The Horizontal Arc of Severus Snape: Unpacking His Final Lessons

Summary

Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast

Host: Prof. Julian Womble
Episode: The Horizontal Arc of Severus Snape: Unpacking His Final Lessons
Date: October 22, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this final “Prof. Response” episode devoted to Severus Snape, Professor Julian Womble threads together listener commentary and critical analysis to deliver a layered, deeply reflective exploration of Snape’s most contentious attributes—his abuse of power, ambiguous motives, possibility of redemption, and the idea that his story arc is less about transformation and more about revelation. Womble encourages listeners to balance critique and affection, demonstrating that engaging critically with the Harry Potter series (and its characters) is both an act of love and a path toward deeper personal and cultural understanding.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Abuse of Power and Teaching Ethics

[02:00–17:47]

• The bulk of listener commentary fixates on Snape’s cruelty as a teacher, interrogating the argument that his behavior was necessary for his work as a double agent.
• Sarah Marie (listener): As an educator, the “foundation of learning is psychological safety.” Snape undermined this, making students fearful instead of fostering growth.
• Rachel P.: Points out that children are a “vulnerable population,” and Snape weaponized his authority.
• Bear: Critiques Snape for modeling prejudice and toxic behavior, stating, “He hid his prejudice behind academic authority, and that's one of the most nefarious forms of radicalization influencing youth by modeling it, especially with positional power over children.”
• Prof. Womble highlights that even when Snape had no reason to keep up a cruel facade (e.g., before Voldemort’s return), he chose to perpetuate abuse and bitterness, institutionalizing the bullying he suffered.
• Juxtaposes Snape’s approach to teaching against others with traumatic pasts (McGonagall, Hagrid, Firenze), all of whom managed to teach with care and dignity.
• Womble: “He's not pretending to be mean. He is mean.” ([11:35])
• Occlumency lessons are key evidence: Snape turns training intended to protect Harry into psychological warfare, exacerbating trauma rather than equipping Harry for survival.

“His cruelty isn’t about protecting a cover. It’s about indulging a pattern.” – Prof. Julian Womble ([11:53])

2. Motive Versus Action

[19:25–26:31]

• Discussion shifts to the old debate: Are intentions or actions more important in moral scrutiny?
• Charlie (listener): Asserts Snape can never be redeemed because his motives—rooted in love for Lily, not in concern for others—were fundamentally self-centered.
• Lorian (listener): Notes how our evaluation of morality flips depending on context; we look for motive in negative actions, but care more about outcome in positive ones.
• Jazz (listener): Points out Snape’s apparent sacrifice was not a plan but a twist of fate, complicating the portrayal of his heroism.
• Womble weaves these responses into a nuanced view: “If you start in a classroom, you see cruelty. If you start with a war, you see courage. If you start with Lily, you see obsession.”

“Looking at him holistically doesn’t lead us to clarity, it leads us to gray.” – Prof. Julian Womble ([22:57])

• The episode asserts that understanding motivations is not the same as absolution.

3. Redemption: Boundaries and Relationality

[27:01–38:42]

• Carmen (listener): States she can’t see Snape as redeemable, no matter his suffering—“I see a lot of people in my life who bring chaos…just because they've been traumatized…”
• Kylie (listener): Draws contrast with Umbridge: “Indifference…can be disguised as not participating. But not acting is the same thing as allowing. He let the real heroes fight his fight while he stood by and waited for Harry and Voldy to battle it out.”
• Dylan (listener): Questions the intention—even the “redemptive” act of sharing the Prince’s Tale may have been accidental.
• Prof. Womble distinguishes between repair (quietly fixing harm) and redemption (publicly owning harm and inviting those affected to witness and participate in healing).
• Uses Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Zuko as a contrast—Zuko repeatedly builds relationships and accountability; Snape’s “good works” are secret, transactional, even penitential, never engaging those he harmed.

“Redemption isn’t a universal currency. It’s a relational one. It only exists between people.” – Prof. Julian Womble ([33:22])

• Womble posits that Snape’s actions stem not from hope for forgiveness but an endless cycle of self-punishment.

4. The "Horizontal Arc"—Transformation or Revelation?

[38:42–52:05]

• Returns to a provocative claim: Snape’s “arc” isn’t about change—he remains fundamentally the same. Instead, the reader’s perceptions shift as we learn more about his past.
• Lorian (listener): “It’s not an arc for Snape as a character, it's an arc for us as readers as we come to a deeper understanding of his character.”
• Rachel (listener): Argues Snape is stuck in his trauma and incapable of real change; the arc exists so readers can examine their empathy.
• Doria (listener): Suggests Rowling’s romantic framing encourages us to forgive or overlook harm and feeds our hunger for motive.
• Womble stresses that understanding a character’s pain doesn't erase their harmful choices, echoing a key theme:

“We conflate knowing with forgiving. We confuse empathy with amnesty. And we think that if we can trace the pain back to its source, we're somehow obligated to release the person who caused it.” – Prof. Julian Womble ([47:48])

• Compares Snape’s story to Voldemort’s—detail-rich origin stories humanize, but don’t excuse, catastrophic harm. Learning the why doesn’t change the what.

5. Final Reflection (Prof. Womble)

[52:05–end]

• Summarizes the central lesson: Snape’s character functions as a mirror, revealing not just his contradictions but our own values, biases, and hunger for “why.”
• The tension in the books—usefulness ≠ goodness, and “strategy” ≠ morality.
• Discusses the cultural impulse to grant male characters complexity, motive, and forgiveness denied to female characters (Umbridge, Petunia, Merope).
• Womble’s personal stance: Prefers apologies and open dialogue (“I want you to tell me that you ruined [the pink underwear] so I have the opportunity to decide whether or not to forgive you. Because it's a dialogue, not an assumption.” [58:27])
• Emphasizes that accountability is relational; silence and secrecy deny others agency and healing.
• Ends on the note that Snape’s greatest magic might be his ability to push us to grapple with complex, uncomfortable questions about harm, forgiveness, and the nature of goodness.

