At the end of the Harry Potter books, Harry names his youngest boy, Albus Severus, and I think this is one of the worst things that Harry (Rowling) did. It shows that Harry thinks of Severus Snape as great men. I am here to tell you that these men did not deserve this great honor and that Severus Snape should never be looked on as heroes of the Harry Potter series. Snape was interested in the dark arts from a young age. He accepted what his Slytherin roommates were saying about the pure-blood supremacist, despite that he himself is a half-blood. Snape became a Death Eater after he graduated from Hogwarts, and didn’t care that he was killing people. Harry and Snape’s backgrounds are very similar, but even with the added burdens of fame, of the public mistrusting him, of the mockery of his peers, and the outright hostility of the wizarding government focused solely on him, Harry was a great person all the way through. People say that his love for Lily is one of the reasons that he was such a great person. First, let me break the facts down to you. Lily and Snape were close friends in their early years, and he even helped her when she discovered she was a witch. She never liked that he was listening to his Slytherin roommates and his love for the dark arts. They stopped being friends after Snape called Lily a Mudblood, which is a racist remark in the Wizarding World. Rowling herself said in one interview, “He never really understood Lily’s aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side, he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.”
He never really cared what she thought, he only wanted her love and his views of her were very much skewed. Just because Snape loved Lily for a long time and that they were friends before does not mean that Lily owed Snape her love. When Voldemort was planning on killing the Potter, Snape begs Voldemort to spare Lily and just kill James and Harry. Snape wanted Voldemort to kill the two people Lily loved most in her life and Snape didn’t care about what this would do to Lily. He never cared about what Lily wanted. Some fans say that they can’t believe that Lily would choose the bully, AKA James Potter, over her closest friend, AKA Severus Snape. But there was never a choice for Lily. She ended her friendship with Snape in her fifth year. James and Lily didn’t start dating until they were in their seventh year and Lily saw that James grew up and stopped being a huge jerk. She didn’t choose James over Snape, because Snape was out of the picture before she dated James. When people bring up that Snape’s patronuses is a doe like Lily’s is, it never makes sense. James and Lily’s patronuses complement of each other with a doe and a stag. While Snape’s patronus being a doe shows that he was obsessed with her, not in love with her. Even if you could look past his background and say that he was a child and he grew up, I would tell you that you were wrong. Yes, Snape helps the Order of the Phoenix and he was a double agent, and that is very brave, but Snape was a horrible teacher and picked on students. Even Rowling herself has said that Snape is the worst teacher, which Remus Lupin being the best, and Snape being the worst. Now, I would say that Umbridge is the worst, but Snape is not far behind. On Harry’s first day of school, a boy who didn’t even know he was a wizard before this year, Snape shamed him in front of the class, and all because Harry looked like James.
Snape creates such a terrifying and damaging environment that he became Neville Longbottom’s greatest fear, the Boggart in the darkest corners of his mind. Neville lives with his grandparent’s because Voldemort tortured his parents to the point of insanity, and yet Snape is his worst fear. Snape even made fun of Hermione when her teeth were cursed to become too large for her mouth. Snape walks in, sees Hermione’s teeth and simply says, “I see no difference.”
Snape is just a generally terrible person in general. In the third book, Snape is trying to get Sirius’s soul sucked out, even though Snape knows that Sirius is innocent. When Sirius leaves and isn’t found, Snape is mad because he doesn’t get his way and reveals that Remus is a werewolf, which basically gets him fired from the one job he was good at and was the one place Remus felt comfortable in. Yes, Remus and Sirius bullied Snape in their school years, but Snape would retaliate when the opportunity arose. While Remus and Sirius were teenagers when they bullied Snape, Snape was an adult when the third book and was acting like a whiny teenager. Yes, Snape did some good in his life and was brave for it, but he was never a hero. He is selfish and obsessive, which makes him a good double agent but with no morals. His backstory was tragic, but what he did after that doesn’t excuse anything. With all this, I will tell you that Rowling made a very brilliant character with Snape. I wouldn’t be able to write all this if he wasn’t. Snape is a great character with his complexity, but he is no one I would want to name my kid after.