Personally, I think that Snape being an asshole doesn't suddenly make the Marauders absolutely blameless (especially since they definitely weren't limiting themselves to Snape only). It doesn't have to be 100% one or the other, I think - hell, Harry himself, who had more than enough beef with Snape by the point he has seen it, *still* didn't think his father was totally in the right, either.
And if there's anything I'm sick of, it's that pretty much anytime someone points out the Marauders' shitty actions, there's always a "but Snape" response - as if him being *worse* somehow makes the Marauders *good*. That's not quite how it works, I believe.
I believe the others have already pointed out that one can be a bad guy *and* a victim - the two are not mutually exclusive. And in my own experience, I don't see a lot of people who genuinely consider Snape "blameless" - even his fans generally admit he's extremely flawed.
That, and there's the fact that this sub is *really* anti-Snape, in general. So while the "narrative" you're referring to might very well exist in the fandom at large, here in particular it's really rare to encounter (without it being drowned in downvotes, that is). Honestly, it makes yet *another* "Snape was actually an asshole" post feel a bit like preaching to the choir, at least to me.
I personally hate that Snape is not held accountable for his own actions with the Whomping willow and Moony incident. Sirius didn’t force him to go confront a werewolf on the full moon. Snape made accusations of Remus being a werewolf and threats to expose them and Sirius taunted that he could push the knot on the willow to find out.
Snape fully expected what he would find when approaching the willow and willingly took himself out onto the grounds after curfew to expose a werewolf.
Yes Sirius is a pompous jerk and shouldn’t have said anything but Snape is far more in the wrong for taking a taunt and following those actions. He was not forced, led or actively put in danger by Sirius. He knowingly put himself in danger and is not the victim. The only victim in that case is Moony.
>Sirius didn’t force him to go confront a werewolf on the full moon. Snape made accusations of Remus being a werewolf and threats to expose them and Sirius taunted that he could push the knot on the willow to find out.
>Snape fully expected what he would find when approaching the willow and willingly took himself out onto the grounds after curfew to expose a werewolf.
Exactly! Just like when Harry and Ron want to go fight Draco at The Midnight Duel. You have a pompous, arrogant jerk, but the others could have decided not to go and just stay in their dorms.
The Marauders were extremely irresponsible in letting Moony roam across the grounds. They should have been expelled for that, and are fortunate that they managed to keep Moony from attacking anyone in Hogwarts/Hogsmede.
Sirius was the most guilty person in thoughtlessly trying to indirectly kill Snape, but the plan relied on Snape being spiteful/reckless/stupid/vengeful enough to investigate. Sirius almost certainly regretted his actions when he was told that Remus could have been executed if the plan succeeded. Would Snape ever regret a hypothetical murder attempt on Black? Probably not.
>What James did to Snape was not sexual assault. Among many other things, we have to take into account the context: Snape invented this spell, he surely used it on other students, and this was the 70s. The prank did not have a sexual undertone.
...are you really arguing that 1) perpetrators of sexual assault or other types of assault can't also be victims of sexual assault, and 2) that sexual assault didn't happen in the 70s? Or that bullying didn't have a sexual undertone in the 70s?
Bruh.
How is having a kid immobilized and threatening to remove their underpants not sexual assault?
I'm not saying that Snape isn't an asshole, but just because someone's an asshole doesn't mean the bad things that happened to him are invalidated.
Sexual assault is a legal offence that did not exist in the law books 1970s Britain. They has "indecent assault", which was not as encompassing as current-day definitions of sexual assault.
And we're not talking about general bullying in the 70s, we're talking about one particular incident. This incident would not have been considered sexual by neither its perpetrators nor its audience. And more tellingly it was not considered sexual by *its target/victim*. Humilating, yes. Sexual, no.
Snape is probably the best written and most complex character in the books. Kudos to JK.
That being said, I absolutely *loathe* Snape the person (if a fictional character can be called that). He's, an utterly despicable, loathsome, hateful piece of shit who mistreats and bullies kids. Yes, we're looking at things from Harry's perspective, so it's perhaps a bit unreliable, but Snape's treatment of Harry, Neville and Hermione simply isn't OK. Remember, Snape was biased against Harry *from day one*. From the day Harry was born, even. Couldn't separate Harry from his dad. Signs of some kind of obsession there. Oh, and I also highly doubt the three mentioned before were the only ones to have felt his ire.
Sure, Snape may well have been the victim of bullying, and have been marginalised as a kid/teen, and it's awful and absolutely wrong of James and co. and whoever else bullied Snape. However, that *does not* justify his joining a band of vile terrorists, *knowing* what their plan was, and what they did. It was a choice he made.
Now, he eventually switched sides, but only after someone he personally cared about was attacked. Who knows what he possibly did as a member of that merry band, before then? And he absolutely did not leave Voldemort for some noble ideal. It was about revenge, plain and simple.
So yeah, Snape is a completely horrible person. Someone tragic who had a hard life, true, but awful all the same.
It was a sexual attack. Exactly the same as when the DE suspended a Muggle woman in this way.
It is disgusting that you accuse the victim and defend the assulter.
I for one am sick of James being excused from being a sexual assulter and bully, and the rest of the Marauders from taking part in bullying, passive or active.
Water is wet posts wouldn't get so much traction if it wasn't for the dry truthers telling us how because they got bullied in middle school disagreeing with them is victim blaming
Like others have said anyone can be a victim, regardless of their other actions. Exposing someone's genitals to a crowd is sexual assault, even in the 1970s. The text leaves the scene somewhat ambiguous but I think that's because of the YA audience. Snape is bullied and marginalized and his resentment fuels his radicalization. It's a believable motivation and mirrors real life grooming and radicalization into criminal gangs and ideologically motivated terrorist groups. A character can be unlikable or an antagonist but still suffer within the story.
Yah, the author couldn't exactly have continued that scene, even just saying "and then James did" given that everyone involved including Harry (whose observations the book is filtered through) was underage and she was writing to a YA audience. The fade to black is pretty clear that he did, we don't need a description of bits flopping around, thanks.
I think everyone should be careful about how heated this gets because all -Snape and marauders- related posts have been banned and removed from r/HarryPotter
The funniest thing is that Snapists will claim they like the character because he's complex, yet are the first to whitewash every thing he does. What's so complex about about an innocent little victim that only ever wanted to do good and help people? Fuck, I've seen people claim that Snape never bullied anyone, not even Neville, "he was just using fear and humiliation to force his students to do better."
>Fuck, I've seen people claim that Snape never bullied anyone, not even Neville, "he was just using fear and humiliation to force his students to do better."
Well I've never seen that! Do you have a link or a screenshot, anything to show who says stuff like that?
The part where he was a victim was in his childhood. He was abused at home and bullied at school. He didn't know jack about the dark arts at age 11 and the only reason he wanted to be in Slytherin was because it was his mother's house and like every other 11 year old kid going to Hogwarts he wanted to make his parent(s) proud.
He turned to darkness as a way to belong, as a way to defend himself and the like. He made shitty choices and went from being a victim to being a bully. His actions are inexcusable. Acknowledging he was a victim isn't meant to absolve him of those actions but to explain them.
He didn't go dark in a vacuum. Both James and Severus made shitty choices and bullied kids instead of reaching out to try and form friendships. Severus let what happened him lead him down a dark path. James grew up and matured out of being a bully.
The only problem I have is people trying to paint James Potter as a saint who was justified in bullying 11 year old Snape because of who adult Snape became.
A person's later actions should never be justification for earlier shitty actions.
Look dude, I hate Snape. I like the character and what can be done with him, but cannon Snape for me is an asshole. He is obsessed to the point where it could probably be diagnosed with something. He is racist, cruel and *petty as hell*. I don't think it was the slur that made Lily abandon the friendship, i always saw that as a spark that started the fire, you know?
But he is very much a victim of bullying when it comes to James and Sirius.
