katherine ysa

what bugs me about this tweet is that he didn’t die to save the wizarding world. harry did that. snape died because a snake bit him. i fail to see how his death was a sacrifice. but oh no, he was so “brave,” bullying children all those years. some people try to defend that with “oh he was trying to protect harry and this and that and bla bla bla” but harry was not the only one he bullied. he made hermione cry! he tried to poison neville’s toad! sorry joanne, snape is a devil. thank you for listening to my ted talk.

deathdaydungeon

Tweets are awkward, as 140 characters does not afford itself to nuance.

Instead of ‘he died to save the wizarding world’, I would suggest it would be a little more accurate to say that Snape ‘gave his life to save the wizarding world’ - not in the sense that he died, but in the sense that he defected to Dumbledore’s side at 20 and did not deviate for the next 18 years.

His career was dictated by it being a convenient cover story - his continued proximity with Dumbledore gave Voldemort reason to accept Snape back into the Death Eater fold, ensuring that Snape could become a triple agent - and whilst he performs this role, he speaks of the ‘mortal danger’ he is placed in.

Snape’s death was almost irrelevant in the scheme of the war, but Snape’s life was vastly important to Harry’s success, and Snape willingly gave 18 years of it - almost his entire adulthood - to the cause.

I don’t know about willingly… I got the impression he only joined Dumbledore side to protect Lily and, after she died, he didn’t want to risk abandoning Dumbledore and going back to the Dark Lord because he was scared of Dumbledore. Also, he probably had a bit of a grudge against Voldemort for killing the woman he loved. Overall though it doesn’t sound quite right that he was willing.

As for his life being important to Harry’s success, sure, maybe, but that doesn’t make him a good person. Good people don’t bully children for sport (when he was a teacher) or encourage/allow the torture of children (as he did when he was headmaster).

deathdaydungeon

You say you don’t know, but I can assure you that if you re-read the books, it’s very clear that Snape’s actions were willing. There is nothing in the text to suggest that Snape was scared of Dumbledore, or that he was motivated by revenge.

Instead, the text explicitly shows that when Snape finds out about Lily’s death, he wishes he was dead. Dumbledore tells him that such a thing is no use to anyone, warns him that Voldemort will return, and receives Snape’s sworn word that he’ll assist in keeping Lily’s son alive.

It is crucial to his story that the reader understands that he willingly agreed, and then he willingly carried out his task. We see as much when Dumbledore ponders whether Snape will flee like Karkaroff instead of following through on his promise, and Snape assures him that he’s no such coward, and he will do as he has been tasked.

Had the story been about a man who was fearful of Dumbledore, then those scenes would’ve played out differently - such as Dumbledore threatening him with Azkaban and saying he wouldn’t testify for him. Had the story been about a man who wanted revenge against Voldemort, then those scenes would’ve played out differently - such as Snape being grimly elated that Voldemort wasn’t actually dead so he could play a part in bringing him down.

We see no such emotions and no such content.

Instead, 16 or so years later, when Dumbledore and Snape talk about motivations, Snape is extremely clear that his motivation remained the same - not fear, not revenge, but the task of keeping Harry alive in Lily’s memory so her sacrifice was not in vein.

I didn’t argue that Snape was a good man. I agree that he was a bully as a teacher, but this part of your comment: “encourage/allow the torture of children (as he did when he was headmaster)” is a ridiculous critique of the situation in Deathly Hallows.

Dumbledore’s plan was that Snape would become Headmaster so Snape could do his utmost to reduce the influence of the Death Eaters within the school. We see an example of this by the punishment he gives to Ginny et al, which the trio gloat about because they can’t believe that Snape gave the group such a light punishment. The reader is meant to understand that Snape was working to try and minimise the effects of Voldemort’s control of the school - and had a genuine Death Eater, such as Bellatrix Lestrange, been in charge of Hogwarts, the staff and students would’ve been exposed to far more danger.

frederick-the-great

But, honestly, don’t people read the books? More and more I am convinced that the problem with these sort of discussions is that people are so immersed in their headcanons that they forget the source material. It is understandable to a point because of how deeply Harry Potter is ingratiated in the culture, but where, where is the line in the books that sustains the notion that Snape was afraid of Dumbledore and that’s why he didn’t return to Voldemort? Where is the evidence to claim that Snape was failing to make a huge sacrifice for the war effort (Both in the first and in the second war - as pointed out by both Dumbledore and Harry?) How is it possible to argue that the 7th book didn’t frame Snape as protecting the students from the DE? When, in fact, this is clearly demonstrated at several instances?

I think the BIGGEST problem I’ve come across is people who DIDNT READ THE BOOKS AT ALL and only watched the movies and then feel like they have a firm grasp on canon and are therefore qualified to make character judgements when … Really… The movies cut out a lot of nuance for Flash Action etc

The movies are decent guidelines if you’re writing fic but when you’re doing character meta you need to have read and analyzed the actual text rather than taking the film adaptation as gospel

Maybe “scared” wasn’t the right word to use in this situation. What I was trying to say was that I don’t think Snape felt that he had a choice. Return to the employ of the master who killed his beloved and could through Legilimency discover that Snape had betrayed him by going to Dumbledore (possibly, I don’t know how skilled an Occlumens Snape was at this point) or remain the loyal servant of Dumbledore? The choice may not have been a difficult one but that doesn’t mean he was in love with the idea of joining Dumbledore and protecting the child of his sworn enemy. Plus, in book one, it is admitted that Snape’s protection of Harry was as reluctant as could be, and Snape did it only because he owed a life debt to James. I don’t know if his attitude changed later but I’m just going to put that out there.

As for the issues taken with my claim that Snape was “encouraging/allowing the torture of children” when he was headmaster, I did not say that he tortured them himself. Ginny’s detention proves pretty definitively that he didn’t. However, the fact remains that the Carrows, who were under his employ, used the Cruciatus Curse on students and Snape did not stop this. Maybe he tried and failed, but I doubt it; he was the headmaster, I’m sure he could have come up with a good excuse for the Carrows not to use Unforgiveable Curses on students. He convinced Umbridge he was out of Veritaserum and got Goyle (or was it Crabbe?) to loosen his stranglehold on Neville in book five and kept his alleigances relatively hidden from Voldemort all those years, so I am certain he could have found a way to stop it. Say what you like about Snape, he is a skilled liar.

And just as a final note, I don’t read or write fanfiction, I discovered headcanons relatively recently, and I’ve only seen the first three movies. The books are the ultimate source of evidence and information, always.

deathdaydungeon

Brilliant - I agree, the original books are definitely the ultimate source of evidence, so perhaps it would be easier if we referenced the books directly.

Firstly, with reference to Snape’s choice:

“I wish…I wish I were dead…” “And what use would that be to anyone?” said Dumbledore coldly. “If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear.” Snape seemed to peer through a haze of pain, and Dumbledore’s words appeared to take a long time to reach him. “What – what do you mean?” “You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son.” “He does not need protection. The Dark Lord has gone – ” “The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does.” There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing. At last he said, “Very well. Very well. But never – never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear…especially Potter’s son…I want your word!” “My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?” Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape’s ferocious, anguished face. “If you insist…”

It’s very clear from this passage that Snape was making a choice.

Dumbledore makes a request: “Help me protect Lily’s son.”

Dumbledore explains why Snape should agree to this request: “Make sure [Lily’s death] was not in vain.”

