Snape

[ginasketch]

I know what you are probably all thinking- Snape, a hated character? He was voted Favourite Harry Potter Character in numerous polls, how can you say he's hated?

Comments

[sleepherealone]

Thank you so much for this post! It doesn't really bother me if people personally don't care for Snape because we all have our different opinions, but the constant beating a dead horse of what an irredeemably awful person he is and all the reasons why make me go crazy because it feels like just one step from people saying they judge you if you like him even if you don't woobify or excuse his actions, and it's so exhausting. You can like characters and find them fascinating without thinking they're good people! It also bothers me because it seems like HP fandom tries to find the good points of literally almost every other character in the series but NO SNAPE IS REALLY HORRIBLE YOU CAN'T LIKE HIM.

[ginasketch]

because it feels like just one step from people saying they judge you if you like him even if you don't woobify or excuse his actions

Yesss! This exactly. And it was the same arguments over and over. And people acting like 9 year old Snape was some kind of creepy sexual stalker because he hid behind a bush before working up the courage to speak to Lily. I mean...just...what??

[sleepherealone]

Well OBVIOUSLY he was bad from the beginning and every single thing he does is awful so that makes sense! Except not. And it wouldn't bother me as much either if it was just random people across fandom yelling about how much they hate him and how bad of a person he is, but it can't help but hurt my feelings when friends of mine reblog almost every single one of those anti-Snape posts. It's fine if people don't like him and they're free to express their opinions but idk, it's just common courtesy to not always scream about why you hate someone somebody else likes right in their face.

[ginasketch]

I just got tired of seeing it on my dash over and over. It was like a broken record. Also, I find it telling that we can acknowledge Snape's bullying of students is wrong but anti-snape people think he deserved to get bullied by the Marauders. Agh. No, it's all wrong, people!

I know what you mean about feeling personally attacked. Everytime I see someone say Snape deserved his bullying and that "it wasn't that bad" I think of my own experiences at school and how strongly they can shape you as a person. Not cool.

[ringing_phone]

Nice defense; I especially like your point that you can be a fan of Snape and still acknowledge his character flaws. He was my favorite character, and most of that comes from his constant air of ambiguity; from his first appearance onward, he's never been exactly what he appears - and that always makes him more interesting. Neither Harry nor I knew when he was going to show up, or whether his arrival meant help or obstruction. And yet on top of all that, he was still a consistent character who never lost that distinctive voice of his no matter what he was doing. I don't ask that characters be nice so much as interesting, and damn, was Snape interesting.

[ginasketch]

The fact that people are still arguing about him now proves he is an interesting character. 100 years from now people will probably still be arguing about him.