“Whether we love Snape or hate him, condemn him or defend him, he has made us think more deeply about what it means to be human. And that is its own kind of magic.” – Prof. Julian Womble ([61:58])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He's not pretending to be mean. He is mean.” (Prof. Womble, [11:35])
• “He hides his prejudice behind academic authority, and that's one of the most nefarious forms of radicalization influencing youth by modeling it, especially with positional power over children.” (Bear, [08:35])
• “If you start in a classroom, you see cruelty. If you start with a war, you see courage. If you start with Lily, you see obsession.” (Prof. Womble, [22:57])
• “Looking at him holistically doesn’t lead us to clarity, it leads us to gray.” (Prof. Womble, [22:57])
• “Redemption isn’t a universal currency. It’s a relational one. It only exists between people. Someone has to offer it and someone has to receive it. Snape never lets that happen.” (Prof. Womble, [33:22])
• “We conflate knowing with forgiving. We confuse empathy with amnesty.” (Prof. Womble, [47:48])
• “Understanding may illuminate harm, but it doesn't disapparate it.” (Prof. Womble, [60:32])
• “Snape’s character invites us to change a lot...But Snape, the character himself, stays more or less the same. And that's a secret at the heart of his story.” (Prof. Womble, [52:19])

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Important Timestamps

• Abuse of Power Discussion: [02:00–17:47]
• Motive Versus Action: [19:25–26:31]
• Redemption and Relationality: [27:01–38:42]
• Horizontal Arc / Reader’s Arc: [38:42–52:05]
• Final Reflection / Takeaways: [52:05–end]
• Most powerful quote: [61:58]

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Summary Takeaways

• Snape is a mirror: His complexity pushes readers to interrogate their own values regarding harm, empathy, forgiveness, and gendered standards of morality.
• Redemption is relational, not secret: Acts matter, but so does acknowledgment and dialogue with those harmed.
• The “arc” is ours, not his: Snape’s story is less a tale of transformation and more one of revelation—he remains largely unchanged, but our understanding (and emotional responses) deepen and grow.
• Motive matters—but doesn’t excuse: Knowing “why” harm happens is profoundly human, but does not lessen its impact.
• Goodness, usefulness, and compassion: Snape’s legacy in the series is not consensus, but provocation—an unresolvable invitation to think critically about what it means to be good, to teach, to redeem, and to live with justice.

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For Listeners

Whether you see Snape as a hero, a villain, or something much more ambiguous, this episode provides a rigorous, compassionate framework for unpacking difficult questions—not just about Harry Potter, but about empathy and accountability in our own lives.

Transcript

[Professor Julian Womble]

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[Professor Julian Womble]

