Harry Potter fans over on Reddit have made a “horrible realization” about Snape nearly 30 years later that has some seeing the character in a different light. Alongside Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Draco, Dobby, and a few others, Severus Snape — played by the late, great Alan Rickman in the Harry Potter movies — is a favorite character of many fans. This is true of both the character’s portrayal in the books and the movies based on the books. Who will play the character in the upcoming HBO TV Show, and how good this portrayal will be, remains to be seen.
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Before Harry Potter fans can plunge into disagreement about who should and shouldn’t be casted to play Snape in the HBO show, there has been a new debate on series’ Reddit page over the character.
Taking to said Reddit page, one fan relayed word of a “horrible realization” they made while recently rereading the books after previously “defending him [Snape] for years.” The realization can be seen in full below, but it involves Lily Potter, and how Snape’s love for the character outweighed his evil deeds as a Death Eater. However, according to the post below they never realized how “disgustingly selfish” Snape was for asking Voldermort to spare Lily, suggesting he is not as redeemed by the end of the events of Harry Potter as some fans suggest.
The popularity of the post suggests everything above is not an isolated take, but a fairly common consensus on the other character. Meanwhile, some of the comments echo the sentiment, with some pointing out how Dumbledore calls out Snape for this exact thing, which he does in a heated but brief exchange where Snape is reprimanded for not caring about the death of Lily’s husband and son as long as he gets what he wants.
That said, as you would expect, there are also plenty of comments that defend Snape from this post as well.
“He was a foolish, desperate 19- or 20-year-old acting out of sheer panic. He genuinely feared for Lily’s life and didn’t think beyond that immediate fear,” reads one of the comments on the post above. “That doesn’t mean he only wanted her for himself or didn’t care about her feelings – it just means he didn’t think it through. Considering his age and the extreme circumstances, that’s not entirely unusual.”
Of course, by and large there is no right or wrong answer here. That said, it is a testament to not just the quality of the Harry Potter books, but how good of a character Snape is that the Harry Potter fandom is still completely divided on him decades later.
As always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. Do you agree with this Reddit post or is Snape not as bad as he’s being made out to be?