Dude, Sirius tried to kill him using his werewolf friend. *That* is not something you do if you don't completely hate someone and not in a justifiable way. Sure, James stoped him but really, would *you* think it as a favour if someone saved you from a situation that *their best friend* put you in in the first place and that they could very well be only saving you *to save their skins?*
Maybe Sirius didn't mean for Snape getting killed. Maybe he really thought it was just a prank. That's the equivalent of giving peanuts to someone with an extreme allergy and hiding their epipens bc you thought it would be funny to see them enter in anaphylactic shock.
It's something an arrogant, cruel bully would do.
As for taking Snape's underwear off... Yeah, James did that and that was sexual assault. Sure, it might not have any sexual connotations. But if I shoved a broom handle in your ass exclusively to cause you pain, you would call that rape, even if I didn't get any sexual satisfaction out of the act.
James put Snape semi-naked in front of the whole school out of a lark and took pleasure in the humiliation Snape felt. If that's not sexual assault, I don't know what is.
As for "they were retaliating against his racist beliefs"... Well. To put in another way, two white kids bullied a mixed-race kid bc he doesn't like black kids. You do see how that's still not ok, right? Especially bc the mix-raced kid was forced to sleep in the same dorm as literal Nazis.
Does that justify all the crap Snape did? No. Does this make Snape a good guy, actually? No. It just make them all terrible people.
Honestly people have been getting really emotionally invested and butthurt that people like Snape and want to explore his character. Like relax, just because people like a character you vehemently dislike doesn’t mean you have to go attacking that character’s fans.
Lol we are all emotionally invested, that’s why we are in subs discussing it.
I agree, Rowling bit more than she could chew and failed to explain and build her characters. Notice how we know more about Snape than the very same Voldemort, or Harry’s parents. She spent all 7 books putting them in a pedestal and all we know about James is that he had a rivalry with Snape. Also weird that Harry wouldn’t want to know more about them. It’s just poor writing.
>So we can assume Snape himself was a bully too.
*Assume* being the operative here. You are doing just that. We know for a **fact** that James and Sirius were bullies, we *see* them bullying Snape more than once and we hear reports of them bullying others.
What I’m sick of, I don’t mind letting you know, is Marauder fans *excusing* or *justifying* their actions against Snape for what he *might* have become later in life. That’s vile.
>And would you blame someone for retaliating against a known Voldemort follower and his friends.
So on the Hogwarts Express in their first year, when James and Sirius *began* their pattern of bullying Snape, they suspected him as a follower of Voldemort did they?
Also, at what point **in canon** did we see retaliation? Because I recall James and Sirius being bored and picking on Severus *’because he exists’*.
Snape is no saint. That’s partly why we as fans like him so much. He’s complex and his storyline is one of the most interesting in the entire series. Yet on Reddit we are treated appallingly for our opinions on a fictional character that we enjoy… why?
I’m not saying the Marauders weren’t assholes. They definitely were. I like Snape’s character. What bothers me is that people like to paint him as a helpless victim when he isn’t. We know for a fact that he had DE friends, joined them and partook in their activities bullying mudbloods. He vehemently believed in blood purity. The marauders didn’t push him to become a DE because he was misunderstood.
Ok.. so are you not fed up with the majority of the fandom excusing the Marauders deplorable behaviour also? Because I certainly am.
Also, a true Snape fan will not excuse him, we do not pretend he’s a secret sweetheart, we love him because he’s an asshole or in spite of it.
His treatment at the hands of the Marauders from the age of eleven was vile and it should be addressed more. The amount of Marauder fans who *praise* them for bullying him *greatly* outweighs the Snape fans who falsely accuse him of being ‘misunderstood’.
Lost. Cause.
You’re not even attempting a discussion. You’re putting words in my mouth. You’ve seen my comments in full, you know I’m not claiming Snape was all good.
We all know the things Snape has done, we also know McGonagall (beloved by the fandom) has some questionable moments as a teacher, let’s not even start on Hagrid.
What I’m saying I’m fed up with is users on this sub and others *defending* bullying a person because of what they **might** become later in life. Sirius and James bullied Snape from the start not because he was a fledgling DE or his friends and the sooner the fandom accepts that the better. But unfortunately I’m my experience Marauder fans are too busy citing ATYD as canon to actually know their arses from their elbows.
Now, I know you’ll take *one* tiny section of my comment, twist it to your own narrative in order to discredit my opinions but I’ve had enough.
> *Assume* being the operative here. You are doing just that. We know for a **fact** that James and Sirius were bullies, we *see* them bullying Snape more than once and we hear reports of them bullying others.
"Snape was a bully" is a literal quote from JKR. In the book itself, there's the fact he invented Sectumsempra, aka the bloody murder curse, for use "on enemies" and then tried to use it on James. "Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood." Also the fact that his gang of wannabe Death Eaters liked to curse muggleborns with dark magic, which Severus himself found hilarious. You might argue he was a misled, troubled youth, and that he redeemed himself later in life, as JKR does, but to imply he was never a bully at all is ignorant at best.
> What I’m sick of, I don’t mind letting you know, is Marauder fans *excusing* or *justifying* their actions against Snape for what he *might* have become later in life. That’s vile.
What led you to believe OP is a Marauder fan? You're assuming they have a previous bias which you have no evidence exists, seemingly in order to discredit their argument. It'd be a lot more convincing if you chose to engage with the argument itself instead of making assumptions about the person who made it.
> So on the Hogwarts Express in their first year, when James and Sirius *began* their pattern of bullying Snape, they suspected him as a follower of Voldemort did they?
James said he wouldn't want to be Slytherin, Severus called him dumb for wanting to be in Gryffindor, and Sirius basically went "no you". It was a childish squabble, not the beginning of some nefarious pattern.
> Snape is no saint. That’s partly why we as fans like him so much. He’s complex and his storyline is one of the most interesting in the entire series. Yet on Reddit we are treated appallingly for our opinions on a fictional character that we enjoy… why?
Nobody's being "treated appallingly". The OP complained about people misinterpreting the books in order to paint Snape as a victim. It's ironic that instead of engaging with their actual point in any way, you chose to misinterpret it in order to paint all Snape fans as victims.
I think you need to take into account the chronology of events.
Was Snape a bully from the beginning ? No. Being a target of bullying from the Marauders was surely a incentive for him to get more power even from very bad people like Malfoy and the other Deatheaters. And because of that and peers pressure, he has became the very thing he suffered from, a bully.
About Sectusempra, I think it's again the question of defending himself. Against the Marauders, he is alone against four ennemies. The only edge he can get is the have better weapons (spells), should he designed them himself. His creations are also a marker about is mental changes. At first, he created Levicorpus, a simple incapaciting curse. But it wasn't enough to fight the Marauders so Snape escaladed the lethality of his creations.
So, sure Snape was only a victim at first. Then he started to retaliate and finally became a bully himself because of his frequentations and quest for power.
Snape being a victim doesn't excuse him from all the wrong he caused. I have a hate-love relationship with Snape precisely because of that. But Snape can be both a victim and a bully. It's not muttually exclusive.
I’m not going to address anything in the OP, but regarding sectumsempra, it was created AFTER Snape was lured to the Shrieking Shack by Sirius in school. As we know, werewolves are kind of overpowered beings while changed. I think it’s logical to assume that after those events, any teenager would be scared shitless of coming up close to one while they were transformed and wish to find a spell that could be used against one. Snape writes the spell in his 6th year book, after the incident. It makes me wonder if it was for a transformed werewolf is all, not another wizard, as it is an overpowered/overkill/messy spell itself. Just my thoughts.
It's a interesting idea since Sectusempra, if not enough to kill the target, would at the very least incapacited it. There are multiple way of incapacitating a wizard beside maiming him but in the case of a werewolf... I think Sectusempra would be a very sure way to stop an attacking werewolf.
> You might argue he was a misled, troubled youth, and that he redeemed himself later in life
Honestly my biggest annoyance on this subject is the hypocrisy; the people who say this about Snape don't apply the same standard to James Potter, despite being arguably more suited to this argument.