Welcome to Critical Magic Theory, where we deconstruct the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Because loving something doesn't mean we can't be critical of it. I'm Professor Julian Womble and today is our final Prof. Response episode on Severus Snape. Y', all, we made it. Oh my gosh. Many of us have given voice to the fact that this was a journey. Six total episodes on Severus Snape. And honestly, the more I think about it, the more it was foolish to think that we were going to be able to manage the kinds of conversations we've been having without going this hard. And while it has been a very intense, labored journey, I'm actually very grateful for it. I have a new perspective on Snape and I feel much more empowered to explain why I don't like him. And it's not coming from a place of like knee jerk reaction. I actually have receipts. And I also can acknowledge a lot of the things that he does that are helpful, that are good, that are important. While also saying absolutely not, Never, not for me. And that makes me happy. That is also the point of the podcast. And I hope that many of us walked away with a newfound understanding of our positionality as it pertains to Snape. Now, again, the goal of this is never to change anyone's mind. If I do or if the comments that people made or the points that are being made do, that's cool. But that's not the point of the critical thinking that we're engaging in. The point is really for us to find new things, new depths, new layers to a story that we already really enjoy. I also have to say that I was called out. Called in, called out for not using the same metric for Snape as it pertains to him being a hero. And I hear you, I do. And I appreciate that call out. Am I gonna change my response? You know, I still don't know. I still don't know. And I think that part of the reason why is something that we will talk about a lot throughout this episode, but it really does come from the fact that there are just so many facets to this character and so that like some aspects of him are heroic. That is true. But like, how are we, how do we define heroism as it pertains to someone who has like so many tentacles wrapped around so many things? Anyways, I don't want to belabor the point. It's time for our last bop bop. Stretch your neck, get ready because we are going to bop in three, in two, in one. Let's bop. We need to talk about Harry Potter. Sa I hope you danced. I hope you bobbed. Maybe you wove. I can't say weaved. It doesn't make any sense. You get what I'm saying? I hope that you had a good time on our last bop bop. What a time this has been and what a time this episode will be. So many of you brought so many fantastic points to the post episode chat and I'm very excited to dive right on into it so that we can have a discussion. The first theme that came up a lot was one surrounding abuse of power and the ethics of teaching. Sarah Marie wrote, I have been both a teacher's assistant in grad school and now a nurse educator who has also run a medical assistant apprenticeship program. The foundation of learning is psychological safety. I have watched incredible medical professionals shake so hard they almost miss the muscle on our mannequin arms while giving injections because of nerves. Every time, I reassure them that this is an environment to practice, not to judge. And that all feedback will be constructive. They relax substantially. This informs how I view Snape so deeply. I cannot downplay that. No other double agent, Mad Eye Moody or Quirrel Faux Mad Eye Moody treated students like this. It was blatantly abusive. It doesn't amplify Snape's cover. It erodes the confidence and safety of his students. His unwillingness to see Harry as a whole person highlights a man who did so much harm while posing as an educator. Rachel P. Wrote, he was put in a position of authority to a vulnerable population that was dependent on him and had no choice but but to interact with him. And he chose to bully them and in some cases verbally abuse them. No amount of trauma or sad backstory will ever excuse that for me. He was put in a position of authority to a vulnerable population and he weaponized it. That's why he will never be a good person to me or a hero. Children are what we call a vulnerable population, meaning they are at higher risk for abuse and neglect. This is why his role as an educator makes his behavior unforgivable. Bear wrote. He hid his prejudice behind academic authority, and that's one of the most nefarious forms of radicalization influencing youth by modeling it, especially with positional power over children. This is one of the most villainous things any human can do. Just because Snape didn't allow kids to say a magical slur in public doesn't mean he was ever reformed. He became the gateway to an entire generation of students shaped by tolerance towards who harbor anti Muggle and anti Muggle born sentiment. That's two full decades of harm by the time he died. Nadia wrote, he didn't need to call kids stupid, dunderheads, thick, insufferable, arrogant, nasty, tedious, ugly, et cetera. He also didn't need to deduct 300 points and award none over seven books. No points given, no positive feedback, no rewards. Again, why were the governors not complaining and calling for him to be fired? All else aside, the man is a genius and could have had. Could have had the ability, if not the capacity to be a great teacher. He should not have been a teacher. Well, okay. One of the most common defenses of Severus Snape's behavior is that his cruelty towards students was all part of the act. That he had to be harsh to maintain his cover as a double agent. That nastiness was strategic, that the abuse was necessary. But that defense collapses the moment you look at the timeline for Harry's first four years at Hogwarts. Voldemort was gone. There was no grand spy operation to maintain. No Death Eaters watching him closely. No secret audience taking notes on his performance. If anything, this was the moment when Snape could have begun to rebuild. He was a man accused of serving the darkest wizard of all time spared only by Dumbledore's testimony and now placed in charge of children. You would think someone in that position might try to appear fair. You would think he'd want to prove that he could be trusted in this new role. But he doesn't. Even with Dumbledore's shield of protection even knowing how the rest of the wizarding world sees him Snape doesn't make the smallest effort to appear decent. He doesn't even put on the mask of civility. And that's important because it tells us