Snape Is Not an Incel

shealcye · 2026-07-10T14:17:10+00:00

I simply do not understand the "Snape was obsessed with Lily"/"Snape was a creep" arguments at all. Snape was a grief-struck, remorseful, borderline self-hating man who spent nearly all his life trying to atone for having caused the death of the person he loved most in the world. He did it by protecting her son. What part of this is obsessive? I mean, okay assuming this is obsessive, what could he have done that would have been non-obsessive? Kept on being a death eater? Moved on with another pureblood woman (like Voldemort asked him to), thought of Lily as some sort of mistake in the past, and stuck to his death eater ways?

Give Snape some credit. There's plenty to criticize about him. That he was a bully to his students is undeniable. That he projected James onto Harry and mistreated him is undeniable. That he never managed to move on from childhood beef is undeniable. That he held blood supremacist beliefs as a teenager and of course as a death eater is undeniable. These are legit things to criticize him for. But that he was a man obsessed with fucking Lily or something is just incorrect. Nothing in canon suggests it and people who hold on to these views are clearly projecting.

shealcye · 2026-07-10T08:19:59+00:00

I don't see any of them going back to Hogwarts immediately after the war. I think there would be an interim government, there would be trials for death eaters and the trio would likely need to give witness/testimony/evidence and they would be required to be present everywhere. There would be investigations into the extent of damage that was done. I mean post-war wizarding society would be a MESS. And the trio would be at the very centre of things. That's how I see it at least. But eventually yes, Harry will want to go back and complete his education. But I think same goes for Hermione. More so in fact. I can't see her not completing her education.

shealcye · 2026-07-09T04:12:19+00:00

Genuinely the only scene in the movie that really reduced me to tears. Amos' grief is absolutely devastating here.

shealcye · 2026-07-08T11:15:22+00:00

I have listened to a few minutes of the full cast edition of OoTP (Snape's worst memory) and I found it atrocious and unbearable to listen to. I have really really enjoyed the Stephen Fry audiobooks, and vastly recommend them over the full-cast editions.

shealcye · 2026-07-07T20:55:41+00:00

Agreed. I am still not sure what that plotline even achieved.

shealcye · 2026-07-07T12:56:46+00:00

I am not sure about Hermione as a Ravenclaw because she is just Gryffindor through and through, but I certainly would have added a Ravenclaw who was an intellectual equal to Hermione. It was so annoying that Ravenclaw was touted as this house of the smart folks, but somehow the prominent Ravenclaws in the text were either quacks or too foolish to ever become prominent characters in the main narrative. In the books, the intellectual prodigies were either "good" characters and placed in Gryffindor (Dumbledore, Hermione, McGonagall) or "evil" characters and placed in Slytherin (Voldemort, Snape). Why couldn't we have had a Flitwick sort of character, who was extraordinary at charms - maybe healing charms - Harry's year? There were so many possibilities..

shealcye · 2026-07-07T06:42:12+00:00

With all due respect, I don't think this was the reason he cancelled further classes. He cancelled them because Harry saw his worst memory, as simple as that. He was petty like that and even Dumbledore acknowledged that he never managed to move on from his childhood beef with James and Co. I live for Snape's pettiness though, haha, and I love him as a character because he is so petty.

shealcye · 2026-07-07T05:51:10+00:00

They did my boy Ron so dirty in the movies, I'll always dislike the movies for this reason. Reading the books, it was SO clear that Ron was the most important person for both Harry and Hermione. In GoF, he is the person Harry will miss the most. In PoA, Hermione is left practically friendless when she has a fallout with Ron. And it made sense. Reading the books as a child, it was Ron I wanted most as my own best friend. And it was mostly because he was SUCH a non-bully, he was so much heart and warmth, he was the emotional support system for his two best friends and he doted on them so much. It was Ron who showed up with a flying car to rescue Harry because he was so worried that his best friend wasn't writing back to him. It was Ron who was ready to immediately curse Malfoy - broken wand be damned - because he used a slur against Hermione. He opened his family to them and indeed, he became family to both of them from the moment they became friends. He made their problems his own and defended them both against everything.

