Snape, Sirius, and revenge
I’m trying to unpack Snape lately for the fic I’m writing for Snapecase (signups click here!). I’m reading the few pro-Snape posts I can find on here and I have a bone to pick with some Snape fans.
People don’t seem to be in agreement over Snape’s motivations. Most Snape fans agree that the character is complex and he’s motivated by a sum of different factors. But the primary emotion? Some people say it’s not love for Lily but revenge for Lily’s murder.
I completely disagree. Snape is not a vengeful hero. For proof, look at Sirius Black. I bring him up because he is one of Snape’s many foils (JKR loves foils and parallels), and their lives mirror each others’ in one specific way.
They are the thematic surrogates of Harry’s parents. Snape, Lily’s best friend, fulfilling her role as protector. Sirius, James’ best friend, fulfilling the role of mentor. (Neither of them do a perfect job, but still.) Snape is associated with maternal characters (Lily, Narcissa), while Sirius is closer to paternal (James, Remus). Snape rejects his paternity, yet is trapped in his father’s house. Sirius rejects his maternity, trapped in his mother’s house. And from the moment of James and Lily’s death, both their lives are frozen in place.
Sirius and Snape have so much in common–unhappy childhoods, hatred of their legacies, stunted emotional growth, their cruelty, their loyalty, etc. But the similarities are there to highlight the differences. They’re a study in contrasts. Where Sirius loves Harry, Snape hates him. While Snape is telling Harry to stay out of danger, Sirius is trying to make him a member of the Order. And on and on. But here are the two key points I’m taking too long to make:
Sirius is a vengeful hero, driven by righteous anger. A cunning and vindictive Gryffindor. His greatest weakness is recklessness.
Snape is a repentant hero, driven by remorse. A brave and self-sacrificing Slytherin. His greatest weakness is pettiness.
This is a really important difference. Sirius’ story is about revenge. His thirst for justice gives him the strength to escape prison. You can argue that his primary motivator is revenge on James’ murderers. Meanwhile his bravery, in the form of reckless hubris, is the fatal flaw that propels him through the Veil.
In perfect contrast, Snape’s bravery is his saving grace. HOWEVER, in Snape’s narrative, vengefulness is misdirected and childish. He bullies Harry. He taunts Sirius. He outs Remus. Even his perfectly justified revenge on Wormtail becomes petty because all he can do is make Wormtail clean his house.
In a way, you could see each characters’ weakness as a mark of their respective House. Sirius’ reckless bravery is a vestige of the Marauder days where he felt invincible. Snape’s petty cruelty is Slytherin self-aggrandizement and the type of thing he learned to do during Hogwarts while defending himself from Marauders. Both things become childish in their adult selves. (Ironically their adult virtues are traits of each others’ House.) And if Slytherin pettiness is meant to be a flaw, then revenge can’t be the driving force of Snape’s story. Just like overconfidence isn’t the defining theme of Sirius’.
So this brings us back to their primary motivations. The night the Potters died, we know the immediate reactions of both men. Sirius goes after Wormtail. His destructive energy is turned outward. Snape says, “I wish I were dead.” His destructive energy is turned inward. (Snape-haters might argue that he’s just being a whiny baby, but this is Snape. When JKR writes his dialogue, it’s always loaded and important. We can assume he means it.) If he was a wholly vengeful character, he would be going after Sirius–whom he already hated and now thinks was the traitor. But even as Dumbledore’s tells him about the betrayal, Snape will not be distracted from his self-destructive grief.
That night both Sirius and Snape were seized with hatred for the man they saw as responsible for the Potters’ deaths. Sirius wants to kill Pettigrew. Snape wants to kill himself.
Dumbledore sees this. He turns Sirius’ anger toward the cause. He uses Snape’s guilt in the same way. You’re obligated to live to make up for what you did. And this is why Snape can’t be a vengeful hero. He may want revenge, he may be just as angry as Sirius is–but this is just another similarity that highlights their differences. Vengeance is not at Snape’s core. The reason he does all that he does for Dumbledore is guilt. It’s a story of redemption, not revenge.
Love for Lily, obviously, is at the root of that. It’s the origin of his guilt, his worst crime. But it’s just like Sirius’ love for James was at the root of his revenge narrative. Sirius is Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine, seeking revenge against the outlaws who killed his beloved brother…coincidentally also called James. He’s our righteous hero, out in the sunlight, celebrated by the townsfolk. Snape is Doc Holliday, a man of vice and crime living in the shadows, jolted out of his self-destructive life by the murder of his lover…Chihuahua (I shit you not, that’s her name). Wyatt Earp is the shining hero bringing forth justice with his righteous anger. That’s Sirius’ story. Doc Holliday may have wanted revenge in his grief, but his overall narrative is one of atonement and redemption. That’s Snape.
It’s important, I think, to understand this in order to appreciated both their deaths. Sirius dies before seeing the deaths of Wormtail or Voldemort. Snape dies a villain and a murderer. And they both fail to save Harry. This is the final similarity between Sirius and Snape. Neither of them live to see their primary objectives fulfilled.
But Harry is the one to avenge his parents and clear Snape’s name in the end. This is the natural conclusion to Sirius and Snape’s roles as parental surrogates. Harry learns from Sirius’ example the importance of fierce loyalty, but also the dangers of recklessness. Harry learns from Snape’s example the importance of self-sacrifice and the dangers of pettiness. I’m not saying “Sirius and Snape were basically Harry’s parents” because that’s just stupid. But Harry learns from them in one specific way children should learn from their parents. By understanding their flaws and virtues and becoming better than the both of them combined.