that his cruelty isn't about protecting a cover. It's about indulging a pattern. He's not pretending to be mean. He is mean. Now, some fans point out that Snape never wanted to be a teacher in the first place. That Dumbledore forced him into the position as a way to keep him close, to monitor him and to make sure that he wouldn't backslide into his Death Eater past. And I personally think that that is very true and that's absolutely on Dumbledore. And we could have an entire separate conversation about the ethics of that decision. But this is not a Dumbledore episode. Because whatever got him into that classroom, Snape still had a choice once he was there. As someone who teaches, I can tell you that the moment you step into the role you kind of have to re envision yourself. You start thinking about the people who taught you the good, the bad, the ugly and what you want to emulate or avoid. You inherit a kind of lineage. You model what you've seen or wish you had seen. And it's fascinating to me that Snape, who was taught by, I think, Horace Leghorn a man who, for all his faults, encouraged talent and celebrated potential Snape learns none of that. He doesn't take a single note from the people who might have shown him a different way to engage with students. The new responsibility doesn't invite him to shift. It doesn't soften him even a little. And Yesen, listen, listen, listen, listen. I get it. Like trauma can make that difficult. It's not easy to transform yourself when you're still carrying wounds. But what's striking is how so many other adults at Hogwarts do manage to carry their pain and still teach with care. McGonagall, who lived through Multiple wars still demands excellence while showing compassion. Hagrid, shunned and humiliated, still finds tenderness for his students. Even Firenze, exiled from his own herd and is in a space with a bunch of students who constantly and consistently microaggress him. And he still finds a way to guide them with dignity while also being slightly shady in a way that they don't understand. Because he's hot. It seems to me that everyone else finds a way except for Snape. And I was talking to a friend about this this morning and she brought up the fact that, you know, Snape doesn't ever really get to escape the Death Eater of it all and that we have to account for his socialization. And I think that there is something to be said about that. And I'm willing to extend some level of grace to that reality. Especially when coupled with the fact that this man probably did not want to be teaching anybody's kids. However, simultaneously, concurrently. And at what point in the 15 years after Voldemort is gone do you just say, okay, I guess I'm here and figure it out? And what's more, and what makes me actually think about this even more is the fact that, like, he has decent relationships with other faculty. Like, he and Minerva McGonagall are relatively friendly, it seems. And so again, it just strikes me as so odd that he, like maybe it strikes me as odd is not the language. It strikes me as so intentional that he then enters into the classroom space and does the things that he does. Because outside of that space it is so clear that other people do not see him the way that Harry does and Hermione and Neville and all these other students. He's the one with power. He's the one that Dumbledore refuses to correct or hold accountable. That protection, that unchecked authority gives him permission to let his bitterness run wild. And I'm about to. I gotta keep my anger together. Because nowhere is as clear as in the oculomancy lessons. Because if there's one moment to me that reveals the heart of Severus Snape's failure as a teacher, it's there. By this point, Snape knows exactly what's at stake. He knows that Voldiva is back. He knows that he is penetrating Harry's mind. That this is not just dangerous but life threatening. Snape knows Occlumency is the only thing that can give Harry a fighting chance. And yet in those lessons, Snape turns the exercise into an opportunity to humiliate Harry. He mocks and provokes and antagonizes him, deliberately inflaming the very emotions Harry needs to control to be able to occlude the skill Snape is supposed to be teaching. The quieting of the mind is something that Snape himself has mastered. Occlumency is the magic that has kept him alive. He knows the importance more than literally anyone else. And still he uses those sessions not to empower Harry, but to wound him. He weaponizes the lesson. He turns survival training into psychological warfare. If Snape's real goal was to help defeat Voldemort, this would have been a moment to prove it. This would have been the moment to set aside pride and history and simply teach. But he can't. Or he won't. And that tells me everything I need to know about how Snape understands his power. Because even when the stakes could not be higher, he cannot separate instruction from domination. He cannot teach without belittling. He cannot mentor without control. And that's what makes his abuse of power so profound. Because it's not just about favoritism, right? It would be one thing if he just favored Slytherins, which is what Percy tells Harry at the very beginning of the season. He just favors Slytherins. But favoring an in group does not inherently mean being negative to an out group. That is not a requirement for in group favoritism. But he is actively antagonistic. In addition to favoring Slytherins, this is about a man who was given a chance to shape the next generation and chose to relive his own grudges instead of. He had been bullied, he had been humiliated. And instead of breaking the cycle, which admittedly is not easy to do, he institutionalizes it. So when I think about Snape as a teacher, I don't see a misunderstood genius forced into a job he didn't want. I see a man entrusted with enormous responsibility who never rose to meet it. And in a world that already doubted his goodness, he had every opportunity to prove otherwise. And here's the thing, y'. All, the bar is actually fully, completely in hell. He all he had to do was teach potions. All he had to do was teach the thing he's good at. He could have stuck to the book. He didn't have to do anything else. He could have said, here's what we have to do. He could have done, like Slughorn, give him the assignment, walk around. But he is villainous and venomous just cause he can be. And that to me, is the epitome of abuse of power. And I personally can't stand for It. I shan't. I can't, I won't. I want.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

