Severus Snape Is Not A Good Guy

While I will admit that Snape was a Hero, in the end, I do not believe he was an overall good person that deserved to be Harry's child's namesake. I will die on this hill.

1. He verbally and emotionally abused his students.

Snape frequently got onto Hermione for being an "insufferable know-it-all." He never gave Neville a fair chance to work on his potion-making; he even threatened to poison Trevor, his frog. He blatantly favored Slytherins.

2. He bullied Harry on the basis that he was James’ Son.

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Without ever even meeting Harry, Snape decided he was just like his father and treated him horribly. Harry proved over and over again that he did not get James's arrogance (at least in the books), but Snape could not get over his prejudice and punished Harry for it.

3. He was not fair to the students.

Snape was very open about the fact that he would favor Slytherins in any way possible. One example of this is when Hermione is fighting with Crabbe and Goyle and they both send hexes, but only Hermione is reprimanded.

4. He was a bad friend.

Snape was probably Lily's best friend at Hogwarts in their first few years, but Snape hung around a lot of bad people because they made him feel more powerful or like he was more special. He even went as far as to call Lily a mudblood, knowing how hurtful that would be from him. Snape did not become a death eater because Lily stopped being his friend. Lily stopped being Snape's friend because he became a death eater.

5. He was overly obsessive and was never able to get over Lily.

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Even after 16 years of Lily's death, Snape was still only helping Harry because of her. While I know a lot of people love the infamous "always" line, it is really Snape saying that after all of this time of him protecting Harry (and Lily being dead), he still did not care about Harry at all, but was only helping because Harry was Lily's legacy.

6. Couldn’t get over anything (hated Sirius and Remus after many years, hated James so much that he put it on Harry)

Furthermore, Snape never really got over anything. The day Snape finally met Harry, he thought Harry would be just like his father and never even gave him a chance to redeem himself. He completely humiliated Harry during his first year because of a feud he had with a dead guy.

Snape also never gave Sirius or Remus a chance to redeem themselves in their later years and continuously treated them horribly. He "let it slip" that Remus was a werewolf and never let Sirius forget that he could not leave Grimmauld Place.

7. He was one of his student's worst fears.

When asked what his biggest fear in the world was, Neville thought of Snape. This is a kid who believed Voldemort would come back, a kid whose parents were tortured into insanity and can barely remember who he is, if at all, and his worst fear was HIS TEACHER!!!

8. A Few Pros...

I am aware that Snape does have some redeeming qualities; it just is not enough for me.

He did somewhat try to redeem himself, but he also only did it because of Lily (he did not necessarily do it because he wanted to do the right thing.

He was the reason why Lily was able to sacrifice her. If Snape had not asked Voldemort to save her, she would not have been given the choice to die for Harry and therefore count as a true sacrifice. Had Snape not asked, Voldemort would have most likely just killed Lily.

He showed bravery. In the end, Snape did sign up for a life-threatening job and died because of it.

The excuse for Snape is usually that nobody loved him, but you know what? Lily loved him, even if it wasn’t in the way he wanted. Lily wanted so badly to make it work with Snape, but he pushed her away.