would you consider snape a bad guy? Options

[maxis.m1028]

Would you consider snape to be bad? He did help Harry and was truly faithful to the order but he was really rude (being the nice way to put it) to harry , sirius, and all of the gryffindors. The part that i remember most is when malfoy tries to curse harry but it hits hermione instead causing her teeth to grow and when harry shows snape he says he sees no difference. EVIL!

[Perseus_Evans]

I've generally been reluctant to add to this thread, since it's no secret that Snape is my favorite character, and though most of my predictions turned out to be wrong, my gut on Snape was pretty close. And no, he still wasn't Harry's long lost uncle Perseus, but that was a fun one.

Anyway, I think FW has taken the discussion to a new level, so here goes.

I think the "tragic hero" label is pretty spot on, when we take the story from an objective perspective.

What's most interesting to me, is that JKR's choice to present nearly the entire series from Harry's point of view made Snape possibly one of the most enigmatic and effective characters ever written (ok... maybe that's an exaggeration, but she definitely managed to create the effect she wanted).

By putting us in Harry's shoes, most of us had problems seeing Snape as a noble character, but also we had problems seeing Harry's flaws in much the same way.

Because we see Harry's motives clearly, his actions, which were often thoughtless, wreckless and selfish, we look past those character flaws. Similarly, with Snape, we had no window into his motivation, so we're much less forgiving. And I think that was her intent.

I sometimes wonder if it would be interesting (fan fiction assignment coming) to try to rewrite the series, following Snape's progress, rather than Harry's. It would be impossible to find an impartial judge, but I wonder if we might see Harry as a bad character until the very end of the Prince's extended Tale... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)