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[Professor Julian Womble]

The next theme that came up in the post episode chat was one that discusses the difference between motive and action. Charlie wrote the biggest difference between Snape apologists and Snape detractors is whether motive is an important consideration and whether doing it for love, not morality, is worthy. The reason Snape can never be redeemed is because he would have happily let Neville and his parents die if Voldy had focused on them instead of the Potters. We know this because he told Voldemort the prophecy in the first place, knowing he would kill someone because of it. And when he went to Dumbledore, he said save Lily, not save them. Snape showing Dumbledore the DOE was proof that he only ever changed sides for Lily, not because he cared about the cause. For me, motive is everything. Lorian wrote. Some people are swayed by motive and some by action when answering these questions. I think I'm more of an action person when we're talking about good actions, but probably a motivation person when we're talking about bad ones. Which, yes, is very convenient. It's interesting because when I answered the house questions about what makes a good house person. I went with them using their house traits for a good cause. But here with Snape, we're talking about a person, not a trait. And that difference changes how we interpret morality. Jazz wrote he was instrumental in bringing Voldy down. Yes, but his big ace play happened by chance rather than strategy. He had no idea Harry was snooping outside the door when Nagini got him. When Nagini got him. Sounds like Bikini Bottom. Anyways, If Voldy had AK'd him instead, Harry would have had. Harry wouldn't have received the memories at all. He was killed because Voldi wanted the wand, not because he sacrificed himself. His biggest action of heroism happened by accident. He didn't die fighting. He died for Voldi's ego. One of the hardest parts of really assessing Severus Snape is that there are so many versions of him, and each one comes with its own set of motives, offenses and actions that inform how we see him. There's the bitter, antagonistic professor we meet in the classroom. The double agent who risked his life to, like, bring down Voldiva. There's the boy who grew up in an abusive home. There's the student who was bullied and humiliated by his peers. And then there's the adult who spent a lifetime nursing an obsessive love for a woman who did not love him back. All of these are true. And depending on which one you start with, you end up with a completely different picture of who this man is. If you start in a classroom, you see cruelty. If you start with a war, you see courage. If you start with Lily, you see obsession. If you start with childhood, you see pain. And that's what makes Snape so difficult to define. Because the more angles we add, the less clear the image of who he is as a person becomes. Looking at him holistically doesn't lead us to clarity, it leads us to gray. Because every explanation seems to answer one question while leaving another one unresolved. And so if you say he was cruel because he was bullied, yes, that might explain his deep resentment of James Potter and, by extension, Harry. It helps us understand where that anger came from. But understanding is not the same thing as absolution. If you say he became a spy to redeem himself, that does show courage and loyalty to Lily's memory, but it doesn't erase the fact that he could not extend the same compassion to the children sitting right in front of him in a classroom. If you say he was just a man haunted by grief, that grief may very well explain why he lashed out. Because as Many of you pointed out many, many, many times over the course of this Snape series. Hurt people do hurt people. But that still doesn't justify choosing to make others feel small just because he felt small at one point in his life. These things can be true and still, for some of us, not be enough. And that's what makes this whole rigmarole such a rigmarole. Snape is a character whose every motive can be explained, and yet no single explanation covers everything that he's done. He's actually, like, repellent of a tidy moral. Mathological. Mathological. Ooh, mathological. Hello. Put that down in the lexicon. I don't know what it means, but put it down. Mathematical equation. A moral mathematical equation. That is what I meant to say. When we talk about Snape, what we're really talking about is which piece of that equation matters the most to us? To who? To us? Which variable is the one that we care about? Or is it just the outcome itself? For some of us, it's the outcome. He helped defeat Voldemort, and that's it. That's all we need. For others, it's the motive. That he didn't act out of justice, but out of guilt and obsession. And that's what makes his goodness conditional. And for others, still, it's the history. He was a child shaped by violence, who never learned another language for survival. And here's the thing that really gets me, and I have really been sitting with this for the past six weeks. None of that is wrong. Every single one of those truths is true. They're also incomplete, because Snape's life refuses to sit neatly on one side or the other of the moral ledger. Every time we try to define him, another piece of his story pushes back against that. And that's why all of our conversations about Snape so often sound like us just arguing past one another. We're really not debating about the same person. We're focusing on different versions of him. A different motive, a different wound, a different moment. And maybe that's the point. Maybe he's not meant to give us a consensus, but rather to force us to ask harder questions about the balance between motive and action, about the difference between understanding and forgiving, and whether morality is a matter of what we intend or what we cause. Because Snape's life is full of contradictions. But it teaches us that motive can make a story legible, but it cannot make it right. And I think that that's a lesson that is very difficult for some of us to learn. Me, I'M some of us. It is something that I struggle with and I am actually grateful to Snape because he's forcing me to grapple with a piece of my own understanding that is really tricky.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