Snape, who is clearly grieving and in shock, ‘regain[s] control of himself’ and ‘master[s] his own breathing’ - and then he agrees. He doesn’t ask if he can sleep on it and come back tomorrow with his answer, he doesn’t ask if there is something else he can do instead - and equally, Dumbledore doesn’t threaten him, doesn’t raise the idea of Azkaban or turning him into the aurors, doesn’t hold his wand against his neck.

You could definitely argue that Dumbledore guilted him into the role, using Snape’s grief that Lily had died, and even his part in it: “If you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear,” and, “You know how and why she died.”

And we know Snape wasn’t in love with the idea of protecting Harry, because he swore Dumbledore to secrecy: “This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear…especially Potter’s son…I want your word!”

But he was willing.

As for Hogwarts:

“Lord Voldemort foresees a moment in the near future when he will not need a spy at Hogwarts?” “He believes the school will soon be in his grasp, yes.” “And if it does fall into his grasp,” said Dumbledore, almost, it seemed, as an aside, “I have your word that you will do all in your power to protect the students at Hogwarts?” Snape gave a stiff nod. “Good.”

As you can, it is made explicitly clear in the text that Snape had agreed to do his utmost - all in your power - to protect the students. Therefore, ‘working to minimise the effects of Voldemort’s control’ does not mean ‘he could have found a way to stop’ everything that was happening, solely because ‘he [was] a skilled liar’.

Instead, it means that he likely weighed up what was possible without causing greater long-term harm; his role as Headmaster was a marathon and not a sprint. Had he saved all of the students from any harm for the first month and consequently found himself deposed for being too obvious, the students would’ve been at the mercy of real, legitimate Death Eaters for the rest of the school year with no-one to rein in their excesses.

raptured-night

Let us not forget, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry also witnesses Dumbledore testifying on Snape’s behalf before the Ministry of Magic that “Snape is no more a Death Eater than he is.” This is a resounding statement from Rowling’s narrator; she is showing Harry and the reader just how firmly Snape’s character has come that Dumbledore (who once declared that Snape disgusted him) would be willing to compare his own dedication to fighting Voldemort and his ideology to Snape’s commitment to their cause. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is also the first book in the series where Snape’s past as a Death Eater is confirmed, and it is rife with allusions to the very bravery Snape will demonstrate in making the choice to resume his role as a spy that Harry will acknowledge by the series conclusion (you’ll find that Rowling greatly enjoys her chiastic parallels and her books are peppered with these call-backs and links to one another). As he assures Dumbledore (who importantly does not command Snape to return but phrases it as a request), and in spite of the fear that renders him more pale than usual, he is willing and he is prepared.

In fact, the very symbolism of her narrator singling out Snape’s face in the Foe Glass when he, Dumbledore, and McGonagall arrive in time to stop Barty Crouch Jr. from killing Harry was Rowling’s way of signaling to the reader ahead of Snape’s choice in the infirmary where Snape’s loyalties are; he has clearly aligned himself against Voldemort and in that moment stands as one-third of a trifecta of defense at Hogwarts. At this crucial juncture, where Snape is seemingly faced with reminders all year of his past resurfacing (e.g. through the accusations of Fake-Eye Moody about “spots” that won’t wash off, through Kakaroff’s fear and constant and careless dogging of his steps, and through the gradual return of his own Dark Mark) and must combat his own insecurities, anxieties, and uncertainty, the moment where Rowling has Harry focus on the detail of Snape glaring through the Foe Glass is particularly poignant. This is Snape seeking his own confirmation of where his “loyalties lie” and reaffirming for himself that they are against the likes of “true” supporters of Voldemort, such as Barty Crouch Jr. In spite of the accusations from Fake-Eye Moody he may not have Dumbledore’s trust, in the face of his own self-doubt, Snape is staring at his own glaring visage and acknowledging it for what it means –he is a “foe” to the dark forces that threaten to rise again and invade the safe space of Hogwarts (not to mention, threaten to end Harry Potter).

These are just some basic indications for the reader of just where Snape’s loyalties are and they can all be easily found within the text with a bit of critical analysis. I could write entire articles concerning Snape and his role in the Harry Potter series (technically, I probably have just writing meta on this site in my down-time between writing academic articles because apparently my idea of fun is writing character analyses in my free time when I’m not being paid to analyze literature for my university), however, the one aspect of his character that Rowling sought to make clear by her series end was that Snape was indisputably the bravest man Harry had ever known because he embodied the moral philosophy she first introduced into her series by the very first book, via Dumbledore (another man who made some very wrong choices in his youth only to later dedicate the remainder of his life to repenting); it is our choices that show who we truly are.

Snape stands as a message to readers that the choices we make in our youth can have lasting and even damaging consequences but if we choose to hold ourselves responsible then we are still capable of growth, of change, and of making a genuine and meaningful impact with our lives (i.e. your misguided decisions of the past define you only as far as you allow them to become your excuse to give up and do nothing or, alternatively, to become your motivation to evolve and rectify, as much as possible, the harm you caused). Snape did what was right, not what was easy and he distinguishes for readers a very important and rather sophisticated difference between being performative and proactively doing good. Snape was not a nice man, he had maladapative coping mechanisms and there were points in the series where we see him abuse his authority and regress to the maturity level of his students. Even so, for many people who may find themselves in Snape’s position; who may struggle to find healthy coping mechanisms, or to break free from an environment that is toxic to them and to their recovery, or to avoid toxic cycles of behavior, Snape is also inspiring because he proves that even when you feel too problematic, when you cannot always claim to be nice, or may feel too damaged or a lost cause you can still choose to do good and make a difference.

For the greater part of Snape’s life, he chose not to reveal the “very best of him”; he allowed himself to be vilified; to exist in a space where his allies became enemies and his enemies believed he was their ally, and when Dumbledore made it known to him his original motives for doing so (i.e. protecting Harry) were seemingly all in vain, the logical reader must acknowledge that if Snape’s sole reasons for remaining allied with the Order were selfishly motivated then he would have betrayed the cause. Why continue to endure when his motives were no longer a possibility? Why not return to Voldemort while in his favor genuinely? Or devise a means to still protect Harry at the cost of the Order’s victory? The fact that Snape not only doesn’t defect upon learning Harry must die but that, upon seeing Harry in the Shrieking Shack, stops trying to “staunch the flow of blood” from his neck to “seize” Harry and impart to him the information he needs to win the war (and more than that provide him with additional memories of his mother that will strengthen him as he does so) is Snape’s dying testament to his commitment to the cause and not just to Lily or his own personal agenda. Snape died for something so much bigger than him or any one person and he did so willingly.

As far as the year he spends as Headmaster, I think it would be exceptionally naive and unrealistic to assume Snape could somehow juggle maintaining the appearance of a loyal Death Eater, the Carrows innate sadism, and the resurgence of Dumbledore’s Army and their guerrilla tactics of political resistance within the school in the environment of Voldemort’s second rise-to-power without a certain degree of unavoidable tactical compromises. The very fact that Snape was able to assign a detention with Hagrid was already a testament to his skill of deception, as that alone should have been a dead give-away. Indeed, not long after that detention, Hagrid is forced to flee Hogwarts because he’s caught having a Support Harry Potter Party. Ginny, Neville, Luna, and other students were well aware of the dangers of their actions but they, like Snape, chose what was right over what was easy and staged acts of rebellion and resistance (we do them a major disservice to cast them in the role of helpless victims for the sake of polemic and not acknowledge them as the brave resistance leaders they were). Notably, Luna’s father, Xenophilius Lovegood, the Weasley family, and even Charity Burbage also made this same choice of personal risk for a higher purpose and Rowling drove home the danger frequently (e.g. in having Voldemort execute Charity for publishing pro-Muggle articles in the Daily Prophet, in having Luna taken hostage as retaliation for her father’s publication of support for Harry Potter in the Quibbler, and in the physical harm inflicted on the likes of Seamus and Neville).

