fannish5: Five Needing-To-Quitters

[selenak]

Five characters who should quit their jobs (and why).

1.) Severus Snape (Harry Potter). During the time canon was still open, of course. Let’s face it, Snape was a fascinating character but a really horrible teacher, even if you discount anything to do with Harry. The two most glaring proofs about Snape’s unsuitability as a teacher that come

Comments

[leviathan0999]

Severus Snape is the most undeservedly-admired character I've ever come across. He's a brilliant potions-maker, and otherwise simply the most awful human being you can imagine, on every possible level. He's a bigot, a bully, a bitter, angry, vengeful man. He's a teacher who openly plays favorites among his students, and a man who, having got his high-school nemesis killed, still bad-mouths him to his orphaned son.

Just because he fought against Voldemort, that doesn't make him a good guy, and no, neither does the fact that he loved Lily Evans. He loved her, but he'd have been perfectly happy to see her husband and son slaughtered, as long as he got to keep her like a prize. (It was only when Dumbledore called him on that that he grudgingly allowed that Dumbledore should save them, as if their continued existence was a high price he'd be grudgingly willing to pay for hers.) And when he fought for the death of Voldemort, he was motivated, not by protecting the innocent, but merely by vengeance.

There was a long interview I read, long ago, during their run on DareDevil, with Frank Miller and Klaus Jansen, in which Miller said something wonderful about his creation, Elektra, and her love of Matt Murdock/Daredevil: "The trouble with Elektra isn't that she's a good girl gone bad," he said. "The trouble with Elektra is that she's a villain with a weak spot."

That is Severus Snape.

[night_train_fm]

a man who, having got his high-school nemesis killed, still bad-mouths him to his orphaned son

The standard Snapewife handwave is that he only mentions James by name once or twice, and only when Harry does something weally weally nawty. I find it fascinating that they think there's a set quota on how many times a teacher can insult a pupil's dead parent - how exactly does it change if the teacher was an (all too willing) accessory to the murder?

[selenak]

I thought the standard Snapewive handwave is that James is an evil bully who deserved to die (while Snape as a teacher, of course, only tries to toughen up his students for the war against Voldemort) and Harry deserves everything Snape dishes out anyway?

[night_train_fm]

Bugger, I can't even keep track anymore.