Help DEA keep our communities safe and healthy by participating in National Prescription Drug Take back day Saturday, October 25th take action right in your own home by cleaning out your medicine cabinet of unneeded medications. Keep them safe, clean them out, take them back. Find a collection site near [e-mail] do your part to lower overdose deaths and prevent prescription drug misuse before it starts. That's deateback.com what's that sound? That's the sound of Downy Unstoppable scent beads going into your washing machine and giving your clothes freshness that lasts all day long. There it is again. It's like music to your ears or more like music to your nose. That freshness is irresistible. Let's get a Downy Unstoppables bottle shake and now a sniff solo. Nice. With Downy Unstoppables you just toss Wash Wow for all day Fresh. The third theme that we are going to talk about that came up quite a bit in the post episode chat was the boundaries of redemption. Carmen wrote, My eyes have been opened about a lot of Severus plight after these episodes, but I still don't like him. I still think he's a villain and I still don't see him as redeemable. I see a lot of people in my life who bring chaos and madness for all those around them just cause they've been traumatized or victimized or hurt and then they just want everyone to be just as miserable as them. I cannot with those people. Kylie wrote when considering how Snape and Umbridge are different to me. Umbridge took joy in the evil actions she did. Snape was just indifferent to it. Indifference makes it worse because it can be disguised as not participating. But not acting is the same thing as allowing. He let the real heroes fight his fight while he stood by and waited for Harry and Voldy to battle it out. Sure, he did brave things, but they were for selfish reasons. That doesn't make you a hero. And Dylan wrote, if Snape's memory selection was intentional, his choices seemed conflicting and possibly out of character. It would make sense if he couldn't completely choose the memories Harry got. If that's the case, it makes me dislike Snape even more, which I didn't think was possible. The only thing that could possibly be a baby step of redemption for Snape was the sharing of the Prince's tale. After a life of secrets, his final act was finally to bear it all, the good and the bad, and to come clean. Yet if Harry wasn't meant to see all of that, then Snape's single tiny, itty bitty inch of a step of redemption was accidental. When I think about Snape and redemption, I think that what many of us both in the post episode chat for this particular episode and one's past are really testing is the adage, actions speak louder than words. For some of us, that is true. If someone changes their behavior, that's enough. The words don't matter. But for others like me, the words still matter. The apology matters. The naming of harm matters. And Snape forces us to sit right in that tension. Because if we're talking about actions, there's plenty of evidence to admire. He risks his life as a double agent. He protects Harry even when he despises him. He kills Dumbledore at Dumbledore's request. He gives his memories at the end, the very act that ensures Voldemort's defeat. Those are all monumental actions. They are brave and costly and significant. But they also sit beside years. Years of cruelty, humiliation and silence. So when we try to balance them, the math stops working. The heroics don't cancel out the harm. And that's where the question of redemption gets complicated. Because redemption for what? And what's more like redeemed by whom? Is it redemption for betraying Lily and setting her death in motion? Or for the way he treated Harry? For the way he treated Neville, Hermione and the other students who sat in his classroom for himself, the boy who once believed that power could protect him from pain? Depending on which one of those you chose or which one you think matters, your answer changes. Because redemption isn't a universal currency. It's a relational one. It only exists between people. Someone has to offer it and someone has to receive it. Snape never lets that happen. He never gives anyone he hurt the opportunity to face him and say I forgive you. Or I don't. Or even. Can you explain this to me? He fixes things behind the scenes, quietly, surgically, in ways that exclude the people most affected. He replaces the pink underwear without ever admitting he died it in the first place. Let me tell you something. This pink underwear situation, we're never getting rid of it. Kimberly, thank you. You did a big one. We appreciate you and all of your service, but that's not redemption. That's repair, without any of the relational aspects that come along with redemption. And that's what separates Snape from someone like Zuko in the Last Airbender. I know I keep bringing up Zuko, but in my opinion, his redemption arc in Avatar the Last Airbender is one of the best redemption arcs ever of all time. Completely. And if you haven't watched Avatar the Last Airbender, I think if you like Harry Potter, there are a lot of things about it that you would like. Anyways, I've got distracted. Anyways, back to this. Zuko doesn't just switch sides and start doing good things. He actually has to earn forgiveness person by person. He goes on a mission with Aang to learn how to firebend. He apologizes to Katara and then goes with her to try and find the person who she believes killed her mother and basically is there with her as she tries to exact her revenge against this person. He trains with Toph. He goes on another mission with Sokka. He builds trust painfully and publicly with every single member of Team Avatar. Zuko has to show up and he has to give voice to his remorse. He doesn't just act differently. He invites others to witness and confirm the change. And that's something that Snake never does. Everything he does is in secret. Every sacrifice he makes, he makes without letting anyone else see it or know about it. And yes, part of that is circumstance. He's a spy. I hear so many people like yelling at their. At their. However you're listening to this, he's a spy. Yes, he's operating under constant danger. There are absolutely legitimate reasons for secrecy. But even when secrecy is no longer required, he doesn't change. He doesn't reach out. He doesn't try to make it right. Because here's the thing, y', all, and I keep saying this, years one through four, secrecy for what? And here's the thing, and I had to sit with this for a little while, and I think some of your comments, particularly those of you who are Snape defenders, you really opened my eyes to this in a way that I think is really important. So thank you all. I don't think Snape believes that he deserves redemption. I think that his trauma tells him that everything he's done is unforgivable. So why ask for it? I don't think he thinks that there's room for the possibility of it. I don't think he forgives himself. And that is sad, because it means that even when he does the right things, they're not motivated by a hope for forgiveness, but seemingly by punishment. His good deeds aren't steps towards reconciliation, they're penance. They're self flagellation. He's not seeking to be forgiven, he's seeking to suffer enough that he doesn't have to ask. And that's where the difference between redemption and guilt comes to play. Because guilt keeps you silent. Redemption requires you to speak when people ask, what more do you want from him? Which is something that someone else wrote in the post episode chat. My answer for me personally, Julian, I want participation. I want him to look at the people he hurt and let them have a say in what happens next. Because to me, redemption is relational. It is not a solo act. It's not something that you like, do behind closed doors. It's something that you do in community with accountability and voice and risk and fear and shame and trepidation. Snape gives us all the right actions, but none of the relationship. He does the work, I will grant you that. Every single time now he does the work, but he never lets anyone see him doing it or tells anyone why. And that's why for me, his redemption will always feel so incomplete.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