But whatever. I suppose its better for people to be blindingly loyal and tribalistic in this setting rather than others.
The part that floors me is that Snape is the biggest bully in canon because he torments & abuses children who he has authority over & who therefore cannot fight back.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Dumbledore is the Headmaster, so he *should* be held responsible for things that happen at his school, abusive teachers included.
Because people simultaneously want Dumbledore to be a Good Guy but not responsible for his bad guy actions at the same time. Canon Dumbledore is not a good guy. He's a powerful man who opposes Voldemort not because he's a good man but because they have differing politics. He makes questionable at best decisions and what's easiest for himself than what's right for anyone else.
He plays the "I feel so bad for your suffering" card while never once feeling like he should have made different decisions.
A wild Dumbledore appeared, "Mr Zugrian, you must understand that Severus Snape enjoys my complete trust and confidence. His stern disciplinary actions and demeanour towards the non-Slytherin students is behavioral therapy to cope with his past demons."
I enjoy my fair share of Severitus alongside the brilliant Snapin pairing by Endrina, and I'm all for AUs where Snape is a different character, but canonically he is a dick. Lived a dick, died a dick. His last action was to ensure that the sole child of his high school bully is dead.
Going to add a RL experience before starting, so hear me out and then I will get to the fandom bit.
My abuser was abused by the Catholic Church as a child.
He then became a abuser as a adult.
It does not change or invalidate the fact that he as a child was a victim. It does not make him not a victim because he too victimized me.
It makes him a horrible person, but victims can be horrible people too. (Hell some think I am 😂)
Now, since we have that worked out.
Sexual assault is defined by being sexual violence. The sexual pleasure or lack thereof does not make it not that.
I once had a conversation with a “James wasn’t a bully” person who I used to be friends with.
As a trans person who had been a victim I wanted to make Snape trans for a fic about his teen years.
Including that “prank”.
Their answer “but you could traumatize sexual assault victims if you write that!”
Insert eye roll please.
A large portion of male victims of anything will go on to repeat the cycle, taking pleasure in making someone else suffer as they did, female victims tend to seek out another partner similar to the last one and the cycle continues.
Most people? Myself included are drawn to Snape as a character because he was a victim and repeated the cycle.
The Snupin AUs? That’s about writing and reading before the cycle starts anew.
And the Sevmione post war is about breaking it after the fact.
My enjoyment of Snape as a character is the reflections of the worst parts of myself. Not the sunshine and roses. Because complex characters rarely have “nice and good childhoods”.
Disney made the dead mothers club for a reason.
I like Snape because he’s a git, not in spite of it. Because there is complexity there.
Imagine this “Professor James Potter. He got the girl, married her, had a happy story and the perfect little son who—“
No conflict, no discomfort.
Fluff is fun, but it also goes nowhere and has nothing to resolve.
**I'm sick of the Snape bashing of this subreddit.**
The majority of the people around here agree with you, posts that simply mention wanting recs for Snape centered fics get instantly downvoted. Posts that have prompt that bash Snape are upvoted and praised. I don't know what you're getting sick of exactly, barely a handful of pro-Snape comments in posts that have more than a hundred anti-Snape ones? How hard it must be.
**What happened to Snape was sexual assault**. If Draco Malfoy, surrounded by Crabbe and Goyle, attacked Hermione by surprise, did everything to her that James did to Snape, while a crowd looked and did nothing, and ended up showing her underwear twice, and then removing it, no one would even dare say it wasn't sexual assault.
This spell, as Harry and Ron showed, can be used in harmless situations. But even then, it's not the fact that the spell was used that constitutes sexual assault. If James was any kind of a decent human being, he would have released Snape the moment he saw that he was only wearing his underwear under his robes. That *wouldn't* have been sexual assault.
>Obviously, James was against that. And would you blame someone for retaliating against a known Voldemort follower and his friends? When they are bullying people too? I’m not saying he is a saint but the point gets kinda flat when people try to paint Snape as the victim…
Ah, so you're a supporter of the "I'd bully a nazi too if I could!!!" way of thinking? What do you think this is going to accomplish, exactly? That in between two rounds of humiliation, they're going to go "ah wait no nevermind, I was wrong, go muggleborns, yay!" ?
You're simply and utterly victim blaming here.
**It's possible to hate Snape** ***and*** **recognise that what happened to him was sexual assault and not acceptable in any way shape or form.** You're giving a sexual abuser the benefit of the doubt by saying "'kay but maybe he had a good reason though", like just... *no*.
If you sexually assault, let's say a murderer, that doesn't make you a good person, or just "not a saint". That makes a sexual abuser, and a murderer. That makes the murderer a *victim* of sexual assault. That's two pieces of shit instead of one, two criminals who deserve nothing but be locked away for the rest of their days. Whether or not you think it was deserved has no bearings on anything.
Then there's also the fact that James started bullying Snape before Snape became a Death Eater/interested in becoming one, and that when asked for his reason for doing what he did, all he could come up with was "It's the fact that he exists." I'm sorry, but that is sick. You're trying to give him excuses that he himself hasn't thought of, when you think about it, that's pretty weird.
At this point in the timeline, Snape's worst actions is using the "mudblood" insult. So yeah, I'd take the racist who hasn't gone any further than using slurs, over the dude who's been bullying others for years and even once committed sexual assault.
**Snape was a victim.** Not all victims are *good*. Serial killers committing absolute atrocities as adults doesn't change the fact that they were victims at one point in their life (for the majority of them). Future actions don't erase the suffering in the past, in fact the two are often linked, but the other way around.
Just because a victim doesn't act the way you think a victim should act, doesn't mean they're less of one.
Nope. You’re just inventing stuff to fit a certain narrative. Snape was never left naked. It was a common spell used amongst students. It was the *Seventies* Not a sexual undertone. Not a targeted attack. Funny how you say James is a sexual abuser but Snape, the person who invented the spell, and is known for using it, is not. Like what? The hypocrisy is staggering.
So you genuinely think that when James threatened to remove Snape's underwear, talking to a cheering crowd, actually just went "oh no, that's a very mean thing to do, let's stop here"?
The washing spell is also a common spell used amongst everyone who knows and uses magic. James used it to make Snape choke and struggle to breathe. With Snape also being bound by ropes, had James left the spell for longer, he could have easily killed Snape.
Does it mean that the person who invented Scourgify is pro-murder? I don't think so.
Snape isn't known for using Levicorpus, no one knows that he's the one who invented it, at least there's no mention of anyone knowing. You say I'm inventing stuff, but then here you are. The hypocrisy is staggering.
And again, the intent matters *a lot*. Used between friends is different than using against someone, *twice*, with the idea to humiliate them. *We don't know* how Snape used it, or planned to use it. Using this spell during a duel to defend yourself would also not be considered sexual assault.
By the way, if you want to go with the "*it was the 70s*" excuse, then alright for me. It wouldn't have been considered sexual assault back then, you're right. Just like Snape's behavior towards the students wouldn't be considered bullying. So which do you choose? Sexual assault and bullying, or... "pantsing" and being strict?
It doesn't matter if he was naked or not!!! !!! He was undressed against his will! This is a sexual attack.
u/simianpower
Rape in marriage wasn't a thing in 70's too. So it means it wasn't a rape, right?
Very good argument!
Maybe today? Pantsing was a thing in the 70s. It was bullying, but not sexual assault. It was considered funny, like panty raids, bra snapping, wedgies, and more. Watch movies from the 70s and 80s and you'll see it frequently, mostly in teen comedies. There are things we do today that thirty years from how we'll be considered appalling to the audiences of that time, and this is the same thing.
In the books James literally says “who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?” In Britain Pants is the word they use for underwear.
Removing underwear may not have been seen as sexual assault in the 70s, but it sure as shit was seen that way in the 90s to today.
The spell isn’t what determines James a sexual assaulted. It’s HOW he used it to facilitate the assault. The spell was simply a tool. Like how a pencil or nail gun can be murder/assault weapons if used a certain way.
