As most people who know me knows, I’m very fond of Harry Potter and all stuff involving that… Yes, my dream is to own a living green pygmy puff as well as a golden Hippogriff but that’s not what I was going to discuss right now. What I was thinking about is this huge internet war about Snape. Is he good, is he bad, is he better then James Potter, did he deserve Lily or not…? Most of the time people end up discussing his behaviour towards his students, especially Harry, and saying that it shows that he was a bad man. I incline, and I do that with a point of view that I have not yet seen in any of these discussions.
When I read the books I got the impression that Severus Snape was depressed, he was drowning in self guilt and hated life but was set on not losing completely in the end. Have you ever been in a depression? Do you know how it feels to try and live through all the feelings that never let go of you when your deep, deep down in that shit? You try to live but in your chest you can feel that the only thing you wanna do is to sink to the ground and lay there ’till you die? You try to make rational decisions in that condition!
If a depressed person see what seems to be a quick fix, they’ll most probably try it. And most likely that “quick fix” made the shitty hole they’re swimming in bigger because they did not think through the consequences. It may not seem to be a good idea to, for example, put naked pictures of your self on the internet because you miss your ex… But for someone who is depressed that may look like a fucking great idea, free adoration in an instant! No lonely feelings any more! But well, that’s not the only result the pictures can have… Same goes for Snapes behaviour.
Most people seems to think that just because he’s part of a fictional story he can just be one way and act one way. But characters in good books ain’t that way. They are so close to real humans as possible. They lie, they put up facades, they change, they have double feelings about stuff even though it may not be written like that in plain words. But maybe you have to know what a depression is to understand what Snape makes me feel… And I mean true depressed, not really sad or something like that. It’s a huge difference. I get pissed off on people saying they’re depressed, are having angst, have an mental illness, having an eating disorder or anything like that when they’re in fact just nervous or stressed >.<
Whit this, I’m not saying that Snape was a saint. He acted, in deed, like a dick but I think I can understand why. It was his way of trying to deal with him self, while he was still so angry and depressed that he was mean to people around him.