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[Professor Julian Womble]

The last theme that was very prominent in the post episode chat was one that came from the conversation, or not even a conversation. Something that I said very quickly, kind of off the cuff in the last episode about Snape and how his arc was actually horizontal. And the only thing that happened is that we ended up getting more information about him that we then used as a means by which to explain his behavior. Lorian wrote, well, for me it's because we now understand more about that person and it's absolutely valid to take that knowledge and allow that to factor into our judgment. I'd never say he doesn't do bad things. He totally does, and knowing the backstory doesn't alter that history, but knowing it does make me view them through a different lens. It's not an arc for Snape as a character, it's an arc for us as readers as we come to a deeper understanding of his character. Rachel, in conversation with this particular point, said, I like the idea of it's not a character arc for Snape, but for us as readers, because I agree with that. I don't see much of a character arc for Snape. He's too stuck in his trauma and shame to actually grow and change. But I do love the idea that this arc is is for us as readers to grow and learn and deepen our understanding. Doria wrote, snape is just a product of Joanne's romantic idealization. If so many people see Snape as a hero, even a romantic hero, it's because that's how the books portrayed him. This idea of a man who only ever loved one woman his whole life. And maybe it's that outdated rose colored vision that makes us forget all the crap hiding behind that same man and behind the author too. Well, one of the things that I really had to sit with after kind of reading through your comments and thinking about this particular dynamic was what does the information that the Prince tale, the Prince's Tale, offer us? The backstory is a revelation. Why does it change so much about what so many of us think about Snape? Is it the he's broken and I can fix him instinct? Is it just the awe at the depths of his sacrifice. Is it love? Is it relief? That maybe he wasn't as cruel as we thought he was? And that maybe there was a reason. Because what is true, right, is that the Prince's tale shifts something in many of us. I will never forget reading that the first time and being like, oh, my God. When he cast the doe, Patronus, I screamed. I distinctly remember yelling and screaming bloody murder. Because I could not believe that he had done this all this time, right? Like, I just was like, this guy's trash. Couldn't even be more trash if he tried. And then you tell me that he's the one who sent the silver doe to get Harry to get the sword. This is crazy. I couldn't believe it. And I don't even remember what it meant for me in that moment other than like, wow, I completely got Snape wrong. I think. I think it takes everything we've believed about him for the past six and three fourths of a book and turns it inside out. And suddenly we're no longer judging his actions, we're asking to understand them. We find out that he was abused, that he was bullied, that he loved Lily, that he worked for years as a double agent. And all of that invites us to reconsider what we thought we knew. And I get it. I truly, honestly do. And if I'm being frank, I never quite fully understand it as well as I do now. Like, again, thank you to the Snape defenders out there who have with stood the storm and the torment. The torment and the torrent of people like myself who are really calling upon you to stand up for your mans. And you all have done it with gusto and also with really solid points being made. And I really appreciate it because it really has made the prospect and the process of learning and being and having a deeper understanding of Snape possible. Because I think what is true for many people is that we want people to be better than they are. We want to believe that there's a reason for the harm they cause. We want to believe that if we can just understand why, it somehow makes what they did a little easier to bear. And the thing is, is that that desire is so deeply human and so real. When we think about catastrophes that happen that are man made or man caused. And I say man both as a kind of, because that's how the turn of phrase works, but also because most of, like, violent acts that we tend to see are perpetrated by men so that it fits. But the first question is always what's the motive? Why did they do this? I'm a sucker for a police procedural. And one of the big things is always motive, like, why did they do this? And in fact, what we see in most investigations is like, you have to have a solid motive for the person to even be seen as a plausible person who's committed the crime. And it's so interesting because it's like sometimes senseless acts of violence just happen. And when those instances happen, the story dies very quickly. Particularly like in the United States, as it pertains to guns. If they can't explain why some gun related incident has occurred, it completely fades away. If they go and they can't connect it to some political backing or whatever, we never hear about it again. And I think that there's a way that there's a human desire for motive, but there is also a way that we are seeking to, in our minds, rationalize and justify how someone could do something so heinous. And so again, that desire for an understanding is so human. But I also think it's the trap of Severus Snape, as Doria alludes to. Right. The idea of Severus Snape and wanting to know more is because we get so many things, morsels, tidbits about his past life handed to us on a silver platter. J.K. rowling gives us every single why, just gives it to us a buffet. She doesn't make us look for it, she hands it to us. The trauma, the pain, the lost love, the guilt, the burden. And before we realize it, we've started translating that into a path towards absolution, towards redemption. We start saying, oh, that's why he's like that. And now I get it. And without meaning to, for some of us, we start forgiving behavior that once horrified us a couple pages back. We start treating motive as if it erases impact. But understanding why something happens doesn't change the fact that it happened. And that, I think, is where Snape challenges us the most, because he reminds us that knowing the cause of harm doesn't cancel out the harm. We can understand that he was bullied and still say he became a bully. We can understand that he was traumatized and still say he inflicted trauma on others. We can understand that he had his own version of love for Lilly and still say that that love warped into something controlling and obsessive. Understanding helps us name what we're seeing, but it doesn't make it right. And one of the things that my students, also my students and I always say is like Two things can be true. And I think one of the pitfalls of these books is that they invite us to really think of things in a very kind of binary way, which, given the author's gender politics, makes sense, despite the fact that she's written a character that lives in between this binary solidly. And I think what happens with Snape and with a lot of characters and even people in our own lives, is that we conflate knowing with forgiving. Like we confuse empathy with amnesty. And we think that if we can trace the pain back to its source, we're somehow obligated to release the person who caused it. But as far as I'm concerned, we don't have to. We can understand and still hold accountable. We can empathize without excusing, because explanation and excuse are not the same thing. And we've been saying that week after week after week after week during this Snape series. This is the minefield of the story, though. The danger of confusing context with condemnation. Half Blood Prince. The book is built on this very premise. It gives us a complete origin story, not just for Snape, but for Voldemort. We learn why Tom Riddle became who he became. We see the fear and the abandonment and the desire for control, and we can understand all of it. And yet none of it changes the reality that he is a murderer who fell the first time by trying to kill a baby. Knowing doesn't undo any of that. And I think it's the same with Snape. We can trace his cruelty and choices and the loyalties that he has all the way back to their roots. We can know the why of every decision, but it doesn't rewrite the what. We understand why tornadoes happen. Air pressure, wind speed, the conditions that make them possible. But that understanding doesn't rebuild the homes they destroy, and it doesn't change the devastation they leave in their wake. We can know why hurt people hurt people, but that doesn't change or make the hurt any less real. And I think the Prince's Tale really reveals something. And to Laurian's point, it's not really about Snape. It's really about us. It's about our capacity for empathy and how big it is. And I think that that's actually beautiful. But I also think that it makes us vulnerable to mistaking, knowing the background of something for giving the person a justification for their behavior. The truth is, is that the Prince's Tale doesn't change Snape. We are the ones who walk away seeing him differently, not because he's someone new, but because we have new information. And in that moment we have to decide whether understanding someone's pain is the same thing as forgiving their choices. And I know for me it's not. Knowing doesn't change what the doing did. Every now and then I rinse it out and I need tummy rinse tonight and I need it more. My kids were so bad and the smell never leaves. I don't know what to do. I'm always in the dark. The sweat and dead short smells like a dark downy rinse fights stubborn odors.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