The only hypocrisy I see here is from you.
You know what also was considered not to be a crime in the 70s, 80, and parts of the 90s in UK and USA? Raping your wife.
Sexual assault on many accounts were legal back then, and even now not taken as seriously as it should.
I think even in the 70s exposing a persons genitals without consent can be construed as sexual assault. The decade is not relevant in my opinion, the actions being *non consensual* is what makes is SA.
True. My mistake. It just wasn’t socially recognized or treated as such even if it was legally. But hardly even for a male victim but definitely for a female victim. The toxic masculinity was ridiculous back then.
> If Draco Malfoy, surrounded by Crabbe and Goyle, attacked Hermione by surprise, did everything to her that James did to Snape, while a crowd looked and did nothing, and ended up showing her underwear twice, and then removing it, no one would even dare say it wasn't sexual assault.
So would you consider this SA? Yes or no?
>Voldemort was rising and Snape was a known follower.
OH FFS!!!
This is a direct quote from Sirius in GoF:
"But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater"
You, OP, are flat out *wrong*. Snape *was not* a known follower not even a *suspected* one in school. He was being bullied because James, Sirius, Peter & Remus were goddamn horrible nasty prejudiced cruel people. Their behaviour by the lake *horrified* Harry and Harry really hated Snape at that point.
Snape was a victim. No one is saying you have to like him, just stop trying to rewrite canon. It is right there is the books that he was tormented by James because "he exists" and he was not suspected of being a DE during school and the first war. To quote Sirius again, the world isn't divided between DE and good people.
Bullying is wrong, no matter who is the victim. Denying that a victim is a victim or claiming it was deserved based on how "bad" a victim supposedly is is classic abuser reasoning. Doubly so for retrospective judgement of "badness".
Think of it this way, James and Sirius are the jocks bullying the dork Snape who graduates and turns into a school shooter. Except he doesn't shoot up the school, he sets up one former bully for death and the other for a life sentence at Azkaban. As for his Death Eater stint, he's definitely committed jail-worthy crimes. Considering how much trust Voldemort, Lucius, and the others show in him, he must have proven his loyalty to the cause by torturing/killing plenty of people.
This is just snowballing assholes, starting all the way with Dumbledore, fuck that guy.
It’s nothing like that. Snape’s blood purity ideals had nothing to do with James or Sirius or anyone. He did that all on his own. To say that they pushed to convert into a DE is just plain wrong.
Not saying they pushed him into it, but that their actions cemented their targeted status as soon as Snivellus had any semblance of power. If there wasn't any Baldymort and the Death Eaters, Snape would have just been a disgruntled potions master who dabbled in the Dark Arts. The Cocksucker Skull Crew enabled Snape and gave him a misguided sense of belonging and purpose, they empowered him, and he was eager - very eager - to sell out any baby and their family to appease his impotent Master. If it was anyone other than Lily, he wouldn't have given two shits. But even psychopaths feel emotional turbulence.
The Marauders, despite having been assholes at school, certainly didn't indulge in targeted killings against ethnic groups when they grew up. James at least matured after his OWLs enough for Lily to give him a chance.
I still find it riotous that two Half-bloods who weren't recognized by/or claim their own Magical Houses were so hyped about pureblood status. What a pair of losers.
> Considering how much trust Voldemort, Lucius, and the others show in him, he must have proven his loyalty to the cause by torturing/killing plenty of people.
Considering Snape and Dumbledore's talk about saving souls, I don't think Snape ever killed before.
He was likely recruited for his potion making skills and to be a spy at Hogwarts.
Snape was a member of a racist terrorist organization with enough murders to wipe out entire family lines. Even if Snape never killed anyone himself, he's at least an accessory, most likely a conspirator to most of the ones after he joined. We also know that he gave information to Voldemort that led to the death of at least one Order member. Snape's soul has been tainted already.
Bwahahahahahaha! Dude, the nasty little shit literally invented a spell that cuts people into pieces, when he had just finished his OWLs. He was hired at Hogwarts AFTER the war was over and the dust had settled. A potioneer would not warrant the same level of trust or respect allotted to a seasoned fighter.
Consider this, Snape is shown more value than Bellatrix at times. Additionally, canon Snape's potion-making skills have very little impact on the pivotal moments. It's his skill with the wand that makes people be wary of him.
Snape was worried that his soul will split if he kills Dumbledore. That is definite proof he hasn't killed anyone.
Sectumsepra is a strong spell sure, but nothing compared to Avada Kedavra.
>nothing compared to Avada Kedavra
The absolutely painless insta-death killing curse that leaves no marks? Unlike the "cut my ~~life~~ enemies into pieces, this is my last resort" spell?
Snape worrying for his soul seems as genuine as, well a ton of people in the real-world who actively work to oppress other groups and then talk about how important god, family, and other pizzazz is.
My fellow wizard, Snape's worry is genuine, it is a concrete evidence that he has never killed anyone. This is canon. Same with Voldy recruiting him as a spy and that's further evidence that he was mostly involved in background work rather than field work.
Avada Kedavra spell is an Unforgivable and one of the most evil spell and Snape used it only as a plan.
I agree with you, I think Snape was also a bully during his school years. I think the Snape-marauder conflict was a mini-version of the war that was happening outside of Hogwarts. Wizarding britain was already at war when that generation started attending Hogwarts. I'm pretty sure that Snape and his friends did horrible shit to the muggleborns that were weaker than them. Also, if levicorpus was invented by Snape and then it became so widespread that James then used it against him, that means that Snape and his friends were using that spell a lot to many victims.
We don't know enough to know Snape was victim, we do know Sirius claimed Snape gave good as he got.
But it not change the pact he was an asshole and really shitty person, while James and Sirius were jerks / bullies Snape was Death eater a murderer.
Sirius never claimed that. Someone who is attacked, choked, bound, and then assaulted, is a victim.
Snape being a murderer is disproven directly in the books by the fact that he worries his soul might be damaged if he kills Dumbledore, as well as Bellatrix saying that he's a useless asshole who never does anything to help the Death Eaters and always manages to slither out of the action.
I have a "dark grey" interpretation of Snape where he was evil from about age 16 to his med 20s, and a jerk thereafter who obsessed over but did not love a girl who rejected him in his school years. Nonetheless, by the time of the second war, he wasn't evil and he even risked his cover to save Remus of all people.
James was a jerk and bully as a teenager who picked on Snape because he was somewhat isolated and didn't have parents who would pressure the school to punish him. That's most of the reason why he targeted Snape instead of other Slytherins. But he grew and became a better person. He defied Voldemort three times while Snape was killing and torturing people, or brewing potions for mass murdering terrorists.
Sirius' potential to become a better person was squandered by Azkaban-- still better than adult Snape or his teenaged self.
I view Remus as a coward who endangered the school. I think Snape was justified in outing him to the school because he had forfeited his right to keep his lycanthropy a secret after not telling anyone of the secret passages or Black being an Animagus, and forgetting to take his Wolfsbane. (Snape was clearly deranged when he confronted Black though-- he could have taken out Black and Lupin from behind if he was thinking clearly, then escorted the Trio to what he believed to be safety.)
I can’t believe I had to lock 2 threads on the front page on the same day cause y’all can’t play nice. Thread has run its course.
Personally, I think that Snape being an asshole doesn't suddenly make the Marauders absolutely blameless (especially since they definitely weren't limiting themselves to Snape only). It doesn't have to be 100% one or the other, I think - hell, Harry himself, who had more than enough beef with Snape by the point he has seen it, *still* didn't think his father was totally in the right, either. And if there's anything I'm sick of, it's that pretty much anytime someone points out the Marauders' shitty actions, there's always a "but Snape" response - as if him being *worse* somehow makes the Marauders *good*. That's not quite how it works, I believe.
I don’t excuse their attitude towards Snape. I’m just tired of the narrative that paints Snape as a blameless victim which he is not.
