had a very special sort of relationship with Albus, after all it was him who hired Snape even though he knew about his past. He really trusted Snape and he had an iron clad reason for it (see Evidence 3). Anyway to call him a coward after he sacrificed so much. (Here's a line I have in my quote document) "DONT -" screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them "- CALL ME A COWARD!" (now that, my friends, is passion. That his pain could be compared to that of a dying animal says a lot about how he was suffering)
Not only did he not kill Harry he stopped the other DE's from killing him as well. He said something about Voldemort wanting to kill Harry himself but that seems a bit OOC for Voldie, he's more of a 'kill them and get it over with' kind of guy than a 'participate in theatrics that will ultimately get me killed' sort. Also when Harry was chasing him and throwing curses at him he was helping Harry, like he was trying to impress old lessons on him one last time. " Blocked again and again and again until you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed Potter!"...



I have more, if this turns into a real discussion I'll keep posting. I can turn this into a three unit course *evil but still dorky grin*

[morganna]

Wow. You have successfully turned me. You have a lot of evidence...you are very dedicated to it. But you're right, all that. It makes sense.

[mariaisabella]

Ah! That's exactly what I said, practically word for word!

I have more evidence, though, but it's not as solid as the other. J.K. Rowling has a known history of giving hints to the movie directors about future Harry Potter things. Anyway, in the Goblet of Fire movie, notice that minerva is obviously shocked that Dumbledore is listening to Severus. (Check out the scene with Dumbledore and the Pensieve.) Is it not possible that Rowling has let something slip to the director and the director wants to portray the intensity of Dumbledore's trust in Snape?

A little off topic, but . . .
There was also this theory going around that stunned me, and it would be OOC for Dumbledore, and totally plot darkening, but I heard someone suggest that Dumbledore told Snape to betray the Potters. They said that maybe it was an elaborate plot to make sure that Voldemort tried to kill Harry instead of Neville, because Dumbledore knew that Lily would try to protect Harry. They said that those were the memories that Dumbledore visited when drinking the potion. That would partly explain why Dumbledore trusts Snape so much.

I still like the theory, though, that the reason Dumbledore trusts Snape has to do with Petunia Dursley. I'm an wacko Petunia/Snape shipper. Hehe.

[nico]

Ohh, I kind of like the theory about Dumbledore betraying the Potters. It does /kind of/ fit in with his character, which is that of a fanatic. He's willingly put Harry in danger more than once either through action of his own or deliberate inaction. Not that Dumbles is evil, just very dedicated to his cause, dedicated enough to die for it and perhaps enough to allow the innocent to die for it. I don't think Jo would do things that way though, it all comes back to thematics, it doesnt make any logical sense with the way the story has worked up to now.

As for your Petunia/Snape ship, Woah! And I thought I had encountered all the weird ships out there. I'm cool with it, hell, I used to write Sirius/Remus slash fics (the extra-fluffy sort). It's a cool theory, the idea didn't even occur to me. The way I see it Snape was just an effed up teenager, he was like seventeen when he joined the Death Eaters and he was young, hurt, and brilliant. I can tell you right now that that is a dangerous combination. Teenagers do really stupid stuff without realizing the full implications of what they do, especially the smart ones. I figure he joined up, ended up disagreeing with the methods/ideology and started looking for a way out, then some big event happened between he and Dumbledore that caused them to trust one another. They helped one another out big time, Dumbledore got a spy and Snape got a full pardon so something had to happen between them.

[mariaisabella]

Agreed on the first part. I believe its possible, but highly unlikely that Jo had Dumbledore betray the Potters on purpose, but it would explain his remorse in the potion scene and it would give an example of Dumbledore's trust in Snape.

And no, there are plenty more ships out there. Surprisingly, people miss all of the muggle/wizard ships. Those are generally the weirdest ones. And I applaud you on your slash fics. The weirder the ships are, the greater the writer needs to be. {I notice that all of the Hermione/Draco shippers are generally ten times better writers than the majority of Ron/Hermione fanfic writers. Therefore, I love Hermy/Draco as well!!!!}

There have been some theories that Harry's creaky stair at Number 4 is a hollow stair with hidden love letters between Petunia and Snape. Its just the kind of minor detail that JKR would put in there, but she could just have put it there to annoy the crap out of us. She does that alot too. For example, R.A.B. That one has thoroughly annoyed me already.

[~Aislin Hunter~]

The idea that Regulus Black is RAB is by far the most popular conclusion and there seems to be lots of things that pop up confirming the theory.

The letter refers to the ‘Dark Lord’ rather than Voldemort, or ‘he who must not be named’. Only Death Eaters call Voldermort the Dark Lord so this is our first clue that the person is Regulus since he is a Death Eater who ran away.

In the Order of the Phoenix chapter 6, ‘the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black’ it is mentioned that Sirius, Regulus Brother, had an uncle named Alphard who left the ‘a decent bit of gold’ and, apparently, 12 Grimmauld Place - the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Using names from relatives is fairly common practice in the UK. We know this has happened in the past, Ginnies middle name is Molly (her mothers name), so it’s not inconceivable that the A is his uncles initial passed down.