Quite realistically and meaningfully, Rowling’s depictions of consequences for our choices works both ways; acts of evil can come back on us and cost us dearly (not unlike Voldemort’s own violence rebounding back on him and undoing him on three occasions) but so too can acts of chivalry and bravery in the face of injustice. It cost Neville’s parents their sanity, it cost many of the children of Hogwarts their innocence in the face of the Carrow’s cruelty and Voldemort’s deeply prejudiced political agenda, and for so many during the first and second war it also cost them their lives, Snape among them. Snape did his best under impossible circumstances (e.g. he managed to save the life of Remus Lupin under cover but at the cost of George’s ear; he managed to mitigate the damages of the Carrows without exposing his loyalty; he managed to protect Harry on numerous occasions throughout his years at Hogwarts and act as a guide in absence of Dumbledore that final year, all while delivering information to the Order and undermining Voldemort’s organization from within, etc., etc., ad nauseam) and, as Rowling makes a point to have Harry learn, this too is an evolution of Snape’s character. He goes from a selfish young man of 21-years-of-age who pleads only for the life of a single person who is important to him without much consideration for the emotional devastation she would have felt had she been the sole survivor of her family, to a man who, in his mid-30s, has now come to recognize the intrinsic value of life (even the lives of his former bullies and of people he may not necessarily like). When asked by Dumbledore how many people Snape has watched die, Harry and the reader are treated to his response of “Lately, only those whom I could not save” for a reason. In the latter part of his life Snape, like Harry, has a “saving people thing.” Just as Harry was willing to run out the time in the second trial of the Tri-Wizard Tournament because it wasn’t enough just to save his own precious person (e.g. he had to help his rival in Cedric save Cho; make sure Hermione was saved by Krum; and do whatever it took to save Fleur’s sister when it became clear she could not), Snape has learned the value of saving as many people as he can, when and if he can, and he is both willing and prepared to do so –in spite of whether or not he may not stand to benefit from doing so and even when there is considerable risk that the act of doing so may cost him.

You bring up a lot of points here, and what seems to be the main one is that Snape sets some sort of example for growth and the ability to better oneself no matter how terrible they have been in the past:

“Even so, for many people who may find themselves in Snape’s position; who may struggle to find healthy coping mechanisms, or to break free from an environment that is toxic to them and to their recovery, or to avoid toxic cycles of behavior, Snape is also inspiring because he proves that even when you feel too problematic, when you cannot always claim to be nice, or may feel too damaged or a lost cause you can still choose to do good and make a difference.”

This is one of the things that vexes me. Did we just forget that Snape tormented and despised Harry because of a childhood grudge against his father that he did not manage to let go of? Have we forgotten the way he planned to hand Sirius over to the dementors, knowing he was innocent? The way he revealed Lupin’s lycanthropy, knowing very well that he was not a threat to anyone and that doing so would destroy the man’s life and likely prevent him from ever getting a job again? Severus Snape is a poor example indeed of growing into a better person. If that was JK’s aim, she should have given Draco Malfoy a redemption arc; Draco was a child and Snape was a grown-ass man. James and Lupin grew up and got over their childhood rivalry with Snape, but Snape never did.

Over the course of this argument I have found myself drifting away from my original point as I am presented with arguments that Snape was a good man because he protected Harry; I have, somewhat mistakenly, chosen to take issue with the wrong part of that statement. Snape protected Harry. I accept that. I concede that. But I maintain that he was not a good man. JK can try to redeem him all she wants, he was petty and cruel and I cannot forgive him for all of the cruelties, small or large, that he showed over the years. I will concede that he got better towards the end. But I don’t believe that is enough to redeem him.

raptured-night

Unfortunately, quite a few of your points are conjecture not confirmed or even validated by canon. Notably, Snape was unconscious at the point where it was revealed Peter Pettigrew had faked his own death. Throughout Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling’s narrator returns to the theme of Snape’s suspicions and anxieties over Remus Lupin. Ultimately, by the point in the Shrieking Shack, Snape is no more aware of the fact that Sirius was framed than Remus was himself (or Harry, for that matter). As Dumbledore affirms himself, Sirius’s actions did not seem like those of an innocent man (Rowling often hands the reader the perspectives she wants them to follow, especially when they run counter to the unreliable narrator she attaches to Harry as her series is very much a coming-of-age tale, in which his narrative must be challenged so that Harry can complete his journey into adulthood and a more nuanced way of thinking). He breaks into the school on two occasions and his actions are violent and alarming. He cuts the portrait of the Fat Lady viciously for refusing to give him the password; he stands menacingly over Ron with a knife and cuts the curtains to his bedsheets; he even resorts to breaking Ron’s leg in his desperate and furious effort to drag him and Peter into the Shrieking Shack through the secret tunnel of the Whomping Willow so he can have his vengeance.

Even Harry, who is personally affected by the knowledge that his parent’s deaths may be a result of the betrayal of a childhood friend, is reluctant to believe Sirius at first and it takes Crookshanks’s intervention for him to pause and master his anger and want of vengeance to hear him out. When Snape arrives, it is at a point when Sirius and Lupin are regaling the Trio with the circumstances of the fateful prank that almost led to Snape’s death. Sirius, in particular, expresses no remorse for the role he played and remarks he “deserved it” for sneaking around (something that Harry and his friends are characterized by throughout the series and I think we can agree that to attempt to harm or murder someone for acting the part of a spy or amateur sleuth, especially in their youth, is no real justification at all). Significantly, the first thing Snape does when he reveals himself is to restrain Remus Lupin because he knows he has forgotten to take his potion. Snape’s actions are a matter of de-escalation rather than aggression or open violence, he could have easily used the advantage of surprise to do either man great personal injury and justified it to the Aurors by the sole fact that Sirius was a wanted man and Remus Lupin a former friend and werewolf (thus playing upon his world’s prejudice) conspired with him to lure Harry and his friends to the Shrieking Shack to harm them. Instead, he restrains Lupin because he has forgotten his potion again, and he warns Sirius not to make any aggressive moves or he will act in defense. He never once casts an offensive or harmful spell, his only weapon of control is strictly verbal taunting intended to intimidate and force their compliance.

Snape also confirms through that that he had suspected Remus Lupin of being in league with Sirius Black all year and had warned Dumbledore to that effect. Indeed, the scene where Snape goes to deliver Remus Lupin his potion earlier in the book was a deliberate foreshadowing of a few details Rowling wanted the reader to know: that Remus Lupin often puts off taking his potion and may be negligent towards it, that Snape is concerned to find Harry having tea with him alone, and that Snape backing out of the room signifies fear on his part and an unwillingness to turn his back, which foreshadows their shared and contentious history not just through Sirius’s failed prank but the trauma of his experiences with childhood bullying. It is no coincidence that following the scene where Snape brings Lupin his potion, Sirius Black breaks into the school and Harry overhears Snape on the verge of insubordination trying to impress on Dumbledore his conviction that it must be Lupin helping Sirius break into the school.