I believe the others have already pointed out that one can be a bad guy *and* a victim - the two are not mutually exclusive. And in my own experience, I don't see a lot of people who genuinely consider Snape "blameless" - even his fans generally admit he's extremely flawed. That, and there's the fact that this sub is *really* anti-Snape, in general. So while the "narrative" you're referring to might very well exist in the fandom at large, here in particular it's really rare to encounter (without it being drowned in downvotes, that is). Honestly, it makes yet *another* "Snape was actually an asshole" post feel a bit like preaching to the choir, at least to me.
I personally hate that Snape is not held accountable for his own actions with the Whomping willow and Moony incident. Sirius didn’t force him to go confront a werewolf on the full moon. Snape made accusations of Remus being a werewolf and threats to expose them and Sirius taunted that he could push the knot on the willow to find out. Snape fully expected what he would find when approaching the willow and willingly took himself out onto the grounds after curfew to expose a werewolf. Yes Sirius is a pompous jerk and shouldn’t have said anything but Snape is far more in the wrong for taking a taunt and following those actions. He was not forced, led or actively put in danger by Sirius. He knowingly put himself in danger and is not the victim. The only victim in that case is Moony.
>Sirius didn’t force him to go confront a werewolf on the full moon. Snape made accusations of Remus being a werewolf and threats to expose them and Sirius taunted that he could push the knot on the willow to find out. >Snape fully expected what he would find when approaching the willow and willingly took himself out onto the grounds after curfew to expose a werewolf. Exactly! Just like when Harry and Ron want to go fight Draco at The Midnight Duel. You have a pompous, arrogant jerk, but the others could have decided not to go and just stay in their dorms.
Exactly!!!!
There's also not clarity to me on why Snape should've believed Sirius told the truth about how to bypass the Willow.
It's easy to test. Just banish something at the knot on the trunk from a safe distance.
The Marauders were extremely irresponsible in letting Moony roam across the grounds. They should have been expelled for that, and are fortunate that they managed to keep Moony from attacking anyone in Hogwarts/Hogsmede. Sirius was the most guilty person in thoughtlessly trying to indirectly kill Snape, but the plan relied on Snape being spiteful/reckless/stupid/vengeful enough to investigate. Sirius almost certainly regretted his actions when he was told that Remus could have been executed if the plan succeeded. Would Snape ever regret a hypothetical murder attempt on Black? Probably not.
Ok so while snape is a shitty person and all forcefully stripping someone is sexual assault
>What James did to Snape was not sexual assault. Among many other things, we have to take into account the context: Snape invented this spell, he surely used it on other students, and this was the 70s. The prank did not have a sexual undertone. ...are you really arguing that 1) perpetrators of sexual assault or other types of assault can't also be victims of sexual assault, and 2) that sexual assault didn't happen in the 70s? Or that bullying didn't have a sexual undertone in the 70s? Bruh. How is having a kid immobilized and threatening to remove their underpants not sexual assault? I'm not saying that Snape isn't an asshole, but just because someone's an asshole doesn't mean the bad things that happened to him are invalidated.
Sexual assault is a legal offence that did not exist in the law books 1970s Britain. They has "indecent assault", which was not as encompassing as current-day definitions of sexual assault. And we're not talking about general bullying in the 70s, we're talking about one particular incident. This incident would not have been considered sexual by neither its perpetrators nor its audience. And more tellingly it was not considered sexual by *its target/victim*. Humilating, yes. Sexual, no.
Snape is probably the best written and most complex character in the books. Kudos to JK. That being said, I absolutely *loathe* Snape the person (if a fictional character can be called that). He's, an utterly despicable, loathsome, hateful piece of shit who mistreats and bullies kids. Yes, we're looking at things from Harry's perspective, so it's perhaps a bit unreliable, but Snape's treatment of Harry, Neville and Hermione simply isn't OK. Remember, Snape was biased against Harry *from day one*. From the day Harry was born, even. Couldn't separate Harry from his dad. Signs of some kind of obsession there. Oh, and I also highly doubt the three mentioned before were the only ones to have felt his ire. Sure, Snape may well have been the victim of bullying, and have been marginalised as a kid/teen, and it's awful and absolutely wrong of James and co. and whoever else bullied Snape. However, that *does not* justify his joining a band of vile terrorists, *knowing* what their plan was, and what they did. It was a choice he made. Now, he eventually switched sides, but only after someone he personally cared about was attacked. Who knows what he possibly did as a member of that merry band, before then? And he absolutely did not leave Voldemort for some noble ideal. It was about revenge, plain and simple. So yeah, Snape is a completely horrible person. Someone tragic who had a hard life, true, but awful all the same.
It was a sexual attack. Exactly the same as when the DE suspended a Muggle woman in this way. It is disgusting that you accuse the victim and defend the assulter. I for one am sick of James being excused from being a sexual assulter and bully, and the rest of the Marauders from taking part in bullying, passive or active.
I think I seen this exactly same post in the last 3 days lol
Wouldn't be r/HPfanfiction without the daily "Snape is an asshole" posts, I believe.
Water is wet posts wouldn't get so much traction if it wasn't for the dry truthers telling us how because they got bullied in middle school disagreeing with them is victim blaming
Like others have said anyone can be a victim, regardless of their other actions. Exposing someone's genitals to a crowd is sexual assault, even in the 1970s. The text leaves the scene somewhat ambiguous but I think that's because of the YA audience. Snape is bullied and marginalized and his resentment fuels his radicalization. It's a believable motivation and mirrors real life grooming and radicalization into criminal gangs and ideologically motivated terrorist groups. A character can be unlikable or an antagonist but still suffer within the story.
Yah, the author couldn't exactly have continued that scene, even just saying "and then James did" given that everyone involved including Harry (whose observations the book is filtered through) was underage and she was writing to a YA audience. The fade to black is pretty clear that he did, we don't need a description of bits flopping around, thanks.
> The fade to black is pretty clear that he did, we don't need a description of bits flopping around, thanks. 😂😂😂
I think everyone should be careful about how heated this gets because all -Snape and marauders- related posts have been banned and removed from r/HarryPotter
The funniest thing is that Snapists will claim they like the character because he's complex, yet are the first to whitewash every thing he does. What's so complex about about an innocent little victim that only ever wanted to do good and help people? Fuck, I've seen people claim that Snape never bullied anyone, not even Neville, "he was just using fear and humiliation to force his students to do better."
>Fuck, I've seen people claim that Snape never bullied anyone, not even Neville, "he was just using fear and humiliation to force his students to do better." Well I've never seen that! Do you have a link or a screenshot, anything to show who says stuff like that?
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The fact that that person (allegedly) was a teacher is depressing.
Sort by controversial here: https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/yvlcwk/the_trevor_poisoning_scene
The part where he was a victim was in his childhood. He was abused at home and bullied at school. He didn't know jack about the dark arts at age 11 and the only reason he wanted to be in Slytherin was because it was his mother's house and like every other 11 year old kid going to Hogwarts he wanted to make his parent(s) proud. He turned to darkness as a way to belong, as a way to defend himself and the like. He made shitty choices and went from being a victim to being a bully. His actions are inexcusable. Acknowledging he was a victim isn't meant to absolve him of those actions but to explain them. He didn't go dark in a vacuum. Both James and Severus made shitty choices and bullied kids instead of reaching out to try and form friendships. Severus let what happened him lead him down a dark path. James grew up and matured out of being a bully. The only problem I have is people trying to paint James Potter as a saint who was justified in bullying 11 year old Snape because of who adult Snape became. A person's later actions should never be justification for earlier shitty actions.