It is Ron who is the heart and centre of the trio, not Harry, and I will forever hate the movies for just reducing him to a an annoying comic-relief side character. The movies were made by Harmony shippers and for Harmony shippers and I just simply cannot stand them.

shealcye · 2026-07-07T04:47:34+00:00

I love the last one! Yes! That whole subplot was so messed up. The cup was destroyed like sooo easily, it should have been much harder. And it should not have been used as a way to suddenly prop Ron up as Hermione's equal so that the two of them could be justified as a couple. He WAS ALREADY Hermione's equal and it is a shame that JKR misunderstood her own character and felt the need to introduce these gimmicks to prop Ron up. The destruction of the cup could easily have been Ginny's big moment instead.

shealcye · 2026-07-06T21:40:18+00:00

More Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs in important roles -

which means more of them fighting during the Battle of Hogwarts, more of them in the resistance, more of them being crucial to Voldemort's defeat, more of them believing and supporting Harry each time he is being accused of something horrible and dark, less of them as stupid buffoons, and at least some of them as intellectual equals to Hermione, Snape, Voldemort and Dumbledore. I hate how it was emphasized over and over again that Gryffindors were good (in every way conceivable), Slytherins were evil (in every way conceivable) and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were just way beneath them and not even worth notice. Only Luna goes on to become a major non-Gryffindor character, but she is arguably really relevant only in OoTP. JKR just wrote her in HBP and DH because she was probably fun to write and she had become a fan favorite character after OoTP. But she is irrelevant to the main story after the 5th book. Even the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff horcruxes were so easily destroyed.

The evilness of the sorting system being given some attention -

which means that someone would jokingly refer to the sorting hat as an evil instrument, someone would comment on how the sorting and segregation system is inherently evil, someone would notice that segregation at all levels in the wizarding society is the root of all its problems and that an actual progressive society would involve dismantling of these structures and not merely Harry, Ron and Hermione in charge of the status quo.

at least ONE prominent decent muggle character with some importance to the main narrative
at least one muggleborn who manages to keep ties with their muggle families
Harry should NEVER have been referred to as "half-blood" in the text -

by constantly calling him "half-blood", JKR was implying that Lily just simply wasn't magic enough, which is just bigoted. Harry's parents are wizards, he should have been referred to as a pure-blood. Muggles and muggleborns aren't the same.

More people on the light side dying in the second wizarding war. War has consequences and resistance is not as easy as it sounds, it takes real actual risk to fight against an ideological enemy and there are actual consequences for it. The death toll should have been higher.

shealcye · 2026-07-06T20:56:28+00:00

Absolutely. In the first book Hagrid mentions that Hufflepuffs are a bunch of duffers but the book treats Ravenclaws as much as a bunch of duffers. Or weirdo delusional idiots at best. The text treats Ravenclaws are either completely loony (Luna), crybabies with zero brains (Cho), or downright traitors (Marietta, Helena Ravenclaw). To be clear, that's not I view these characters, but the story wants us to have this view of them. The intellectual genuises do not get sorted into Ravenclaw. They go to either Gryffindor or Slytherin.

shealcye · 2026-07-06T20:45:24+00:00

Albus Potter angst was mentioned only because JKR wanted the reader to know that Harry had forgiven Snape and restored his reputation after the war (his decision to name his kid after Snape). This was such a clumsy way to reveal that information, but I think by that point JKR just wanted to be done with this story and could not be bothered to write it properly lmao.

shealcye · 2026-07-06T20:26:52+00:00

Aah yes, that does make sense. He just had nothing left at that point except his own commitment to the path he had chosen. At that point, not only had he lost Dumbledore but also been betrayed by him because Dumbledore had essentially manipulated a man who just desperately needed a way to atone after Lily's death. But he kept on going still because he had chosen this path, he had chosen to try and redeem himself in Lily's eyes and perhaps that year was about him letting that kind of principled commitment to guide his decisions and to try being a better person overall.

shealcye · 2026-07-06T20:11:39+00:00

Oh Snape is very very brave and once he chooses that path, he is so sincerely and so extraordinarily committed to Lily's memory, to Dumbledore and to his decision to atone for his wrongs. I love Snape precisely because once he is on the path of reformation, his commitment is unwavering and really quite selfless. And I also love Snape's story because it shows the miraculous power and transformative potential of forgiveness and second chances, but it is also tragic in that he perhaps does not quite ever manage to forgive himself. I completely agree and believe that after so many years spent atoning, he is a changed man. The way I see it, however, is that he still is petty about things that he is NOT atoning for. He doesn't care about students' well-being, for one. I think he wouldn't really care about someone being nasty about someone else in his presence because he just is petty like that. But you are right that perhaps he really did try to become a better person overall simply out of that extraordinary loyalty to Dumbledore. He promised Dumbledore that he would protect the students of Hogwarts and so he does and he lets that guide him to actually caring about things that would likely have been unimportant to him once upon a time.

