Amph Harry Potter: The Headmaster and the Half-Blood Prince (MAJOR Book 6 Spoilers)

No arguments here. He's just a big jerk and an awful teacher. But none of those things inherently make Snape evil. And it's like Hermione says at the end of HBP "Evil is such a strong word."

Great question! It really takes a different kind of person to create a spell like that and any others that are specifically created for injuring others. To his credit though, he did make a notation that the spell was "For enemies."

 

So true.

As I've said before, I don't think Snape is really evil, I don't think that he actualy works for Voldemort - after all Dumbledore trusted him more than ever. But, what kind of person would invent such a horrible spell...

 

I think the reason Snape invented such a horrible spell stems from what his life was like when he was a student at Hogwarts. James and Co. were unusually and unecessarily cruel to him for what we can assume were all his school years. I think that e created it after they did a few really bad things to him and he seriously wanted to hurt them, but not kill him.

I think that the one thing to note is that the spell doesn't kill immediately, but from blood loss, allowing the person to be saved if they can while still giving them a wound they'll remember.

A truly evil person would have created a spell that maimed and killed.

~Priestess

 

I don't think Snape is really evil, I don't think that he actualy works for Voldemort - after all Dumbledore trusted him more than ever. But, what kind of person would invent such a horrible spell...

One thing that really annoys me is when uninformed people equate unpleasant Snape = evil Snape. Nobody has so far, but like someone said, evil's a strong word.

Snape is an unfailingly cynical, critical, altogether disagreeable person. He's an immensely talented wizard, but not a particularly nice guy. He even sneers at Hermione, which only the most jaundiced of teachers could do. But for all that he's not an easy person to like - admire, yes, but not like - Snape's not a Dark Wizard.

I think that he created it after they did a few really bad things to him and he seriously wanted to hurt them, but not kill them.

He created the Sectumsempra spell. Do we know that he ever used it in anger? Did he ever have the courage/stupidity to use it? I suspect it was a spell he created and then, because he knew he could use it, didn't. The knowledge that he was a far better wizard (and he was) was enough; he's not stupid, as well - he'd run a risk of getting summarily thrown out for inventing and using curses like that. Harry was lucky, IMO.

 

Snape is not working for Voldemort. He was acting under Dumbledore's orders when he killed him.

Is Snape good? That's another question altogether, but not an important one. I believe that even in the end, Snape will remain ambiguous, but it will be clear that he is on the side of Dumbledore.

Several points of question to those who believe Snape is evil, or working for Voldemort:

1. Do the following quotes strike you as familiar?

?Hating himself, repulsed by what he was doing, Harry forced the goblet back towards Dumbledore?s mouth and tipped it, so that Dumbledore drank the remainder of the potion inside.?
- p534, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

?Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.?
- p556, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Compare this with Snape's attitude upon cornering Sirius and Lupin in POA. Markedly different:

?Snape was slightly breathless, but his face was full of suppressed triumph. ?You?re wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here?? he said, his eyes glittering.?
- p263, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2. Why did Dumbledore appoint Snape to the DADA position if he knew it was jinxed and would lead Snape to leave the school within the year? Would this not severely place Dumbledore at a disadvantage by losing his only spy in the Death Eaters?

3. Why does Snape lie to Narcissa and Bellatrix at the start of HBP? He claims that he thought that:

". . . Potter might be a standard around which we could all rally once more. I was curious, I admit it, and not at all inclined to murder him the moment he set foot in the castle."

Severus Snape thought nothing of the sort. This is a complete untruth, and we know it. So why does he lie?


Oh, and old Dumbledore is as dead as a doornob. We will see him, however, in both the portrait and the pensieve.

 

1. To your first point, I think there's a major difference between Snape killing Dumbledore, (who, if he's working for Voldemort, is the only one that his Master ever feared,) and Snape finding one of his long time school enemies. I don't have my books with me right now since I'm at school so I can't quote any parts, unfortunately. However, if I were in the same situation as Snape in those two examples you provided, I'm pretty sure my reactions would be different. Not different as in I would have different reactions then Snape, but different as in I would not have the same reaction for both, if that makes any sense. And while, yes, their reactions were similiar (Harry and Snape), or at least how they were described, it does not necessarily mean that there is a connection. If you hate someone, (I wouldn't know for sure, but this is just a guess,) I'd bet the fact that you hate them while you kill them would be rather evident on your face.