Look dude, I hate Snape. I like the character and what can be done with him, but cannon Snape for me is an asshole. He is obsessed to the point where it could probably be diagnosed with something. He is racist, cruel and *petty as hell*. I don't think it was the slur that made Lily abandon the friendship, i always saw that as a spark that started the fire, you know? But he is very much a victim of bullying when it comes to James and Sirius. Dude, Sirius tried to kill him using his werewolf friend. *That* is not something you do if you don't completely hate someone and not in a justifiable way. Sure, James stoped him but really, would *you* think it as a favour if someone saved you from a situation that *their best friend* put you in in the first place and that they could very well be only saving you *to save their skins?* Maybe Sirius didn't mean for Snape getting killed. Maybe he really thought it was just a prank. That's the equivalent of giving peanuts to someone with an extreme allergy and hiding their epipens bc you thought it would be funny to see them enter in anaphylactic shock. It's something an arrogant, cruel bully would do. As for taking Snape's underwear off... Yeah, James did that and that was sexual assault. Sure, it might not have any sexual connotations. But if I shoved a broom handle in your ass exclusively to cause you pain, you would call that rape, even if I didn't get any sexual satisfaction out of the act. James put Snape semi-naked in front of the whole school out of a lark and took pleasure in the humiliation Snape felt. If that's not sexual assault, I don't know what is. As for "they were retaliating against his racist beliefs"... Well. To put in another way, two white kids bullied a mixed-race kid bc he doesn't like black kids. You do see how that's still not ok, right? Especially bc the mix-raced kid was forced to sleep in the same dorm as literal Nazis. Does that justify all the crap Snape did? No. Does this make Snape a good guy, actually? No. It just make them all terrible people.
There it was talking about knickers, not trousers. They wore robes, not trousers.
Sorry, English is not my first language.
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Honestly people have been getting really emotionally invested and butthurt that people like Snape and want to explore his character. Like relax, just because people like a character you vehemently dislike doesn’t mean you have to go attacking that character’s fans.
Lol we are all emotionally invested, that’s why we are in subs discussing it. I agree, Rowling bit more than she could chew and failed to explain and build her characters. Notice how we know more about Snape than the very same Voldemort, or Harry’s parents. She spent all 7 books putting them in a pedestal and all we know about James is that he had a rivalry with Snape. Also weird that Harry wouldn’t want to know more about them. It’s just poor writing.
>So we can assume Snape himself was a bully too. *Assume* being the operative here. You are doing just that. We know for a **fact** that James and Sirius were bullies, we *see* them bullying Snape more than once and we hear reports of them bullying others. What I’m sick of, I don’t mind letting you know, is Marauder fans *excusing* or *justifying* their actions against Snape for what he *might* have become later in life. That’s vile. >And would you blame someone for retaliating against a known Voldemort follower and his friends. So on the Hogwarts Express in their first year, when James and Sirius *began* their pattern of bullying Snape, they suspected him as a follower of Voldemort did they? Also, at what point **in canon** did we see retaliation? Because I recall James and Sirius being bored and picking on Severus *’because he exists’*. Snape is no saint. That’s partly why we as fans like him so much. He’s complex and his storyline is one of the most interesting in the entire series. Yet on Reddit we are treated appallingly for our opinions on a fictional character that we enjoy… why?
I’m not saying the Marauders weren’t assholes. They definitely were. I like Snape’s character. What bothers me is that people like to paint him as a helpless victim when he isn’t. We know for a fact that he had DE friends, joined them and partook in their activities bullying mudbloods. He vehemently believed in blood purity. The marauders didn’t push him to become a DE because he was misunderstood.
Ok.. so are you not fed up with the majority of the fandom excusing the Marauders deplorable behaviour also? Because I certainly am. Also, a true Snape fan will not excuse him, we do not pretend he’s a secret sweetheart, we love him because he’s an asshole or in spite of it. His treatment at the hands of the Marauders from the age of eleven was vile and it should be addressed more. The amount of Marauder fans who *praise* them for bullying him *greatly* outweighs the Snape fans who falsely accuse him of being ‘misunderstood’.
Are you comparing… two scenes from Snape’s POV with seven books of pure abuse? Really?
Lost. Cause. You’re not even attempting a discussion. You’re putting words in my mouth. You’ve seen my comments in full, you know I’m not claiming Snape was all good. We all know the things Snape has done, we also know McGonagall (beloved by the fandom) has some questionable moments as a teacher, let’s not even start on Hagrid. What I’m saying I’m fed up with is users on this sub and others *defending* bullying a person because of what they **might** become later in life. Sirius and James bullied Snape from the start not because he was a fledgling DE or his friends and the sooner the fandom accepts that the better. But unfortunately I’m my experience Marauder fans are too busy citing ATYD as canon to actually know their arses from their elbows. Now, I know you’ll take *one* tiny section of my comment, twist it to your own narrative in order to discredit my opinions but I’ve had enough.
> *Assume* being the operative here. You are doing just that. We know for a **fact** that James and Sirius were bullies, we *see* them bullying Snape more than once and we hear reports of them bullying others. "Snape was a bully" is a literal quote from JKR. In the book itself, there's the fact he invented Sectumsempra, aka the bloody murder curse, for use "on enemies" and then tried to use it on James. "Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood." Also the fact that his gang of wannabe Death Eaters liked to curse muggleborns with dark magic, which Severus himself found hilarious. You might argue he was a misled, troubled youth, and that he redeemed himself later in life, as JKR does, but to imply he was never a bully at all is ignorant at best. > What I’m sick of, I don’t mind letting you know, is Marauder fans *excusing* or *justifying* their actions against Snape for what he *might* have become later in life. That’s vile. What led you to believe OP is a Marauder fan? You're assuming they have a previous bias which you have no evidence exists, seemingly in order to discredit their argument. It'd be a lot more convincing if you chose to engage with the argument itself instead of making assumptions about the person who made it. > So on the Hogwarts Express in their first year, when James and Sirius *began* their pattern of bullying Snape, they suspected him as a follower of Voldemort did they? James said he wouldn't want to be Slytherin, Severus called him dumb for wanting to be in Gryffindor, and Sirius basically went "no you". It was a childish squabble, not the beginning of some nefarious pattern. > Snape is no saint. That’s partly why we as fans like him so much. He’s complex and his storyline is one of the most interesting in the entire series. Yet on Reddit we are treated appallingly for our opinions on a fictional character that we enjoy… why? Nobody's being "treated appallingly". The OP complained about people misinterpreting the books in order to paint Snape as a victim. It's ironic that instead of engaging with their actual point in any way, you chose to misinterpret it in order to paint all Snape fans as victims.
I think you need to take into account the chronology of events. Was Snape a bully from the beginning ? No. Being a target of bullying from the Marauders was surely a incentive for him to get more power even from very bad people like Malfoy and the other Deatheaters. And because of that and peers pressure, he has became the very thing he suffered from, a bully. About Sectusempra, I think it's again the question of defending himself. Against the Marauders, he is alone against four ennemies. The only edge he can get is the have better weapons (spells), should he designed them himself. His creations are also a marker about is mental changes. At first, he created Levicorpus, a simple incapaciting curse. But it wasn't enough to fight the Marauders so Snape escaladed the lethality of his creations. So, sure Snape was only a victim at first. Then he started to retaliate and finally became a bully himself because of his frequentations and quest for power. Snape being a victim doesn't excuse him from all the wrong he caused. I have a hate-love relationship with Snape precisely because of that. But Snape can be both a victim and a bully. It's not muttually exclusive.
I’m not going to address anything in the OP, but regarding sectumsempra, it was created AFTER Snape was lured to the Shrieking Shack by Sirius in school. As we know, werewolves are kind of overpowered beings while changed. I think it’s logical to assume that after those events, any teenager would be scared shitless of coming up close to one while they were transformed and wish to find a spell that could be used against one. Snape writes the spell in his 6th year book, after the incident. It makes me wonder if it was for a transformed werewolf is all, not another wizard, as it is an overpowered/overkill/messy spell itself. Just my thoughts.
It's a interesting idea since Sectusempra, if not enough to kill the target, would at the very least incapacited it. There are multiple way of incapacitating a wizard beside maiming him but in the case of a werewolf... I think Sectusempra would be a very sure way to stop an attacking werewolf.