Returning to Snape confronting Sirius and Remus in the Shrieking Shack, the very place of his boyhood trauma, and Snape still stands as a contrast between justice and vengeance. As nothing of his dialogue suggests he is aware or believes that Peter Pettigrew is alive or that Sirius is acting like an innocent man, Snape does what any figure of authority charged with protecting the children of a school SHOULD DO and intends to turn Sirius and who he believes to be his co-conspirator in attempted murder into the proper authorities for judgment (Dementor’s Kiss or not, the Aurors were the magical world’s equivalent of police and any teacher confronting someone they believe to be a dangerous murderer to protect children is not in the wrong, they’re going above and beyond, however when read from Harry’s perspective you have to contend with the unreliable narrator; Harry comes to learn of Sirius’s innocence but Snape canonically does not see Peter with his own eyes, he only comes to consciousness in the aftermath and when Peter has already fled after casting a Confundus charm on Ron, thus likely leading Snape to conclude it must have been Sirius Black who Confunded the Trio and tried to flee). Where Sirius and Remus had to be talked out of committing an act of murder (in front of three children) out of a desire for personal vengeance (also consider the monumental shift Remus was able to make going from mourning Peter as a hero, to realizing Sirius’s innocence, to resolving to murder a former friend in the span of some minutes), Snape opts for containing the situation and fully expected gratitude from Harry, Ron, and Hermione because he was convinced of their guilt (otherwise, his expectation of gratitude makes no logical sense within the narrative; he wouldn’t expect gratitude from them for apprehending Sirius knowing he had been wrongly accused). Their resistance is unexpected and it’s only when he begins to lose control of the situation that we see clear evidence of the lasting consequences of Sirius’s own youthful choices and Snape becomes “hysterical.” The consequence of Sirius’s own actions and his absence of apology is that Snape is less inclined to believe in his innocence, as he says to Dumbledore, Sirius proved he was capable of murder when he was sixteen and now, escaped from Azkaban, Sirius still insists Snape would have deserved to be mauled or killed by a fully transformed werewolf. Rowling has had personal experience with the effects of mental illness and she often foreshadows it through many of her characters (e.g. Neville, Merope, Harry, Dumbledore, Sirius, etc.), in Snape what we see in the Shrieking Shack and later are the signs of a PTSD induced flashback.

Where Remus Lupin was concerned, Rowling also has him acknowledge his own cycle of wrong choices. He confesses to the Trio how he selfishly took risks and had close calls in his youth only for he and his friends to later laugh about it. He admits to Harry that he has not learned from his mistakes, rather he’s been repeating them again all year, even knowing the presumed danger Sirius was believed to have presented to Harry. Importantly, Lupin has spent the majority of the year justifying to himself the act of keeping pertinent information to himself about Sirius being an Unregistered Animagus and of the Marauders; Map and their boyhood knowledge of all the secret entrances to the school, because to take that information to Dumbledore, would have meant revealing his own betrayal of the trust he placed in him. Lupin places his own self-interest above Harry and the school’s safety and fails in his responsibilities as a DADA teacher (ironically, the defense teacher fails to defend his charges). Significantly, after Remus has resigned, when Dumbledore appears in the DADA classroom Remus cannot meet his eye and is eager to leave the room. That is because Dumbledore has already learned the truth from Sirius while Lupin was transformed and running loose on the grounds (he most certainly is a danger to people and by his own negligence, no less, something Rowling takes care to foreshadow as I have said), although it turns out that Sirius himself was innocent, Remus has his own guilt to bear and, in-so-far as Lupin helping Sirius get into the school, Snape was right in his own way. Through his own inaction and refusal to share information with Dumbledore, Lupin made it possible for Sirius to get into the school and had he genuinely been Harry’s enemy the consequences of his self-interest could have been disastrous. The very fact that Dumbledore hired Remus into a position he knew was cursed merits some speculation, however, the subtext Rowling’s narrator leaves us with is the suggestion that Snape revealing Remus’s condition to his Slytherins was not so much an act of rebellious spite in the face of Dumbledore, as it was done with Dumbledore’s permission. Ultimately, just as Dumbledore used the curse on the DADA position for comeuppance for Lockhart the previous year, the consequences of the curse for Remus Lupin would appear to be that the man who kept secrets he shouldn’t have to avoid damaging his own reputation with Dumbledore now must leave Hogwarts with his greatest secret exposed. Rowling often employs these kinds of narrative themes of “karmic justice,” although we can debate whether the harshness of the consequences is always deserved or if it doesn’t represent a certain contradiction in the message of forgiveness she intended to underscore her narrative.

Ultimately, Sirius Black also falls victim to this narrative choice on her part. Just as he failed to acknowledge his own culpability in his bullying of Snape or even demonstrate growth beyond that youthful state-of-mind (e.g. compare him dragging Snape’s head against a rocky ceiling to Snape conjuring stretchers for him and Harry, demonstrating compassion even for an enemy and someone he loathes), he also proves incapable of showing mercy or understanding towards Kreacher. It is this, as Dumbledore later acknowledges, that created the set of circumstances that led to his death, although Harry acknowledges he finds it more comforting to blame Snape as his scapegoat for all his grief and anger (personally, I could understand the psychological reasons for Sirius’s contradictions, his time in Azkaban had left him in a state of arrested development). Throughout Rowling’s narrative, you will find characters who have been stunted in some way by their inability to move beyond choices or traumas of their pasts or their own innate bitterness with their lots in life. Filch’s comedic desire to see Peeves (a metaphor for all of the magical energies of the young students who have attended Hogwarts while Filch, a Squib, cannot access magic) expelled from Hogwarts mirrors Snape’s own threats of seeing Harry expelled as a hyperbolic example of the way bitterness can render one ridiculous or impotent. Sirius’s cruelty towards Kreacher (a reminder of his own bitter loathing of his family in the same way Harry is a reminder of James for Snape) proves to be his downfall because he cannot move beyond his bitterness. Dumbledore’s inability to move beyond his guilt for Ariana’s death leaves him vulnerable to the lure of the Resurrection Stone and his selfish desire to pull her from the afterlife for his own catharsis results in him becoming the victim of the curse placed on the ring.

Snape’s story is part of a much larger theme in Rowling’s series; by the conclusion, Harry has become a Christ archetype and the embodiment of the same powerful and ancient magic of love that his mother symbolized for much of his coming-of-age story. Unlike either Voldemort or Dumbledore, Harry can become the master of all three of the Deathly Hallows because he has truly internalized the philosophy of selfless or protective magic rather than the pursuit of power or vengeance. He is able to stand before the very person who murdered his parents and harmed so many others and find the strength of character to offer him the opportunity to allow himself to feel remorse and repair his soul (i.e. reclaim his humanity). He gives Voldemort the chance to change and repent. Instead, Voldemort chooses violence and brute power, and Harry is able to defeat him by using the very same spell that he learned from Snape his second-year; Expelliarmus, a spell that seeks to acknowledge the very human-life of an opponent by disarming them instead of killing them. Harry chose de-escalation and by the end of the series, Harry is also able to do what neither Voldemort, Snape, or Sirius could do and he also finds catharsis through the act of forgiveness. Harry has seen the cost of bitterness, the reckless pursuit of power for selfish purposes, and the toll of holding onto the pain of the past and actively finds within himself the ability to see things from a different perspective, outside the unreliable narrator we’ve followed for so long. He was able to recognize that nice seeming people can be capable of great acts of evil (e.g. Fake-Eye Moody was kind to him; Gilderoy Lockhart was widely regarded as heroic and charming, while Quirrell did not “seem the type” to try to kill him as Snape did) or perpetrate acts of injustice or cruelty (e.g. the Marauders could be nice but they also could be bullies and even selfish and flawed adults) and that people who can be unpleasant for many various and complex reasons are still capable of doing good and acts of self-sacrifice.

