The Albus Dumbledore may have been Harry’s ever-wise mentor, but he certainly made some egregious errors in judgement and had character flaws like everybody else. On the opposite side of the coin, the ruthless villain Voldemort was an interesting and multi-faceted character too.
If it’s multi-faceted and interesting you’re in the market for, you need look no further than Severus Snape. While his instrumental role in Voldemort’s defeat ultimately redeemed him (at least to some extent), there’s no denying that he was a cruel, calculating character who grew steadily worse in some respects as the series went on. Let’s take a look.
His Attitude Towards Harry
From the first time Harry made eye with Snape, it was clear that the two were not going to be BFFs. Fast-forward to Harry’s first Potions class, and Snape was taking every opportunity he could to sarcastically mock Harry’s fame, inability to answer his complex questions and such.
We later learn exactly why he dislikes Harry so, and the mutual resentment between them only grows over time. From disastrous Occlumency lessons to incidents with flying cars and Half-Blood Prince identity revelations, Snape was utterly vile to Harry for the span of the series.
His Attitude Towards His Colleagues
As fans will know, Snape is always presented in such a way that he appears to be downright villainous, while working for the greater good from behind the scenes. This requires a lot of contempt and bullying directed at his fellow professors.
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, fans are supposed to feel sorry for Snape is awful to him too (for more personal reasons). All of this culminates in a duel with Professor McGonagall. While we learn Snape’s motives behind a lot of this, his cruelty, resentment and jealousy is still seen growing.
His Treatment Of Most Of The Other Students
So, yes. Harry and Snape hated each other more or less equally throughout the course of the series, but the Potions Master didn’t stop at that.
He terrorized Neville Longbottom to the extent that Neville’s Boggart actually became Snape, simply because he was a clumsy student who struggled in his classes. He swooped upon and gleefully criticized any mistake that wasn’t made by a Slytherin. Was he a proud head of house or just a vindictive teacher who only become crueler as time went on? That’s right, it’s option B.
His Interest In The Dark Arts
One of the primary reasons some of the major players had for distrusting Severus Snape (as often as Dumbledore protested his protégé’s innocence) was his past with the Death Eaters. This all stemmed from his childhood, during which he developed a fascination with the Dark Arts that he carried with him for his whole life.
When his friendship with Lily imploded, Snape found himself part of a questionable Hogwarts crowd, becoming a fully-fledged Death Eater very soon after leaving the school. He would then go on to overhear Sybil Trelawney’s fateful prophecy, inadvertently setting a catastrophic chain of dark events in motion. Later, his ghastly office and coveting of the Defense Against The Dark Arts post proved that his enthusiasm for dark magic didn’t waver at all. He was also the Half-Blood Prince, of course.
He Became A Member Of Voldemort’s Inner Circle
As fans know, Voldemort was not a man to set any stock in friendship, trust or any other such bond. Aside from a select few people, such as Bellatrix Lestrange and Snape himself, Voldemort preferred to keep even his allies at arm’s length and use them for his own ends, discarding them when they had served their purpose (as happens to Snape in the end).
Regardless, he considered the Potions Master to be a “faithful servant,” regretting the need to kill him in order to take full control of the Elder Wand and cement his own immortality (or so he thought). Snape was playing the part of the Dark Lord’s lackey for the greater good, but the awful things he had to do to secure his trust cannot be understated. From Dumbledore’s killing to Felicity Burbage’s sad fate, Snape was complicit in all these horrors, which got steadily worse as the war ramped up.
His Awful Temper
It’s ironic that Snape is a master of Occlumency, the art of magically shielding one’s mind from external influences. Gifted Occlumens are able to (as Snape tells Harry) hide their emotions, keep their feelings in check and maintain a calm, inscrutable exterior. When they aren’t shrieking and throwing jars around the room, as Snape had been known to do.
Most of his cruel deeds, his worst animosity towards Harry and others, emerges when he loses his temper. The day he called Lily a “filthy Mudblood,” he lost more than he knew. In the books, we see even more of Snape’s furious outbursts, revealing that he’d only gotten worse over time in that department.
He Held On To Petty Grudges
To be fair to the Potions professor, he isn’t the only guilty party here. When he encounters childhood archenemies Remus Lupin and Sirius Black again, Sirius is just as petty, petulant and snarky to him as he is to them at times (Lupin tried to stay out of this). We’re concerned with Snape’s conduct today, though, so we’re pointing the finger at him just now.
They meet in the Shrieking Shack at the close of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, with Snape desperate for the chance to send Black off to the Dementors (and Lupin as his accomplice). Failing this, he settles for pushing Lupin into reg, but always harbored huge resentment. The three men work together again briefly in the course of their Order of the Phoenix duties, rarely missing the chance to have a sly dig at each other (Lupin tried his best to be civil). Considering what was at stake, they should’ve been beyond this.
He Becomes More Of An Oppressive Presence At Hogwarts
As Dumbledore and Snape discuss in the books, it was imperative that Voldemort trusted the latter completely. If not, Snape wouldn’t have been in a position to act against the Dark Lord’s designs. He kept his cover and played his part so well that he was welcome in the upper echelons, even becoming heaster of Hogwarts.
Snape had always been a formidable figure at the school, the most vindictive teacher of all (though Dolores Umbridge and Mad-Eye Moody/Barty Crouch Jr. might edge him out there), but all of this reached new heights as he became more influential. A figurehead of everything Voldemort stood for, which he was widely believed to have ed himself.
“Severus… Please.”
Of course, when it comes to Snape’s most heinous deeds, the main thing that springs to mind is his killing of Dumbledore. That fateful night on the Astronomy Tower, he took away Harry’s greatest, wisest and most powerful ally, dooming him to a seemingly impossible task alone.
Of course, the killing was secretly arranged between the two men and it devastated Snape to do it, but this act represented something even more. From Harry’s point of view, this was the moment Snape went from a mere vindictive teacher to an enemy in need of retribution.
He Hid Everything That Was Good About Himself
All in all, Snape’s heroic reputation is still a topic of debate among fans. He had a pivotal role to play in the eventual downfall of Voldemort, yes, but was he truly a good person? That’s a heck of a question.
He was sly. He was sadistic, vindictive and sometimes downright terrifying. Perhaps the worst thing about him, though, is that he insisted on hiding his inner goodness. Yet again, he had his reasons for doing so, but in allowing himself to be presented as the villain, he became one. He kept more and more secrets as his story went on.