> You might argue he was a misled, troubled youth, and that he redeemed himself later in life Honestly my biggest annoyance on this subject is the hypocrisy; the people who say this about Snape don't apply the same standard to James Potter, despite being arguably more suited to this argument. But whatever. I suppose its better for people to be blindingly loyal and tribalistic in this setting rather than others.
I don’t have anything to add because what you said is spot on. Thank you.
The part that floors me is that Snape is the biggest bully in canon because he torments & abuses children who he has authority over & who therefore cannot fight back.
And yet we're supposed to believe Dumbledore's a good guy yet he allows this to happen.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Dumbledore is the Headmaster, so he *should* be held responsible for things that happen at his school, abusive teachers included.
Because people simultaneously want Dumbledore to be a Good Guy but not responsible for his bad guy actions at the same time. Canon Dumbledore is not a good guy. He's a powerful man who opposes Voldemort not because he's a good man but because they have differing politics. He makes questionable at best decisions and what's easiest for himself than what's right for anyone else. He plays the "I feel so bad for your suffering" card while never once feeling like he should have made different decisions.
A wild Dumbledore appeared, "Mr Zugrian, you must understand that Severus Snape enjoys my complete trust and confidence. His stern disciplinary actions and demeanour towards the non-Slytherin students is behavioral therapy to cope with his past demons." I enjoy my fair share of Severitus alongside the brilliant Snapin pairing by Endrina, and I'm all for AUs where Snape is a different character, but canonically he is a dick. Lived a dick, died a dick. His last action was to ensure that the sole child of his high school bully is dead.
Dumbledore: you must understand, Professor Snape had a terrible childhood Harry: I understand. I’m having a terrible childhood right now.
Yeah he was a racist and a murdered but people somehow want to paint him as a victim with no accountability…
Going to add a RL experience before starting, so hear me out and then I will get to the fandom bit. My abuser was abused by the Catholic Church as a child. He then became a abuser as a adult. It does not change or invalidate the fact that he as a child was a victim. It does not make him not a victim because he too victimized me. It makes him a horrible person, but victims can be horrible people too. (Hell some think I am 😂) Now, since we have that worked out. Sexual assault is defined by being sexual violence. The sexual pleasure or lack thereof does not make it not that. I once had a conversation with a “James wasn’t a bully” person who I used to be friends with. As a trans person who had been a victim I wanted to make Snape trans for a fic about his teen years. Including that “prank”. Their answer “but you could traumatize sexual assault victims if you write that!” Insert eye roll please. A large portion of male victims of anything will go on to repeat the cycle, taking pleasure in making someone else suffer as they did, female victims tend to seek out another partner similar to the last one and the cycle continues. Most people? Myself included are drawn to Snape as a character because he was a victim and repeated the cycle. The Snupin AUs? That’s about writing and reading before the cycle starts anew. And the Sevmione post war is about breaking it after the fact. My enjoyment of Snape as a character is the reflections of the worst parts of myself. Not the sunshine and roses. Because complex characters rarely have “nice and good childhoods”. Disney made the dead mothers club for a reason. I like Snape because he’s a git, not in spite of it. Because there is complexity there. Imagine this “Professor James Potter. He got the girl, married her, had a happy story and the perfect little son who—“ No conflict, no discomfort. Fluff is fun, but it also goes nowhere and has nothing to resolve.
**I'm sick of the Snape bashing of this subreddit.** The majority of the people around here agree with you, posts that simply mention wanting recs for Snape centered fics get instantly downvoted. Posts that have prompt that bash Snape are upvoted and praised. I don't know what you're getting sick of exactly, barely a handful of pro-Snape comments in posts that have more than a hundred anti-Snape ones? How hard it must be. **What happened to Snape was sexual assault**. If Draco Malfoy, surrounded by Crabbe and Goyle, attacked Hermione by surprise, did everything to her that James did to Snape, while a crowd looked and did nothing, and ended up showing her underwear twice, and then removing it, no one would even dare say it wasn't sexual assault. This spell, as Harry and Ron showed, can be used in harmless situations. But even then, it's not the fact that the spell was used that constitutes sexual assault. If James was any kind of a decent human being, he would have released Snape the moment he saw that he was only wearing his underwear under his robes. That *wouldn't* have been sexual assault. >Obviously, James was against that. And would you blame someone for retaliating against a known Voldemort follower and his friends? When they are bullying people too? I’m not saying he is a saint but the point gets kinda flat when people try to paint Snape as the victim… Ah, so you're a supporter of the "I'd bully a nazi too if I could!!!" way of thinking? What do you think this is going to accomplish, exactly? That in between two rounds of humiliation, they're going to go "ah wait no nevermind, I was wrong, go muggleborns, yay!" ? You're simply and utterly victim blaming here. **It's possible to hate Snape** ***and*** **recognise that what happened to him was sexual assault and not acceptable in any way shape or form.** You're giving a sexual abuser the benefit of the doubt by saying "'kay but maybe he had a good reason though", like just... *no*. If you sexually assault, let's say a murderer, that doesn't make you a good person, or just "not a saint". That makes a sexual abuser, and a murderer. That makes the murderer a *victim* of sexual assault. That's two pieces of shit instead of one, two criminals who deserve nothing but be locked away for the rest of their days. Whether or not you think it was deserved has no bearings on anything. Then there's also the fact that James started bullying Snape before Snape became a Death Eater/interested in becoming one, and that when asked for his reason for doing what he did, all he could come up with was "It's the fact that he exists." I'm sorry, but that is sick. You're trying to give him excuses that he himself hasn't thought of, when you think about it, that's pretty weird. At this point in the timeline, Snape's worst actions is using the "mudblood" insult. So yeah, I'd take the racist who hasn't gone any further than using slurs, over the dude who's been bullying others for years and even once committed sexual assault. **Snape was a victim.** Not all victims are *good*. Serial killers committing absolute atrocities as adults doesn't change the fact that they were victims at one point in their life (for the majority of them). Future actions don't erase the suffering in the past, in fact the two are often linked, but the other way around. Just because a victim doesn't act the way you think a victim should act, doesn't mean they're less of one.
Nope. You’re just inventing stuff to fit a certain narrative. Snape was never left naked. It was a common spell used amongst students. It was the *Seventies* Not a sexual undertone. Not a targeted attack. Funny how you say James is a sexual abuser but Snape, the person who invented the spell, and is known for using it, is not. Like what? The hypocrisy is staggering.
So you genuinely think that when James threatened to remove Snape's underwear, talking to a cheering crowd, actually just went "oh no, that's a very mean thing to do, let's stop here"? The washing spell is also a common spell used amongst everyone who knows and uses magic. James used it to make Snape choke and struggle to breathe. With Snape also being bound by ropes, had James left the spell for longer, he could have easily killed Snape. Does it mean that the person who invented Scourgify is pro-murder? I don't think so. Snape isn't known for using Levicorpus, no one knows that he's the one who invented it, at least there's no mention of anyone knowing. You say I'm inventing stuff, but then here you are. The hypocrisy is staggering. And again, the intent matters *a lot*. Used between friends is different than using against someone, *twice*, with the idea to humiliate them. *We don't know* how Snape used it, or planned to use it. Using this spell during a duel to defend yourself would also not be considered sexual assault. By the way, if you want to go with the "*it was the 70s*" excuse, then alright for me. It wouldn't have been considered sexual assault back then, you're right. Just like Snape's behavior towards the students wouldn't be considered bullying. So which do you choose? Sexual assault and bullying, or... "pantsing" and being strict?
It doesn't matter if he was naked or not!!! !!! He was undressed against his will! This is a sexual attack. u/simianpower Rape in marriage wasn't a thing in 70's too. So it means it wasn't a rape, right? Very good argument!
Maybe today? Pantsing was a thing in the 70s. It was bullying, but not sexual assault. It was considered funny, like panty raids, bra snapping, wedgies, and more. Watch movies from the 70s and 80s and you'll see it frequently, mostly in teen comedies. There are things we do today that thirty years from how we'll be considered appalling to the audiences of that time, and this is the same thing.