From the very first book until the very last, Harry wrestles with the complexity of this contradiction: how can someone who hates me possibly be good or ever do good? The reality is, human-beings and our moral frameworks are a little more complicated than the moral absolutes or self-focused way of thinking we often frame our understanding through. It is only through stepping outside of our own unreliable narrators that we begin to see the many shades of grey that make up the human experience. I have been an advocate, writer, and activist for social justice for several decades now and in that time I have encountered people from many different backgrounds. Some are reformed racists who use their experiences to combat racism in their communities, some are young people who had all the right access and resources to the necessary knowledge and tools for activism that I didn’t have until much later in life and they are already leaps and miles ahead of where I was at their age, and some are not in a position where they can safely be open about their advocacy or are still clumsily navigating the ins and outs and get more wrong than they do right often enough. The goal of social justice activism is to change the current systems of privilege and public perceptions that reinforce prejudice and create barriers for marginalized groups. That also means recognizing progress towards changing ideals and encouraging its growth, even when that progress is imperfect (usually by looking inward and acknowledging our own imperfections and existing privileges and asking ourselves if demanding immediate or complete perfection is not a form of gatekeeping through unrealistic and unattainable purity politics, which brings us back to performative activism versus being an activist). I maintain, Snape is an important character because he was able to do the most good (in the greater scheme of the ideological war his world was battling) he could with his life while also being an imperfect example of a person. His redemption arc was never about being nicer to Harry or being a less bitter person (that was Harry’s lesson to learn; not to hold onto grudges and to find peace in forgiveness, understanding, and compassion), it was always wrapped up in the fact that in his youth he joined an extremist group and spent his adult life taking accountability for that choice by actively using the knowledge of darkness he gained from those “spots” he cannot wash off to protect and defend against the same evils he once supported. For many people, who may have experienced indoctrination or who may struggle to cope imperfectly with trauma, that message that you can still impact the world in good ways and are not a lost cause matters. There are a lot of flawed people out here in the great big world who are still doing our best, in spite of our many problematic qualities and those people deserve to have their efforts acknowledged for what they are.

In terms of Draco Malfoy, between books two and six he uses the term Mudblood a grand total of 17-times, in addition to advocating for Muggleborn genocide and Hermione Granger’s death at the age of 12 and again at 14. While Draco was certainly an example of the effects of indoctrination, his privilege as a member of the wealthy pureblood society with parents who adored him enough to send him regular care-packages of candy from home and buy an entire Quidditch team top-of-the-line brooms so he can play Quidditch cannot be compared with Snape, an impoverish (and I mean impoverished to the extent in the two-up, one down style home Rowling invokes his family would have had an outhouse and shared baths in a tin tub from water drawn from a well) half-blood from a home with a Muggle father who is strongly implied to be abusive and a mother strongly implied to have neglected him. To do so, would be to ignore the very analogies between blood prejudice and real-world prejudices Rowling strove to create. Snape, as a half-blood, would be the equivalent of someone from a mixed heritage (not to mention the Jewish, lgbt, and queer coding Rowling wrote into the character of Snape and then subverted versus the, erm, uncomfortably on the nose Aryan features of the blonde, blue-eyed Malfoy family). Where Draco’s family’s prejudice and reasons for joining Voldemort would be motivated by the fact they stand to benefit the most from the eradication of the Muggle-borns and “blood-traitors” that challenge their social privileges, Snape’s own reasons for becoming a Death Eater are decidedly more complicated by his half-blood status and socioeconomic standing. As such, we could more accurately look at them in terms of internalized prejudice due to the implied abuse of his Muggle father. These are all arguments you’ll find many in the Snapedom, especially the Snape bloggers of color who tend to be most critical of Draco vs. Snape appeals in my experience (I would direct you to some of the meta by @idealistic-realism00 or @leavingwestcovina for examples of solid exploration of the racial coding of Snape versus Draco) have covered in-depth because there is much that is problematic in the comparisons between Draco and Snape not least because their respective experiences and backgrounds are dramatically different and those differences in power-privileges must be acknowledged for any serious discussion.

Even if we were to use the argument of age (something I have already pointed out as a theme Rowling introduces that even the choices we make in our youth can have lasting consequences) it is significant that Snape would have likely received his mark as a teenager as well. Snape was not an adult when he took the mark, not unlike Draco he was a youth groomed towards extremism at a point in his life where his cognitive development would not even have been complete. In contrast to Draco, Snape actively chooses to defect at age 21 and spends the remainder of his adult life paying for the choices of his teenage years. The character of Draco is intrinsically linked with Harry and Snape (notably Snape’s lesson of de-escalation through disarmament is also imparted in Draco and it is that lesson that leads him to also disarm Dumbledore instead of killing him, which is what allows him to be recognized by the Elder Wand), that being said, Draco’s story is left open-ended by the conclusion of her series because the reader is challenged to recognize that if Snape’s redemption arc was the culmination of several decades then Draco’s own path towards redemption is still just in the beginning faze but the potential is there –a tentative nod to the reader akin to his nod to Harry.

idealistic-realism00

Bravo! This is why you managed to become a respected professor of literature so quickly in your career, @raptured-night! Admit it, this is why. Thank you for tagging me. As a Black fan of Harry Potter, you are correct that I get squirmy seeing comparisons between Snape and Draco Malfoy.

The quick answer, of course, does come down to the way Snape is coded as marginalized compared to Draco. It is no mistake that the Malfoys were made to look the part of the Aryan ideal, as Rowling intended for Death Eaters and pureblood society to be allegories for certain kinds of real world prejudices like white supremacy. It always makes me very uneasy when people insist the more marginalized character with all the dark coding (head to toe, Snape’s color scheme is black hair, black eyes, black clothes, this is an old literary trope in English literature I’m highly aware of for obvious reasons) deserves his redemption less than the pure-blood boy with the blonde hair and blue eyes.

I’ve just realized that I forgot to address this so I’ll do that now.

I have to admit that I have never taken the time to consider the archtypes or literary tropes present in Harry Potter and as a result I never noticed this. I apologize. It was not fair for me to say that Draco deserved a redemption arc more than Snape, since they were both characters with a pretty evil perception (whether or not you think Snape is a good man, you must admit that until the very end of the seventh book he is portrayed as basically a demon, since we don’t find out until the Pensieve scene that he was on Dumbledore’s side all along and are made to believe he truly is a Death Eater) and both of them deserved a chance at redemption. (I still think JK could have done a little more to redeem Snape fully but that’s beside the point).

However, while @raptured-night has dismissed the argument of age on the grounds that Snape became a Death Eater in his teens, I don’t really think that’s fair. Draco and Snape have a lot of similarities; they were both raised to hate Muggles, they both hold strong feelings of resentment towards Harry, they are both bullies who have made a lot of children miserable over the years. But the big difference between them, to me, is age; Snape is still bullying children in his thirties, while Draco is only in his teens. Snape may have given up his Death Eater ways, but he did not really give up or apologize for his cruelty to children, even as a grown adult, which is one of the reasons I don’t think JK redeemed him fully. For Draco, though, there were so many opportunities. And Draco is still a child, under the influences of his parents. Unlike Snape, who joined the Death Eaters willingly, Draco was forced in when his father was imprisoned. He was gifted the very, very beginning of a redemption arc on the roof with Dumbledore, when he lowered his wand to accept Dumbledore’s offer but was interrupted by the arrival of the Carrows. However, I think he was (if not more) just as deserving of a redemption arc as Snape, as he was just a kid raised with certain (bad) beliefs and forced into his parents’ murder cult before his brain could finish developing. Children grow up. I’m sad that JK didn’t really give Draco a chance to.

raptured-night

I can always go back to responses and discover there were things I meant to address and somehow forgot or things that I apparently could have addressed more clearly to better communicate my point. Especially on a day when you find yourself doing a lot of writing or responding to a lot of people.