In the same book a ‘heavy locket that none of them could open’ is mentioned which is found in 12 Grimmauld Place, it couldn’t be opened and was thrown away, but we later learn that Kreacher, the house elf, has stolen the it. Could this be the Horcrux that was replaced by the locket that Dumbledore and Harry found?

now there are also arguments AGAINST THIS::

What people don’t realise is that Sirius Black is a false name,’ says Mrs Purkiss. ‘The man people believe to be Sirius Black is actually Stubby Boardman, lead singer of popular singing group The Hobgoblins, who retired from public life after being struck on the ear by a turnip at a concert in Little Norton Church Hall nearly fifteen years ago. I recognised him the moment I saw his picture in the paper. Now, Stubby couldn’t possibly have committed those crimes, because on the day in question he happened to be enjoying a romantic candlelit dinner with me. I have written to the Minister for Magic and am expecting him to give Stubby, alias Sirius, a full pardon any day now.

I’m guessing this is a reference to Regulus since we know Sirius was there ‘the day in question’ (although he IS innocent). Also in an earlier chapter Sirius mentions that Regulus died 15 years previously, which would be the same year Harry’s parents were killed, and probably before Sirius was taken to Azkaban. JK rarely mentions anything without some sort of reason so is this is some sort of proof that Regulus didn’t die and just went into hiding (as a rock star?).

I do wonder if too much thought is being put into the whole RAB issue, and it’s just a red herring and not overly important… Everyone is speculating on this and forgetting about the more ‘important’ issues in the rest of the story.

ANY WAYS. Sorry that was off topic, but I couldn't help myself because Maria mentioned it. XD I was never really a Snape fan myself, but I am, however, against the fact that he is evil. As all of the points that Nico made, it would be clear that he probably isn't evil. The number one reason that is in my mind is the relation between Tom Riddle and Snape. Dumbledore isn't stupid, I think that he would know if Snape was a backstabber.

I am personally also against the whole Hermione/Draco thing. Not because they come from seperate worlds and hate eachother, just because in my mind it's just a bad match. Besides alot of the people who pair up Draco and Hermione only do it based on the actor and actress from the movies (I'm not saying anyone here is, please don't take any of this the wrong way, I love you all. T-T). I have more fun pairing people up with Weasley's. I dunno why. I'm not that big a supporter of the Ginny/Harry thing either. It just stuck me as strange, though I will admit it was cute at times.

Back on the topic of Snape, I am all for him being innocent. The only thing that would make me think he was evil is the fact that he killed Dumbledore, (which I think is the main reason why these opinions even exist) and in my mind, I try not to think about it too much. Many more facts point to Snape being innocent in a way. Well, that's my blow out typing for the day. lol.

[meepith]

Interesting.... very interesting. I love to read peoples opinions on this sort of thing. Personally, I couldn't believe in a thousand years that Snape was evil, I can't help it, I like his character too much. There is also the most evidence for him not being evil. I do have to say, I hadn't even thought of what you said in "Evidence 2", it's brillant. It makes complete sense. There is some other evidence no one has mentioned yet.... I ran across it on "Harry Potter Lexicon" ( www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/snape.html ) if you scroll down there is a t-chart. It is pretty interesting. For example, "Snape as well as Dumbledore and McGonagall were all visible in Barty Crouch Jr.'s Foe-Glass."

[~Aislin Hunter~]

Woah....that's pretty cool. I never thought about half of the things there. I am now 100% totally and completely devoted to Snape. Hehe. I'm excited. *pre-ordered the book* Oh, and as far as cute couples go....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZLwKf9fj8
If homosexuality offends you, I suggest NOT watching this. I personally found it halarious and loved it. Morganna was insaulted and got pissed 'cuz she has a thing for Cedric. xD

[Gyan Salamanece]

Ha, My aunt beleives Hermione is going to be killed off, Nevile kills Voldemort, and Harry and Ron turn out gay.

I know as irrational and compleatly stupid as it sounds, you have to admit it's funny.

[alexishannah]

Oooo! I just found some REALLY convincing evidence that Snape is good, not evil.

Go back to the Half-blood Prince and reread the second chapter. I was too freaked out to notice this the first time I read it. I swear, I was almost crying because I thought Snape was evil. I thought it was a real shame. Such a great character.

Anyway, in the chapter, "Spinner's End", Bellatrix tries to prove that Snape is on Dumbledore's side with her questions. But she misses one important point.

Recall that in Order of the Phoenix, every member from the Order is gone as Harry tries to find out where Sirius is. Every member except for Snape, that is. Harry gets caught by Umbridge and her goons. Snape just happens to stroll in and Harry makes a desperate attempt to send him a coded message. To get him to realize that Sirius is in trouble. See where I'm going?

Snape, despite what Harry thought, did not try to ignore him. Snape decoded the message immediately, found where Sirius was, and tried to tell Harry. Harry, however, was already headed for the Ministry. So what does Sirius do? He sends the Order.

Why would Snape send the Order if he knew Voldemort was there? Sounds kind of stupid. If he was evil, that is. So, quite obviously, none of the Death Eaters knows that Snape sent the Order to attack them at the Ministry. Solid proof that Snape is indeed still good.

[professordean]

Okay recently I picked up the book from borders called the great snape debate, now it is a double sided book so you get points from both sides of the story. I am currently thinking Snape is neutral.

I believe he is neither good or evil, I think he uses both Voldemort and Dumbeldore for his own personal game. He does not seem by the books to be very loyal to either. I don't have much of an argument yet for my cause but when I do, hopefully in less then a day I will post my argument and make it very clear why I believe this.

[Gyan Salamanece]

Compleate snape beleiver. Of course, for those of you who havent read the last book, I won't spoil the suprise with my reasons.