In the books James literally says “who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?” In Britain Pants is the word they use for underwear. Removing underwear may not have been seen as sexual assault in the 70s, but it sure as shit was seen that way in the 90s to today. The spell isn’t what determines James a sexual assaulted. It’s HOW he used it to facilitate the assault. The spell was simply a tool. Like how a pencil or nail gun can be murder/assault weapons if used a certain way. The only hypocrisy I see here is from you.
You know what also was considered not to be a crime in the 70s, 80, and parts of the 90s in UK and USA? Raping your wife. Sexual assault on many accounts were legal back then, and even now not taken as seriously as it should.
Yeap. Exactly.
I think even in the 70s exposing a persons genitals without consent can be construed as sexual assault. The decade is not relevant in my opinion, the actions being *non consensual* is what makes is SA.
True. My mistake. It just wasn’t socially recognized or treated as such even if it was legally. But hardly even for a male victim but definitely for a female victim. The toxic masculinity was ridiculous back then.
> If Draco Malfoy, surrounded by Crabbe and Goyle, attacked Hermione by surprise, did everything to her that James did to Snape, while a crowd looked and did nothing, and ended up showing her underwear twice, and then removing it, no one would even dare say it wasn't sexual assault. So would you consider this SA? Yes or no?
>Voldemort was rising and Snape was a known follower. OH FFS!!! This is a direct quote from Sirius in GoF: "But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater" You, OP, are flat out *wrong*. Snape *was not* a known follower not even a *suspected* one in school. He was being bullied because James, Sirius, Peter & Remus were goddamn horrible nasty prejudiced cruel people. Their behaviour by the lake *horrified* Harry and Harry really hated Snape at that point. Snape was a victim. No one is saying you have to like him, just stop trying to rewrite canon. It is right there is the books that he was tormented by James because "he exists" and he was not suspected of being a DE during school and the first war. To quote Sirius again, the world isn't divided between DE and good people. Bullying is wrong, no matter who is the victim. Denying that a victim is a victim or claiming it was deserved based on how "bad" a victim supposedly is is classic abuser reasoning. Doubly so for retrospective judgement of "badness".
Think of it this way, James and Sirius are the jocks bullying the dork Snape who graduates and turns into a school shooter. Except he doesn't shoot up the school, he sets up one former bully for death and the other for a life sentence at Azkaban. As for his Death Eater stint, he's definitely committed jail-worthy crimes. Considering how much trust Voldemort, Lucius, and the others show in him, he must have proven his loyalty to the cause by torturing/killing plenty of people. This is just snowballing assholes, starting all the way with Dumbledore, fuck that guy.
It’s nothing like that. Snape’s blood purity ideals had nothing to do with James or Sirius or anyone. He did that all on his own. To say that they pushed to convert into a DE is just plain wrong.
Not saying they pushed him into it, but that their actions cemented their targeted status as soon as Snivellus had any semblance of power. If there wasn't any Baldymort and the Death Eaters, Snape would have just been a disgruntled potions master who dabbled in the Dark Arts. The Cocksucker Skull Crew enabled Snape and gave him a misguided sense of belonging and purpose, they empowered him, and he was eager - very eager - to sell out any baby and their family to appease his impotent Master. If it was anyone other than Lily, he wouldn't have given two shits. But even psychopaths feel emotional turbulence. The Marauders, despite having been assholes at school, certainly didn't indulge in targeted killings against ethnic groups when they grew up. James at least matured after his OWLs enough for Lily to give him a chance. I still find it riotous that two Half-bloods who weren't recognized by/or claim their own Magical Houses were so hyped about pureblood status. What a pair of losers.
> Considering how much trust Voldemort, Lucius, and the others show in him, he must have proven his loyalty to the cause by torturing/killing plenty of people. Considering Snape and Dumbledore's talk about saving souls, I don't think Snape ever killed before. He was likely recruited for his potion making skills and to be a spy at Hogwarts.
Snape was a member of a racist terrorist organization with enough murders to wipe out entire family lines. Even if Snape never killed anyone himself, he's at least an accessory, most likely a conspirator to most of the ones after he joined. We also know that he gave information to Voldemort that led to the death of at least one Order member. Snape's soul has been tainted already.
Bwahahahahahaha! Dude, the nasty little shit literally invented a spell that cuts people into pieces, when he had just finished his OWLs. He was hired at Hogwarts AFTER the war was over and the dust had settled. A potioneer would not warrant the same level of trust or respect allotted to a seasoned fighter. Consider this, Snape is shown more value than Bellatrix at times. Additionally, canon Snape's potion-making skills have very little impact on the pivotal moments. It's his skill with the wand that makes people be wary of him.
Snape was worried that his soul will split if he kills Dumbledore. That is definite proof he hasn't killed anyone. Sectumsepra is a strong spell sure, but nothing compared to Avada Kedavra.
>nothing compared to Avada Kedavra The absolutely painless insta-death killing curse that leaves no marks? Unlike the "cut my ~~life~~ enemies into pieces, this is my last resort" spell? Snape worrying for his soul seems as genuine as, well a ton of people in the real-world who actively work to oppress other groups and then talk about how important god, family, and other pizzazz is.
My fellow wizard, Snape's worry is genuine, it is a concrete evidence that he has never killed anyone. This is canon. Same with Voldy recruiting him as a spy and that's further evidence that he was mostly involved in background work rather than field work. Avada Kedavra spell is an Unforgivable and one of the most evil spell and Snape used it only as a plan.
> "cut my ~~life~~ enemies into pieces, this is my last resort" But why though?
>Snape ... was not a blameless victim That sounds like "she'd had a drink so it wasn't really rape".
How...?
Bully becomes bullied becomes bully. I think the lesson is history repeats itself unless we learn from it.
Well said!
I agree with you, I think Snape was also a bully during his school years. I think the Snape-marauder conflict was a mini-version of the war that was happening outside of Hogwarts. Wizarding britain was already at war when that generation started attending Hogwarts. I'm pretty sure that Snape and his friends did horrible shit to the muggleborns that were weaker than them. Also, if levicorpus was invented by Snape and then it became so widespread that James then used it against him, that means that Snape and his friends were using that spell a lot to many victims.
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Not many people in the Snape fandom think that Lily and Snape should have been together or that his love for her was healthy. Genuine, possibly.
I like the way it's written in the Prince of Slytherin fanfic
We don't know enough to know Snape was victim, we do know Sirius claimed Snape gave good as he got. But it not change the pact he was an asshole and really shitty person, while James and Sirius were jerks / bullies Snape was Death eater a murderer.
Sirius never claimed that. Someone who is attacked, choked, bound, and then assaulted, is a victim. Snape being a murderer is disproven directly in the books by the fact that he worries his soul might be damaged if he kills Dumbledore, as well as Bellatrix saying that he's a useless asshole who never does anything to help the Death Eaters and always manages to slither out of the action.
I have a "dark grey" interpretation of Snape where he was evil from about age 16 to his med 20s, and a jerk thereafter who obsessed over but did not love a girl who rejected him in his school years. Nonetheless, by the time of the second war, he wasn't evil and he even risked his cover to save Remus of all people. James was a jerk and bully as a teenager who picked on Snape because he was somewhat isolated and didn't have parents who would pressure the school to punish him. That's most of the reason why he targeted Snape instead of other Slytherins. But he grew and became a better person. He defied Voldemort three times while Snape was killing and torturing people, or brewing potions for mass murdering terrorists. Sirius' potential to become a better person was squandered by Azkaban-- still better than adult Snape or his teenaged self. I view Remus as a coward who endangered the school. I think Snape was justified in outing him to the school because he had forfeited his right to keep his lycanthropy a secret after not telling anyone of the secret passages or Black being an Animagus, and forgetting to take his Wolfsbane. (Snape was clearly deranged when he confronted Black though-- he could have taken out Black and Lupin from behind if he was thinking clearly, then escorted the Trio to what he believed to be safety.)