2. Just because Snape leaves the castle does not encessarily mean that Dumbledore would be unable to keep his double agent. I'm sure the two of them would've been able to come up with something.

3. As we never see things from Snape's POV, how can we say for sure that he never thought that? And if he didn't, like you say, this lie could have possibly been one of the things he came up with to stop Voldemort from murdering him on the spot.

 

To paraphrase one of the last lines of an excellent fan fic I once read, he may not be a nice man, but he is a good man. I think you might be confusing the two. Being impolite, irritable, and insulting is not very nice, and this is part of the reason Snape is so socially maladjusted. People who refuse to master the niceties of everyday life and social interaction usually don't make many friends, and he's no exception to this rule. However, every time he's been in a situation in which it really counted, he has done the right thing. He opted to protect Harry from Quirrel during the Quidditch match in Sorceror's Stone even though he didn't care for Harry personally and knew he would lose respect in the eyes of his colleagues because they would think he was trying to help his house cheat. His only possible motivation for doing that is innate goodness.

We know because his behavior in the first book contradicts it pretty plainly. And since he had no idea back then that Voldemort might be around watching him, he had no reason to either conceal his (quite genuine) hatred of the younger Potter or to mask his true reactions to Potter's presence with a facade of hatred.

Good point. He probably derived a lot of satisfaction from the knowledge that he could seriously hurt the Marauders (or perhaps some other bullies) if he really wanted to. Whether he really intended to use it on one of them at some point is an open question.

I also tend to think of young Severus as someone who had a very unhappy home life, few friends, and probably no adult role models to teach him proper values and conduct. In short, I imagine he was quite a traumatized boy. Although there are some people out there who are able to transcend their unhappy upbringings and dysfunctional families (like Harry), there are also many people who spend years struggling not to get sucked into the cycle of violence of destructiveness (like Draco and young Severus). I don't condone their actions, but I do understand how they end up in such a spot, and I can very much sympathize with them. In Harry's case, I think part of the reason he's managed to grow up to be a compassionate and self-sacrificing young man is he's had good friends who have supported him and he's also had parent substitutes like Sirius and Lupin. And even after all that, Harry can still be unstable and temperamental and times. He too has done mean and malicious things, sometimes even being cruel to Ron and Hermione. For someone like Snape, who never had the support system Harry was blessed with, the temptation must have been that much stronger.

I think it's safe to say that teenage Snape was a very twisted person. As stated above, I don't blame him for it, but he was. Remember that at the time he wrote Sectumsempra, he was no more than a year or two away from his eventual induction into the Death Eaters. (If he was only 22 when he defected to Dumbledore's camp and already was in possession of enough secrets to be helpful to the other side, he must have started as a Death Eater very young.) He probably tortured and killed people during his DE years. However, I also think it's safe to say that adult Snape has changed and matured in a number of ways (though perhaps

 

Jumping in here...

I have to say that I think Snape had got to be one of the most intriguing, hard to figure out characters ever written. I do not want him to be the bad guy, though at this point he certainly seems as if he is. He has constantly come to Harry's aid throughout all six books, just when you think that he is inherently evil, he does something to show he is not. No he is not a lovable man, he is hardly likeable even, but still, he is by far, from what I have seen and read, a favorite of a lot of HP fans.

I think that Dumbledore is truly dead, though that will not keep him from the next book. I can not help but think that he will be even more powerful in death(sorta like Obi in ANH). And Snape killed him because he had to, and I think that Dumbledore knew that, almost as if it were a preconceived thing between the two of them.

I realize I may be stating the obvious, or repeating here, just had to get it out though.

 

Very well said Dark Lady Mara!

 

Snape can't be evil. He's the hero of the piece.

 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. HBP is Snape's tour de force - wouldn't call him exactly a hero though. Anti-hero? Best character in the series?

 

I've just started reading HBP again. And the more I think about it, the more I see that Snape is not what he seems. He is not a bady guy, but there is something about him that I cannot place.

 

I definitely agree with everyone who has said that ?evil? is a very strong word. He?s unpleasant, rude, condescending? but those qualities do not make one evil.