We've now reached the part of the episode where I am going to give a reflection. Our last reflection on Severus Snake, at least for this iteration of the podcast. Over the course of these Snape episodes, we have tried and failed and tried again to name Severus Snape A hero, a villain, a victim, a survivor. A man capable of extraordinary sacrifice and unbearable cruelty. I think the reason we keep circling him and he remains such a lightning rod for conversation is because he doesn't change all that much. But his character invites us to change a lot. Our feelings about him shift. Our frameworks evolve. The way that we talk about morality and redemption and power, all of that grows over time. But Snape, the character himself, stays more or less the same. And that's a secret at the heart of his story. I think, personally, like, he's not dynamic, but we as readers are. He forces us to really hold in our hands contradiction. And I think that that's why he's so polarizing. Because how you read him, what you forgive, what you condemn, says something about the things that we value, about how we've lived and what we are willing to believe. When we first met him, the questions were simple. What does it mean to be good? What makes someone a good teacher, a good person, a good anything? And right out the gate, Snape completely threw all of our conventions out of the window. He was brilliant but unkind. Loyal, but only to dead people. And Dumbledore. He fought for the side of good but in ways that often felt indistinguishable from evil. He embodied. The question we didn't know we were asking Is goodness measured by what you do or by who you are while you're doing it? The consensus then, and I still think it holds, was that goodness without kindness isn't really goodness, it's strategy. Snape could save the world and still destroy the people right in front of him. And that tension became a thread that ran through everything we discussed. Later on, our questions deepened. Right. Was Snape a good member of the Order of the Phoenix? A good Slytherin? A good half blood? And we came to see that usefulness and goodness were not equivalents. Snape was indispensable to Dumbledore, vital to the Order, essential to the defeat of Voldemort. But none of them, none of that stuff, rather, made him moral. He reminds us that being good at something, even something noble, doesn't necessarily make you good. It just makes you useful. And usefulness is not morality. And then our Prof. Response episodes required us to turn inward, which many of you did not like. And no, I will not be paying your therapy bills. That's not my business. I have to pay my own. We asked what repentance actually looks like. Whether Snape's lifelong service to Dumbledore was penance or just guilt management. We Asked what it means to love someone so completely that it becomes selfish, obsessive and even violent insofar that it allows for people to do violent things to the people we claim to love, to use violent and dangerous language against those people. And we asked how gender shapes grace. Why do we forgive Snape in ways that we don't forgive other women who do far less harm? Why we imagine interiority for him but not for Umbridge? Why we contextualize his cruelty and pain, but refuse to do the same for Petunia or Merope God. That conversation taught us something hard as well. We are trained to offer men complexity. We grant them motive, texture and backstory. But with women we expect perfection. And these books condition us to keep those practices and behaviors and apply them to not just Snape, but many of the other men characters. So Snape then becomes more than a man. He becomes a mirror for uneven ways of distributing empathy. He exposes how easily power and pity intertwine and how we rationalize men's harm because we have been conditioned to do it. And by the end, we saw. Snaif's story isn't really one of transformation, but it's one of revelation. He doesn't actually evolve, but we just learn more. And with each new layer of his life, the trauma, the grief, the secret loyalty, it asks us to stretch our understanding of him further. And in doing so, it quietly asks us how far our compassion can go before it turns into erasure. Because what the Snape story ultimately reveals is our cultural hunger for the why. We want reasons. We want to believe that if we can trace harm back to its origins, it somehow becomes less harmful. And yes, that's because we are human people, and it's also where we find ourselves being the most vulnerable. Understanding someone's pain, though, as I've said earlier, doesn't erase the damage. Snape reminds us that empathy and accountability can and should coexist. That understanding may illuminate harm, but it doesn't disapparate it. Disillusionate is probably a better spell. And if I'm being honest, I have learned so much about Snape and about so many aspects of his character that I've not thought about before. But more than anything, I've learned a lot about myself because Snape has made me confront the ways that I respond to harm, especially when it comes from men. He shows me that I am slow to forgive, not because I enjoy holding grudges, but because I've seen how quickly the world forgives men for things it refuses to forgive anyone else for. And so I personally, my own brand of what I would call feminism means I don't rush to it. I don't offer that grace easily because I know how easily it's abused. I've realized that I'm not someone who believes that doing something that leads to a good outcome automatically makes you a good person. I'm someone who needs to hear words. I want to hear that you're sorry, especially when your actions could be interpreted in many different ways. I want to hear the truth spoken out loud. I don't want you to hide the pink underwear and quietly replace them. I want you to tell me that you ruined them so that I have the opportunity to decide whether or not to forgive you. Because it's a dialogue, not an assumption. And Snape has taught me that silence robs people of that choice, and that secrecy and replacement is not the same as accountability. He's also taught me something about trauma, about how acknowledging it doesn't erase its impact for the person who's experienced the trauma or the people who are on the receiving end of the behavior. That's the outpouring of that traumatic experience. I can recognize someone's pain and still name what that pain has done to me. I can understand where it comes from without excusing where it lands. And I can call it what it is without making it my job to make you feel better about it. And maybe that's what compassion really is. It's not suspension of boundaries, but an awareness of the consequences. Because part of being compassionate is also being cognizant of how our own pain spills into other people's lives and how expression without care can still cause harm. And while it might feel easier to hold everything in or let everything out, both can wound in different ways. And so for me, Snape becomes a reminder about the work of being good and that it's not about being perfect or apologies. It's about learning how to be honest about what we have done and mindful of what it costs others. I don't think Snape's story will ever lead us to a consensus. I don't know that we'll ever agree on who he is or why he did what he did, or what any of it ultimately means. But I also think that that's the point, because I think we can agree that he makes us think about goodness and cruelty and love and power and the cost of silence. Snape forces us to ask who we are when we judge him, what values we hold closest, and what we believe redemption really requires. And I think that that's actually the work of this character. Not to convince us of his virtue or his villainy, but to make us examine the parts of ourselves that ache to see him as one or the other. Because one thing's for certain, two things are absolutely for sure. Whether we love Snape or hate him, condemn him or defend him, he has made us think more deeply about what it means to be human. And that is its own kind of magic. So thanks Savvy Sev.

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[Professor Julian Womble]

Foreign this has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble and if you like today's episode. First of all, thank you. Please feel free to like rate, subscribe and do all the things that one does where pods are cast. If you would like to follow me on social media, please feel free to do so rofw on TikTok and Prof. JW on Instagram. I'm so proud of myself that I got that right. I've been really messing it up as of late, but I got it this time. That's all that matters. If you want to join us for our post Episode chat to close out our discussion the Severus Snape, please feel free to do so. If you're not already on our Patreon, please join us at patreon.com criticalmagictheory and you can join for free and be a part of that conversation. I cannot wait. Speaking of Patreon, I just posted the Dumbledore survey and it will be going out to everyone on social media and on the listserv this weekend and Monday by the latest. Monday at the latest Anyways, you get what I'm saying? I cannot wait to hear your thoughts. We are gonna have about a two week reprieve before we dive into Dumbledore because y' all we need a break and I cannot wait. But before we get to any of that, join us in the post Episode chat y'. All. I want to hear what you all thought about all of this. Until then, be critical and stay magical, my friends. Byee.

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