/I really wish there'd been at least a few scenes that made it seem like Lily and Severus were actually real friends./
In DH or in the previous books? Because there was no indication in OotP that Lily and Severus were ever friends at all. Hence why this whole chapter seemed to come out of left field for me and seem like fanfiction (especially with the cutesy nicknames that Severus and Petunia suddenly have - “Sev” and “Tuney?”).
/unfortunately it comes across very reluctantly in SWM (where JK apparently wrote it as slightly flirty with James)/
SWM in OotP just doesn’t match up with what we’re told in DH. Lily does not react or behave like someone who’s seeing her best friend being bullied. So, the only interpretation that canon offers us is that she truly doesn’t care about Snape. The interpretation that I had was that JKR didn’t plan for Snape and Lily to be childhood friends until after OotP, but I don’t know if that’s true.
/I personally really dislike the way absolutely everything about Snape is supposed to revolve around Lily, especially since from what we see of her she doesn't seem to be too nice to him./
Yeah, much of fandom tends to depict Lily as this righteous angel, the Beatrice to Snape’s Dante. Because it’s really angelic to dump your best friend and then rush into the arms of his bully who did nothing but torment him and hex other students for all of your years at school. He’ll risk his life to protect her from a genocidal psychopath, but she can’t be bothered to pay attention to him when his bully is humiliating him in front of everyone. Yeah, I can really see how Lily is his moral guide, and how she was totally worth risking his life and sanity for.
/In DH all we get is "Oh why did he turn from the Death Eaters, protect Harry and the students, risk worse than death to take down Voldemort? Lily, of course"./
Yes, it makes Snape’s motivation simplistic, it also cheapens the reason why Dumbledore trusts him (remember all of that speculation in earlier books about why Dumbledore kept insisting that Snape had left Voldemort forever?), and it’s an excuse for people to dismiss him. “Oh, he didn’t leave Voldemort because he realized what he’d gotten into and because he was horrified by what the Death Eaters were doing. He left because Voldemort was threatening the girl he had a crush on. So, he doesn’t really care about Harry and he’s a selfish creep who’s still hung up about high school.”
It's the same thing with Regulus. "Oh, Regulus didn't leave because he realized that Voldemort was wrong. He left because Voldemort was threatening his house elf. And that's why Sirius is morally superior to him because he rebelled against his family and already knew that Voldemort was a rotter...etc."
In DH or in the previous books? Because there was no indication in OotP that Lily and Severus were ever friends at all.
I meant in DH, but even that wouldn't make sense on it's own because of what we saw in SWM. It's seems like JK was trying to retcon it in the last book and it doesn't really make sense.
In DH or in the previous books? Because there was no indication in OotP that Lily and Severus were ever friends at all. Hence why this whole chapter seemed to come out of left field for me and seem like fanfiction (especially with the cutesy nicknames that Severus and Petunia suddenly have - “Sev” and “Tuney?”).
/unfortunately it comes across very reluctantly in SWM (where JK apparently wrote it as slightly flirty with James)/
SWM in OotP just doesn’t match up with what we’re told in DH. Lily does not react or behave like someone who’s seeing her best friend being bullied. So, the only interpretation that canon offers us is that she truly doesn’t care about Snape. The interpretation that I had was that JKR didn’t plan for Snape and Lily to be childhood friends until after OotP, but I don’t know if that’s true.
/I personally really dislike the way absolutely everything about Snape is supposed to revolve around Lily, especially since from what we see of her she doesn't seem to be too nice to him./
Yeah, much of fandom tends to depict Lily as this righteous angel, the Beatrice to Snape’s Dante. Because it’s really angelic to dump your best friend and then rush into the arms of his bully who did nothing but torment him and hex other students for all of your years at school. He’ll risk his life to protect her from a genocidal psychopath, but she can’t be bothered to pay attention to him when his bully is humiliating him in front of everyone. Yeah, I can really see how Lily is his moral guide, and how she was totally worth risking his life and sanity for.
/In DH all we get is "Oh why did he turn from the Death Eaters, protect Harry and the students, risk worse than death to take down Voldemort? Lily, of course"./
Yes, it makes Snape’s motivation simplistic, it also cheapens the reason why Dumbledore trusts him (remember all of that speculation in earlier books about why Dumbledore kept insisting that Snape had left Voldemort forever?), and it’s an excuse for people to dismiss him. “Oh, he didn’t leave Voldemort because he realized what he’d gotten into and because he was horrified by what the Death Eaters were doing. He left because Voldemort was threatening the girl he had a crush on. So, he doesn’t really care about Harry and he’s a selfish creep who’s still hung up about high school.”
It's the same thing with Regulus. "Oh, Regulus didn't leave because he realized that Voldemort was wrong. He left because Voldemort was threatening his house elf. And that's why Sirius is morally superior to him because he rebelled against his family and already knew that Voldemort was a rotter...etc."
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I meant in DH, but even that wouldn't make sense on it's own because of what we saw in SWM. It's seems like JK was trying to retcon it in the last book and it doesn't really make sense.
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