What do you think of the person who invented the gun? You can harm and even kill with it, but it doesn?t make the creator evil.

I agree with Sith_Priestess about the reasoning behind it. Snape was just looking for an outlook. Thinking of ways in which one could torture someone else doesn?t make him evil, or even twisted. It?s a natural feeling in life to want to bring harm to those you despise, and that?s what he was doing. He wasn?t actually using the spell on anyone. Many people write in their journals/diaries about how they wish to hurt others ? but if they do not do it, it isn?t a problem.

And yet I imagine that if I had to kill someone I loved to save the lives of many others, I would have a look of extreme hatred for what I was doing on my face. It would not be hatred towards the person I was killing; it would be hatred for what I was doing.

But would it be worth it to risk it? Snape was in the perfect position. By being at Hogwarts, he was able to convince Voldemort that he was the ultimate spy; he was right in Dumbledore?s inner circle and able to pass along information. However, he was working for Dumbledore, and able to spy on Voldemort more easily because he was in Voldemort?s inner circle as well. By leaving the school, he would lose trust from Voldemort, which would potentially blow his cover, which would not help Dumbledore at all.

Snape never did anything to indicate that he thought Harry had the potential to be great. He had no reason to pretend he thought so, either ? he was not in contact with Death Eaters at time.

 

Ok, Just a few thought that came to me while reading this to provoke debate. (Not necesarally what I believe.)

1. Dumbledor could just have been wrong. We know he's getting old and making mistakes - Not telling Harry the truth in the first place, Having Snape teach him Legilamancy, Getting his hand burnt off.
What if this was just another mistake because...
2. Snape is just a coward. Not the bully but the snivily kid who hangs around with the bully. Snape could just be out for Snape, Not evil, but caught in his own web of lies with no way out.

Also, How do we know Snape made Septusempra? How does one make a spell? Surely to create a spell U need to try it forst. Or can you think of an effect, put words to them and make a spell.
For all we know snape thought of a spell name but never got any effect form it. If I remember rightly its has a question mark after "For Enemies". What if it was actually Harry, in his fear and hatred of Malfoy that gave effect to the spell?

 

I'm too exhausted at the moment to engage in any complex discussions about the issue, but my current belief (it changes every now and then) is that Snape is working to serve his own ends - he is manipulating both the Order of the Phoenix and Voldemort's supporters to gain what he wants.

Oh, and Dumbledore is most definitely dead. I have no doubt that Rowling would never attempt something so cheap and ruinous as to revive him, or reveal that his death was faked.

 

{quote} He's just a big jerk and an awful teacher. But none of those things inherently make Snape evil. And it's like Hermione says at the end of HBP "Evil is such a strong word."

I actually believe that you are right with Dumbledore dead and Snape good.
but maybe that´s what JKR wants us to believe? Every book had an excuse why Snape is good and his attitude towards Harry is just personal. I would love it if in the end it turned out otherwise, like...Dumbledore faked his own death (somehow, don´t ask...he´s the greatest wizard that ever lived, remember?) to find out about Snape´s true intentions, because he doesn´t trust him. And after everybody thought Snape was a double agent, he turns out to be Voldemorts biggest follower.

And of course, harry takes care of them all in the end.

I would like it if JKR sursprised us once more.

 

Oh, believe me, regardless of whether any of us are correct there will still be a few big surprises around the corner.

 

Maybe Dumbledore captured a death eater, gave him some polyjuice potion and was controling him witht the Imperious curse as a decoy

 

Possibly the only completely undisputable thing anyone's yet posted in this thread.

Isn't the Imperius curse very illegal indeed? And as a decoy for who? Himself?

 

Well If some one was out to kill me and I had a way of making another the target I'd take it Though the comment was more Jest than a real opinion.

What do ppl think to my other theories though?

 

Heh, except DorkmanScott didn't post it, so I'm gonna have to contest you there . . .

 

And that will teach me to look at the name rather than the colours.

It's not even as if you have the same ones . . .

 

Jumping in a bit late here, but ... Figured I'd add some thoughts.

While I would LOVE for this to be the case, the fact is, Dumbledore turns up in his painting in the Headmaster's room at the end of the book, leading us to believe that he really is dead. Which, I must say, was QUITE a shock!