In all fairness, I’ve spent decades of my life studying literature and the various critical theories that go into that discipline so identifying tropes, coding, and other conventions are likely a bit more second nature to me at this point in my life where for other people certain links between certain details may never even have crossed their mind (not to say someone needs to go out and get a Ph.D in English or literary theory to be able to write thoughtful meta about their favorite characters, books, or shows; I’ve read meta by many people on this site who don’t share my professional background and some of their conclusions blew my mind). Then there are people like my friend @idealistic-realism00 who are able to recognize the same tropes from a position of experience. It really does highlight the nature of white privilege in a lot of ways, in that I’m only able to recognize certain details in literature as a result of the formal training I received in college. I basically had to learn to how to recognize the different ways race may be represented (i.e. symbols, tropes, coding, etc.) in works of literature where for so many readers of color it is very much a part of a wider racial consciousness when it comes to both historical narratives and contemporary literature of the Western canon. What many people outside of the Snapedom may not realize in the Harry Potter community is that Snape has some very complex character coding (not just in terms of race but also gender, lgbtq+, etc.) and that has led to a great deal of diversity among his fans. His character’s coding opens him up to many different interpretations (for instance, trans!Snape has a popular following in the Snapedom and some dedicated fans have written very convincing essays about it). I recently shared an absolutely fascinating discussion about this very topic if you’re interested in learning more about the literary traditions Rowling was drawing upon. In addition, I also did a bit of critical analysis on some other tropes and a few of the possible underlying moral philosophies that are specific to Snape should you decide to read them, you’ll find my contribution at the very bottom.

I do want to be clear, the point I made about the age of Snape and Draco was not made to dismiss Snape’s behavior as an adult. Unfortunately, it would seem this was an occasion where I failed to clearly communicate my point so I apologize for any confusion. Rather, I made the point of age to draw attention to what has become an unfortunate double-standard from people who would seek to condemn Snape’s decision to become a Death Eater as unforgivable and irredeemable while also excusing Draco on the grounds of his age. Commonly, when comparisons between Snape and Draco come up, the crux of the argument seems to be “Draco deserved redemption because he was a teenager when he took his Dark Mark.” and “Snape is an adult with a Dark Mark so he’s worse because I’m not really giving much thought to when he became a Death Eater just that he’s an adult character who became one.” Importantly, in the context of those arguments, the attention given to Draco’s age has very little to do with conversations about bullying. It is merely a glaring double-standard some people seem to have that the act of Draco becoming a Death Eater should be excused because of his age while ignoring the details we can infer from canon that tells us Snape would have roughly been groomed into joining the ranks of the Death Eaters around the same age ranges (i.e. sixteen and up) as Draco Malfoy. So, on the one hand, readers empathetic to Draco to are suddenly more sensitive to the issues of adolescent cognitive development (i.e. that the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which influences our impulse control and rational-thinking among other things, doesn’t finish its development until roughly our mid-twenties) and that becomes Draco’s defense; while, on the other hand, Snape’s own age of induction is omitted (as are the differences in his and Draco’s power-privileges) and they fall back to more black-and-white “There is no excuse for wanting to be a Death Eater!” arguments again where his character is concerned. When taken into consideration in light of the difference in coding between Snape and Draco, that double-standard becomes decidedly more of an issue for me.

Beyond that, it’s just an insincere argument many people make in bad faith because they’re unwilling to acknowledge their own biases and how they’ve allowed them to influence their character analysis (they want to like Draco but they’ve also locked themselves into a paradox where they’ve gone on record saying people shouldn’t really like Snape because he did bad things but Draco has also done bad things, so they rationalize it by making Draco more of a victim of circumstance and Snape even more of an exaggerated villain). As a result, any time someone compares Draco with Snape to possibly suggest Draco was more of a victim and more “deserving” of redemption (because of his age), I always make a point to remind people that Snape would canonically have become a Death Eater somewhere in his later teens and that he also defected at age twenty-one (a point still well before his cognitive development would have been completed) for a bit of context. At most, we can argue that Snape was likely only a loyal Death Eater for around four years (i.e. if he joined at the exact age Draco did then we could argue five, however, Draco was widely considered young to be a Death Eater and there were special circumstances surrounding his becoming one, so it’s possible Snape did not receive his Dark Mark at Draco’s age, it’s even possible he didn’t receive it until after Hogwarts and when we see him in the Hog’s Head he was still more of an errand-boy in the spirit of Stanley Shunpike and the Dark Mark was his reward for delivering the prophecy to Voldemort, which would certainly have been a dark irony). However, as I have illustrated in other discussions, Rowling sought to make a point within her narrative (particularly through Harry, who she has dismiss the argument of “I was young and didn’t know any better!” by drawing attention to his own age and the fact he is able to recognize the rightness or wrongness of certain choices on two separate occasions in the series; once to Lupin when he tries to defend the actions of James and Sirius and once to Hermione when she tries to use Dumbledore’s age to excuse the revelations about his ideas of Muggle subjugation he shared with Grindlewald) that even when we are young the choices we make can still have a lasting impact on the lives of other people for good or bad and that our choices do come with consequences, so we should always be mindful of that. Importantly, the Harry Potter series is a coming-of-age story or bildungsroman, which means that certain thematic messages do apply and one of the ones most common to that genre of storytelling is that of generational empowerment.

Harry’s choices are what allow him to save his world and to occasionally get into trouble (e.g. trying to fly a car to Hogwarts); the Marauders’ choices vary from them fighting to better their world to leaving a former classmate with lasting trauma as a result of their bullying; Snape’s choices as a teenager led to the death of his closest friend while his choices as an adult contributed to Harry’s saving of the wizarding world; and Draco Malfoy chose to espouse blood prejudice but he also chose to show mercy to his enemies (it’s significant that both Harry and Draco choose to disarm using the spell they learned from Snape in their second-year dueling club, Expelliarmus, rather than escalate things to a point of violence and I’ve also written a bit on that significance before). Indeed, when viewing the trial of Barty Crouch Jr., Harry is struck by how young Barty Crouch Jr. seems, and his desperate pleas to his father inspire sympathy in Harry even knowing he stands among the Death Eaters who were accused of torturing Neville’s parents until they were just one step under complete catatonia. However, by the conclusion of the book, Harry discovers that Barty Crouch Jr. was a loyal follower of Voldemort and that he helped to mastermind the entire scheme that led to Voldemort’s revival. This was a deliberate choice on Rowling’s part and she often plays with the themes of age and accountability in the Harry Potter series. Ultimately, her message to her young readers is both cautionary and inspiring; the choices young people make can have power and impact (just as much as adults), and while age can certainly be a factor when we make the wrong choices we must not allow age to become an excuse or a way to get out of taking accountability for the consequences. The only way we learn and grow (at any age) is to take accountability for our mistakes and to keep holding ourselves accountable (at any point in her narrative where characters fail to do this there are always consequences) to avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over.