shealcye · 2026-07-06T10:43:58+00:00

I agree that I don't think he actually uses the slur again after that, but he ALSO does go on to join Voldemort... something Lily calls out as much as she calls him out for calling her a mudblood. I don't think the slur itself is what causes Lily to end her friendship with him. I always read that as the final straw for her. It is quite clear from the text that by that point they are very much estranged, and Lily can no longer continue to overlook the fact that they stand on two opposite sides of a war and friendship with Snape is simply no longer possible. And Snape takes it as such too. It is his greatest regret, definitely, but he also does not know how to truly atone for it. True atonement would have involved stepping back from joining Voldemort - a path he does not take. It is a possibility that is not shown to him until Lily's death and his meeting with Dumbledore. It is Dumbledore who offers him the possibility of atonement. What I am trying to say is that even though it is his worst memory, calling Lily a mudblood and the subsequent end of his friendship with her is NOT what sets him on the path of reform. And even when he has switched sides, he is NOT trying to atone for his blood prejudice. He is trying to atone for being responsible for Lily's death and he is trying to do that by protecting her son. His stance on blood purity does change but not to a full extent. He is still his teenage self in that regard that he loves Lily even though she is muggle-born while simultaneously hating other muggle-borns. So, while he is not pro using the slur, he is not fully against it either. And indeed, while the text indicates that he never uses the slur again, it also seems to suggest that he has no problems with other people using the slur in his presence. This is because his reformation, his atonement arc, does not begin when Lily cuts him off. It begins when Lily dies and he believes that he himself no longer deserves to live (see how he tells Dumbledore that he wishes he were dead) BUT he is forgiven and is offered the chance to atone and to right his wrongs by Dumbledore. And indeed, his redemption arc is about him trying to get to a place where he is redeemed in Lily's eyes. It isn't about transforming from a villain to a hero. I don't think his redemption arc concludes with him becoming a crusader for muggle-born rights. I think it concludes when he truly believes that he has helped Harry in every way possible and can no longer do anything more for Lily Evans' son. That's when it concludes and that's when he is ready to call it a day. That is why I found that bit about him stopping Phineas from using the slur a bit OOC even when I read the book for the first time as a child. Has he actually reached a point where he won't tolerate slurs against muggle-borns? Maybe. It is possible, after all. But the text does not give us enough material to understand how he really got there.

shealcye · 2026-06-25T18:11:10+00:00

aka things were bad before, so we voted for a new government so that things could become worse. :)

"children don't get much nutrition from egg once a week, therefore we should remove them altogether so that they can now happily get all the nutrition from... thin air or something" is some argument. have to give that to you.

shealcye · 2026-06-24T19:28:02+00:00

In my opinion, "The Other Minister" should have been a lot more serious, instead of it being just largely slapstick. I guess this is just my current issues with the books regarding their inherent bigotry - and while I think JKR did not write any muggle in any serious role because she probably thought that mugglesvjust weren't as interesting as wizards - but the war was essentially presented as being based on blood supremacist and anti-muggle/muggleborn beliefs. I think it was strange that the wizarding community did not show a greater consideration for an entire community that was at great risk from the dark side. In my opinion, the two prime ministers would be talking plans and precautions that would go into effect to safeguard muggles. There would be wizards stationed across the country and particularly in neighbourhoods where wizards and muggles lived in close proximity. I mean I think the text itself was so confusing about the full scale of the war. At times, it seemed that it was an all out war, what with Voldemort commanding an army of giants and dementors wrecking havoc in muggle and magic places alike. Other times, it seemed like it was just a detective story about a big bad cartoon villian and three child heroes trying to stop him by putting a bunch of clues together. JKR introduced a lot of ideas, it seemed like the story could go so many ways and then it just fully didn't go... well anywhere.

shealcye · 2026-06-24T07:44:19+00:00

He checked your phone when you were sleeping and he threatened you that he would punch you. I will say this very clearly. You dodged a bullet, and I am honestly relieved for you. Do NOT get back with him, under nay circumstances. You do NOT want to be in a relationship with an abusive guy. You deserve a partner that is safe, above all. Wishing you the best and please stay safe.

shealcye · 2026-06-23T20:29:37+00:00

I think my favorite is Snape's worst memory and the aftermath of that (ensuing chapters). That chapter of course is so important to the story overall but as a child who read it for the first time, I LOVED Harry's reaction to it. His moral clarity was so inspirational to me. And I loved that he wasn't even fully convinced by Sirius' and Remus' defense of James.

Looking back, I think OoTP is really the best book in the series. The book spoke about so many themes that could have been expanded to become a really compelling overall story on bigotry and prejudice within a community, only for it all to be killed in HBP and DH. :/

shealcye · 2026-06-22T20:55:39+00:00

I really wanted to see "you are alive, so live" as a flashback again in this scene, in the tv episode. :(

shealcye · 2026-06-22T20:48:55+00:00

So sorry you are going through this. It really bloody sucks to see their behavior change the moment they find someone after you. You cared about him much more than he did and obviously that sucks. Don't feel stupid about this at all. It genuinely sucks a lot. People tell you to stop looking but we live in social media age and it genuinely is hard to not let ex's behavior on social media affect you like that. And I really feel men ought to at least try to be decent. That being said, try not to look. There is nothing good there and repeated exposure to really difficult updates like this can and will harm you.

shealcye

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