The good or evil question answered at last. I find Snape one of the most pitiable characters in the book. His unrequited love for Lily, beginning with his eager awkwardness when they're just kids. I found the most heartbreaking thing that his patronus was a doe.
I thought he was good before I started the book, but I faltered after the first chapter and the sectumsempra on George. But when Harry heard that Snape gave Ginny detention with Hagrid, I knew he was good.
I was already crying by the time Snape died, which was only increased by him telling Harry to look at him. And then to find that the password to the headmaster's office was "Dumbledore." When Harry plunges into the mish-mash of Snape's memories we see, as Dumbledore suggests, the best of Snape, kept hidden for this final moment.
His love for Lily is so true and steadfast...I hope that she greeted him kindly on the other side.
Ah, dear Snape. Your recap really helped me pick up on things I missed or glossed over, without fully getting the importance or meaning, so thanks.
I still believed that he was good, even if in a twisted way at the end of book 6 and just knew there had to be a deeper understanding or meaning behind Dumbledore's murder. Although, I admit, I had my doubts, too, in the beginning of book 7 with all the evil he seemed to be involved with. And I really liked the whole chapter with all of the memories to fill in the gaps, BUT I'm still a little confused on the exact moment he really had a change of heart or showed real remorse for choosing the wrong side. It just felt more like a debt he was paying to Dumbledore rather than a real sense of good spirit. Does that make sense? I definitely don't think he was transformed into a favorite or anything for me, but I have more understanding of him overall and appreciate the skills he had to possess to convince Voldemort he was truly his servant and keep up that facade through it all.
I posed this question in a comment earlier, but now that we have an official Snape post, I'll ask again for explainations on how Snape knew the day the OOTP was to move Harry from Privet Drive. Was the portrait Dumbledore still privy to this information and he was leaking it to Snape? Also, it seems the knowledge of who was in OOTP as well as the Death Eaters was fairly common, so it's weird he could be on both lists publically - or avoid one or the other.
I love snape! when he died i was like, really that's it? he's evil? thank god for the longass backflash- and i was so glad to have been right! though finding out dumbledore was so cold!! was quite a contrast. i think snape was one of her best drawn and consistent characters.
it does seem like a plot hole however about the day of harry's departure unless one of the headmaster portraits told him? it was odd.
I totally believe that Dumbledore's portrait told him. I thought we were supposed to understand that from his memory: that there was no double agent; no one was selling Harry out.
What you said last about Lily greeting him on the other side...that is my greatest sadness for Snape, that his goodness had to be it's own and only reward. I am sure he was well recieved. But he could never have the love he has so surely earned by now.
Snape was not a very nice man; if he had been my teacher, I would have hated him. But nice and good are not the same, and there was goodness in Snape I could not have imagined. When Lily asks Snape if it matter that she is muggle-born.
Oh god. I'm going to cry before I leave for work.
The patronus was so gut-wrenching to me. I'm glad that we had established through Tonks that patronuses can change and that Snape's never had. And thinking about the patronus, I so admire Rowling. For she used Snape's, not just to make a great piece of plot as it led Harry to the lake, but to conjure Lily. Who here didn't think of his mother and wonder if she could help from the other side? And then you find out that it's Snape's and this enormous backstory, the pieces for which have been laid since we knew what a patronus was.
There's this sort of inevitibility to the series--so difficult in regular fiction, so damn near impossible in fantasy--that she makes look easy.
OMG, I'm tearing up just reading all of the comments!
I just fell in love with Snape's character after reading the Prince's Tale chapter. Good all along and SO brave, just as Harry says later.
Definitely, the most painful part was "Look... at... me...". Aaagh! He disliked Harry so much for being like his father yet his love for Lily surpassed that. He wanted to look into her eyes as he died... I need a tissue.
Lily calling him 'Sev' was so telling of how good of friends they were.
So Snape's patronus changed to a doe once Lily died, and stayed a doe as a symbol of his grief and pain.
Imagine the inner turmoil of wanting to love Lily's son for being her son and yet he was also the son of someone he despised. I can understand how he could let himself be mean to Harry.
Throughout the book and especially in Snape's memories Lily is presented as such a wonderfuly nice character. James just comes off as a real ass.
Love. Snape.
I have been doing a little spot rereading and just saw in the epilogue that Albus Severus was the only one of Harry's kids that has his Lily's eyes. How fitting and sweet!
Snape is such a fantastic character. The fact that his patronus was a doe was so heart-wrenching. While he is such a noble character in the end, I can't help thinking what a miserable life he led. I know it was all for love and for the greater good, but to be so despised, to be thought of as a traitor, to be a victim of unrequited love. . . . If I ever thought I've had a bad day, I take it back.