That being said, while it is true that Lucius’s failures were a major factor in Draco receiving the Dark Mark, we should not treat them as the only factor. As early as the second book, Draco is openly parroting the rhetoric of blood prejudice he’s learned from his parents and cheering for the possibility of a Muggle-born genocide at his school. In the fourth book, Draco is quite comfortable (even entertained) hanging back and watching from a safe distance as his father and some other Death Eaters march through the camp-site in full Death Eater regalia levitating a family of Muggles and terrorizing the people who came for the Quidditch World Cup. In the sixth book, Harry finds him in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express with his friends boasting about his induction into the Death Eaters and hinting at the special mission that Voldemort has assigned him. Importantly, even if Lucius had not fallen out of favor, we can argue it would have been very likely that Draco and Harry would have found themselves on opposite sides of the war.

So, while it is true he was made into a Death Eater as part of a greater plan to punish Lucius for his own blunders when we say Draco was “forced” it certainly isn’t an inaccurate assessment but it also does give more of the impression Draco was brought kicking and screaming to receive his brand against his will. That goes a long way towards how we might perceive his character. In that scenario, Draco is a helpless victim who does not want (and maybe never wanted) to become a Death Eater. A more measured reading of Draco would be that he likely had nurtured ambitions or even expectations of becoming a Death Eater at some point in a more distant, hypothetical future following Voldemort’s return in his fourth-year (the boy who so often spoke about his father and emulated his parent’s blood prejudice may have just seen it as a given he would follow in Lucius’s foot-steps as if it were something of a birth-right) but that the circumstances in which he became one were not at all what he had imagined they would be. The most interesting thing about Draco’s character is that he is thrust into the center of things immediately and is quickly confronted by the reality of what an ideological war looks like; up to that point it had all been lip-service for shock-value but once the stakes were real and Draco found himself assigned the task of murdering someone and later even found himself casting the Cruciatus on people Voldemort was questioning under his orders that is when we begin to see the cracks forming in his resolve –I suspect that through the deterioration of his parents alone, Draco was beginning to realize that their ideology was unsustainable and self-destructive.

Draco as a character is a very good example of the role indoctrination can play in the continued propagation of generational prejudices. Draco learned from his parents the same way they learned from their parents (e.g. Abraxas Malfoy was a piece of work and apparently even conspired to assassinate a Minister of Magic for their blood status). This provides us with an interesting contrast with Snape because where Draco may want to emulate his father in becoming a Death Eater and he echoes the rhetoric he learned from his parents, Snape’s reasons for becoming a Death Eater may well have been rooted in internalized prejudice as a result of his negative feelings about his Muggle father, who Rowling implies may have been abusive. It is far more likely that Snape was groomed to become a Death Eater by members of his house (e.g. the narrative strongly suggests Lucius Malfoy may have been a significant influence) and that they were able to capitalize on his growing sense of disenfranchisement while at Hogwarts (in this way the Marauders’ bullying and Dumbledore’s inaction up to Sirius’s prank where he makes the choice to threaten Snape with expulsion to secure his silence and safeguard his position at Hogwarts may all have played a role) and the fact that Snape did not have the social connections or status needed to secure successful entry into their world post-Hogwarts. The psychology that goes into the two extremes, we see reflected through the characters of Draco and in Snape is endlessly fascinating and I have always found it unfortunate that people here are so often more focused on trying to compare one to the other to make a negative case of who “deserved” redemption more. Understanding the factors that can render young people vulnerable to radicalization is actually one of our best means of combating it, so we should be having more conversations that look at the effects of generational indoctrination and the practice of psychological grooming.

In terms of who “deserved” a redemption arc more, I think that statement misses the point of what purpose redemption arcs are supposed to serve within a narrative. I also believe I understand why you struggle with Snape’s redemption arc now. However, before I delve into that I’ll address the former issue first. So, when people argue that x character “deserved” a redemption arc, it has always struck me as a rather curious declaration. To me, it suggests that the person making the argument believes that a character is entitled to redemption and our forgiveness because they’ve satisfied certain terms and conditions they have arbitrarily decided upon (i.e. the character did all of x, y, and z so I think that’s enough for them to be considered redeemed and one of the “good guys”). Indeed, this post examines the Christian hegemonic assumptions that appear to go into many people’s perceptions of redemption arcs, but the gist of it is that there are people who connect ideas of redemption to the belief that people who do bad things must do so because they are naturally morally corrupt. As such, the act of redemption is also the act of purging themselves of that inner evil or corruption. Alternatively, the idea that people can be capable of doing bad things without possessing an inherently evil nature and that the focus of redemption is not necessarily about purging oneself of corruption so much as it should be on addressing the faults in one’s character that allowed for the choices they made and atoning for the damages their actions have caused is frequently overshadowed by this concept of corruption/redemption/purging of evil. As the post I have linked you to above illustrates::

While Christianity has redemption, in Judaism, the vehicle for character transformation is atonement. Books can be written about the differences between the two, but for the sake of brevity, redemption is fixing who you are, and atonement is fixing what you’ve done. People do bad things because they are messy, finite and human. The task of atonement is to repair the damage you’ve done and return to a place of clarity. Sometimes, there is no making up for what you’ve done, so you find a way to live with that yet still strive to do better. The surest proof of atonement is having the opportunity to make the same mistake as before but choosing differently.

Interestingly, in literary criticism what may determine a successful character redemption arc runs the gamut and while some classic examples of redemption arcs are steeped in more problematic literary traditions that can feel quite dated (e.g. the “bad boy” who wins the love of a “pure and virtuous” woman who formerly rejected him as his reward for reforming his ways) I would argue that the idea that a character is either entitled to (or deserving of) redemption on the basis of how successfully they transition from “innately bad/amoral” to “purged of all evil/all good” is honestly quite reductive as a moral philosophy in terms of how inaccurately it reflects the many complexities of human nature and the many factors that may go into the “why” of what compels people to do some of the things they do. This over-emphasis on the Christian hegemonic perception of a redemption arc functioning almost as a reward for the character fulfilling a set of expectations that have been decided on by the person casting their judgment is decidedly limiting in terms of promoting a greater understanding (not to mention the apparent objective of such redemption arcs is to see a character undertake a transformation as an act of purification all for the sake of being able to absolve them so they may be counted among the “good”; as such, the focus is on what the character gains by redemption rather than what impact this character’s journey to redemption has had within the story).

Ultimately, I would argue that from a moral and philosophical perspective redemption arcs are most compelling when the point is not that they are something “deserved” or something the character is presented as being entitled to but when they are exactly the opposite; in that, the focus of the character is on atonement for atonement’s sake (born out of a genuine sense of remorse and a desire to take accountability) rather than the pursuit of any moral gratification or the expectation of forgiveness at the end of their journey. A good example can be found from comparing the classic Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol with the recent movie adaptation that aired on FX last Christmas. Significantly, where in the original telling by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer’s redemption arc culminates in those he had wronged forgiving him and embracing him as a beloved member of their community the FX’s movie adaption took a far more gloomy turn (note: there is much that was controversial about the movie and I would agree that some of the criticism was not only understandable but also quite valid, however, I do think quite a few of the creative choices made were rather interesting and worth a closer examination). Ebenezer’s crimes against humanity are far more detailed and the damage he has inflicted is deep enough that in some instances he knows it cannot be undone and forgiveness may not even be a possibility. By the conclusion of the film, Ebenezer rejects the idea of redemption in the sense that redemption would function as a reward for him making the choice to be better, and he sets out to atone for his actions because he has recognized the need for accountability and not out of any expectation of forgiveness or personal gain. In short, Ebenezer is redeemed by the fact he has taken accountability for himself and chosen to live the remainder of his life atoning with the understanding that some of the harm he has caused cannot be undone. It is his decision to continue to atone, in spite of this fact, and in the absence of forgiveness even that makes his redemption effective.