I'm inclined to agree very much with Ousley, Mara and Dorkman's theories.
Upon first reading, I felt that Dumbledore was pleading with Snape to kill him because he knew he was going to die anyway, and what better way to gain access to Voldemort's inner circle and redeem himself to gear up for the final battle than to kill Voldemort's most powerful opponent? To the end, Dumbledore trusted Snape. And while Dumbledore can be seen as a doddery old fool, I think he knew a LOT more than he let on.
Snape, I believe, was acting to challenge Harry to step out of the shadow of being "the boy who lived" and become "the boy who did something about it." He IS surprised by Harry's skill in HBP, and in my head, he thinks, "okay, so maybe this kid isn't the idiot I thought he was."
Snape hates Harry because of all the **** James &c. put Snape through in their years together. Some teachers carry grudges, and often take them out on the kids of the people they're mad at (unfortunately, I've seen this at play in real life, so that's why I think that it's the way it is in the fiction world).

Anyway. That's my thoughts. I'm expecting surprises in the 7th book. A part of me really wants to see Draco redeemed, but... We'll see. Rowling's the writer, not me.

 

Upping as there's still interest - and why not? We haven't unravelled half the enigmas yet.

 

I'm in the process of re-reading the books and just finished OOTP. If you read the Snapes Worst Memory chapter - there is a moment where Snape casts a spell that causes James's face to develop a cut. Here is JK at her best foreshadowing things to come. We now know after reading HBP what that "for enemies" spell does to "enemies."

You'll note however that when Snape casts the spell at James, it doesn't leave that large of a scar or is hardly noticeable and James is able to continue to torment his favorite object of ridicule.

Flash forward to Harry blasting Malfoy with the spell, Harry nearly kills Malfoy and leaves him wounded and bleeding from all points. It is at this moment that Snape finally shows a brief moment of respect for Harry. Perhaps a part of it was that he was impressed to see his own spell being properly used, but ultimately it was a moment where Snape finally realized that Harry has real power within himself. Harry was able to cast a spell created by Snape, that he himself was unable to fully master to its fullest potential.

Is Snape evil?

One thing we always have to remember with these books is that they are all seen through Harry's eyes. Even the few times we're shown things when Harry's not around, they still cast the characters in a light that would not be contrary to how Harry would perceive them. Take for example the opening when Snape makes the Unbreakable vow w/ Cissy. Snape is, as always, completely unreadable. He goes along with everything that Cissy and Bella say - and readily has canned, perfect answers for Bella's questions. The scene can be viewed differently depending on which eyes you're viewing it with.

If you see it as "Snape is evil" you just see that he's been a rat all along. The problem is that Snape is rarely as he appears. Over and over he shows a strict, sardonically sadistic side to Harry whenever he's in trouble. To Harry, Snape is his bitter enemy and he has little real reason for seeing him any differently. Harry always needs to be told that Snapes actions were as such because he couldn't reveal what he was really thinking or going to do at the time without fear of being exposed (like when he failed to react when Harry hinted about Sirius being held at the MOM in OOTP.)

I still don't know what to think of Snape, other than his taunting Harry as he was running off of the Hogwarts property about his inability to master unspoken spells was completely out of character for Snape. At least out of character for him as Harry views him. Why would Snape still seem to want to drive one last lesson home in Harry's head if he was Voldermort's right-hand man?

Ultimately, it's because there's still more to the Snape riddle than has been revealed to us. Harry's own blinding hatred of the man has prevented us to truly see and better understand Snape's intentions. There were many, many times that Snape could've sat back and done NOTHING and Voldermort could've easily won.

Had Snape not alerted the Order that Harry was about to fly off into Voldermort's trap at the MOM - Harry and his friends would've all died.

Dumbledore is not infallible and it is possible that he misplaced his faith in Snape, however, I think that all has yet to be revealed over why he was so completely convinced that Snape was no longer loyal to Voldermort.

One simple fact blared warning klaxons everywhere - he gave Snape the DADA position, even though he tells Harry flat out that the position is cursed and that he knows whoever holds that seat won't be there at the end of the year. If he's well certain of this, why would he give the job to Snape??? Was it because Snape told him about the Unbreakable Vow and Dumbledore and he both realized that one way or ano