The Debate Driving the Fandom Mad; Snape: Good or Evil? PART 1
We've all been in the annoying situation when we had to defend our side of this mind twisting argument. To help you decide, we invited two highly educated guest moral philosophers to offer their two different takes on the matter. Today we have published the first moral philosopher's response, which claims Snape is in fact, a good character, and on Friday will come part two with the second take on the debate. Enjoy, and who knows, by the end of the week you may even switch sides on this maddening topic!
It has been well over 20 years since the release of the first Harry Potter novel, named Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and there are still many heated arguments going on between fans of the series about certain elements of the plot. One of the most renowned discussions is titled : “Is Severus Snape Good or Evil?” , and it's still an open discussion to this day. Here, I write to finally finish this dispute with the following statement : Snape is a good character.
Let's start with the most obvious reason. Severus Snape, is a character with what is probably one of the most tragic life stories in the series. He is definitely one who has made many heroic sacrifices for the benefit and peace of the wizarding world. He has vowed to protect Harry Potter at any cost while being under direct surveillance of the Dark Lord. This was a promise he has kept for almost half his life, a promise that could have had horrendous, as well as detrimental consequences.
Numerous times, he has risked his life, assisting good to overthrow evil. At the risk of losing his life, he has secretly swapped one of the most powerful artifacts, the sword of Godric Gryffindor, to give to Potter, the worst enemy of the Dark Lord. Don’t you think that such a selfless deed is worth noting?
Severus Snape is also one of the only “Death Eaters” who can feel unconditional love. Often in literature, evil characters are thought not to possess this feeling. An example could be the horrible Lord Voldemort, who has never felt true love towards anyone and is the key antagonist of the story. On the opposite side, love is often the key element of a good character in almost any story. It is used to defeat evil in almost hopeless situations. As we all know, almost his whole life, Severus Snape has truly loved Lily Potter, showing care and affection for her since a very early age. He has put in tremendous efforts to save her life. When asking Dumbledore for help, Snape promised absolutely anything in exchange for the safety of his loved one. Very little people would do something like this. Would you?
Severus Snape is also the only “Death Eater” who is capable of conjuring a patronus (a spell which is fueled by happiness and joy); He is the only “Death Eater” with any positivity or niceness in him. Him not being on the side of evil and choosing help good, also proves that he is a “good” character.
You might say: But Snape hesitated in serving to help protect Harry after his mother died! Isn’t that something negative? Well, no. It is simply his opinion, he dislikes the child. Don’t protagonists dislike certain seemingly positive characters? Even Harry Potter got really annoyed by Colin Creevey. Severus Snape, had much more solid reasons; James Potter (Harry’s father) has bullied and mocked him in school and later life, yet James is always considered to be a good character and the purity of Snape’s soul is debated…
Disliking somebody else does not make a character immediately evil. Agree, that you probably have experienced a similar situation. Finally even JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series said: “You can’t make him a devil: he died to save the wizarding world”.
I hope this put the nail in the coffin of the idea of Snape being evil. In total, as shown by many of his actions, Severus Snape has and always will be a positive, good character of the Harry Potter Universe.