That is not to say Dickens’ Ebenezer was not also redeemed, however, the FX adaptation may reflect the current zeitgeist. Where access to social media can make it easy to find a platform to harm others with hate speech, cyberbullying, or just to end up on the wrong end of a call-out post accused of being problematic and the MeToo movement has brought issues of workplace harassment, violence against women, and rape culture further into the public consciousness, the question we all find ourselves asking is who gets to come back from it when they cross a line, what does redemption really even look like, and how can we tell when a person’s public apology is even sincere? Overall, the FX adaptation strives to answer that question by presenting us with the very worst version of Ebenezer Scrooge we might imagine, introducing new elements into his backstory that appeal to our sense of pathos and might tempt us to try to excuse him for all that he’s done, and then resoundingly slapping down the very idea of doing so with clear condemnation, before Ebenezer himself declares that he does not expect forgiveness or believe it is deserved; only that he must live out the rest of his days atoning for damages he has done in his world. The message is clear, Ebenezer’s redemption comes not from the fact he is forgiven by the people he’s harmed or through any promise that his community will embrace him as surely as they do his book counterpart. His redemption comes through his conviction that the only response he can possibly have to being confronted with the evidence of all the harm he has done is to go out into the world and try to make it right.

I think this person makes a valid point when they argue that they believe a successful redemption arc happens when redemption seems impossible to deserve yet the character continues to persist and strives to make the difficult choices necessary for atonement. Many of our most compelling redemption arcs have come as a result of clever writers bringing their characters to a place where you’re certain they’re beyond the point of no return only for them to find their way back anyway through sheer remorse and a genuine need to make right what they have done. Notably absent in those types of redemptions arcs is the suggestion that the character is motivated by some belief or expectation that their actions will result in forgiveness or improve their own circumstances. They act not because they are thinking of themselves but because they are compelled by a desire to take responsibility for the harm they have caused.

The redemption arc of Severus Snape reflects very similar principles. Indeed, it is successful not only because it satisfies the structural terms of Rowling’s chiasmus in coming around full-circle, as I have argued here (note: I replied to this particular thread twice with different arguments to different responders so it isn’t a mistake in my links if you’re taken to the same post twice I’m just citing the two different replies I made on the same thread) but it is also successful because of the manner Rowling has chosen to present the reader with Snape’s redemption. Importantly, you appear to be focused on the idea that Snape’s redemption arc was ineffective because of his conduct as a teacher. Your expectations are set on a character transformation/redemption of the Christian hegemonic variety, wherein Snape would have completely purged himself of all moral failings and impurities before he was allowed to be redeemed. The problem is that Snape’s redemption arc has nothing to do with his classroom behavior. The two can actually coexist in the same way that James being a bully does not invalidate the fact that he died a heroic death protecting his family. The former does not disqualify the latter, they merely exist together as two different facets of his character. The acts that made redemption necessary for Severus Snape had nothing to do with the fact that, as an adult, he would later abuse his authority as a teacher. As such, his redemption arc is focused entirely on Snape fixing the aspects of his character that led to him becoming a Death Eater and revealing parts of a prophecy that led to the death of Lily and James Potter. To quote from my arguments in the post I linked you to above:

By the Battle of Hogwarts, Snape is not only a man who proactively resists the use of the same kind of prejudiced language he once used as a young man, such as Mudblood, when he can afford to do so without revealing his true loyalties and ideological shift (e.g. when Phineas Nigellus referred to Hermione as “the Mudblood” to dehumanize her) but he has also learned the importance of doing the right thing, even for people he may not personally care about and/or may even greatly loathe (e.g. conjuring stretchers for Sirius and Harry, protecting Harry throughout books 1-7, saving Remus Lupin’s life during the Flight of the Seven Potters, etc.). That is why Rowling felt it was important to include in the memories Harry witnesses a scene between Dumbledore and Snape where Snape seems appalled to learn Harry must die for Voldemort to be defeated and seems to insist it’s only because of his decision to protect him as penance for Lily. Importantly, Rowling has Snape immediately contradict his own words in the same memory and not long after denying he doesn’t care that Harry will die for Harry’s sake. In the face of Snape’s accusation (”You’ve been raising him like a pig for slaughter.”) Dumbledore defends himself by asking who Snape had watched die recently and the answers he gives reveals the truth of the changes that his character has underwent from twenty-one to that very moment: “Lately, only those whom I could not save.” With those few words, the reader discovers that Snape has learned to value and defend human life not just when the life in question matters to him but because life itself has an intrinsic value to him.

This is also proven when he ultimately chooses to remain steadfast against Voldemort, even after learning that boy with Lily’s eyes he believed he had dedicated his life to protecting must die. He could have chosen to return back to Voldemort once he learned Harry was meant to die, he could have warned Harry to save himself, or he could have just attempted to flee like Kakaroff and make a new life for himself. However, as he once told Dumbledore, Snape is not like Kakaroff, he is “no such coward.” Snape does not die selfishly or cowardly, indeed, the moment he lays eyes on Harry he stops trying to staunch the flow of blood from Nagini’s attack and fulfills the final task that Dumbledore gave him to arm Harry with the knowledge he needs. It is his last act as Harry’s teacher and as Dumbledore’s spy and through it Snape’s redemption arc is completed by coming full circle (as part of a beautifully crafted chiastic parallel on Rowling’s part); where he once imparted information to Voldemort that led to the death of the Potters he now has given their son all the information he needs to win the war and stamp out Voldemort and the lasting darkness he threatens to unleash on their world.

SIgnificantly, Snape’s efforts of atonement are not out of any expectation of personal gain. He even asks that Dumbledore not reveal “the very best of him” as part of the terms of his service. Most compelling, however, is the fact that Rowling writes Snape with the subtle suggestion that he does not believe he is deserving of redemption for his actions and is not acting because he is motivated by the idea his efforts will be rewarded. When he insists that Lily remains his sole motive for what he does, Rowling contradicts this in two key ways to show the reader that Snape is either not giving himself credit or unaware of his own transformation. First, as I argued above, when asked by Dumbledore who he has watched die, Snape’s answers (”Lately, only those whom I could not save”) exposes the moral shift in his character from a selfish young man who once only thought to protect a person he cared about without giving much thought to her family or how she would feel surviving them to a man who has come to value life as an intrinsic thing he must protect. Secondly, by introducing the complication that for Voldemort to be defeated Harry must die, Rowling forces Snape to choose between a form of atonement that is motivated by a personal desire for self-gratification (i.e. protecting Lily’s son as catharsis for failing to protect her) and an atonement which will allow him to do the most possible good (i.e. making sure Harry has the information he needs so Voldemort can be defeated). Where in the past, Snape cared only about Lily, the reader knows he is truly redeemed by the end of Harry Potter because he was presented with the opportunity to make the same mistakes that led to his need to atone and he chose differently.

His redemption arc was never about what kind of teacher he was while at Hogwarts. It was always about the greater role he played in both wars and the choices that he made. This is what Rowling meant when she described Snape as all grey. He reflects a far more complex idea of what it means to be human, neither saint nor devil. Evil is not necessarily an innate quality in people and not every person who does bad things does so because of some inherent moral corruption. Sometimes people do bad things “…because they are messy, finite, and human.” Which is why the Marauders could be bullies without being villains in her story and why Dudley, an antagonist bully, was still capable of showing humility and acknowledging Harry in a positive way without Harry being forced to just “get over” the years of bullying and forgive him right on the spot. Rowling wrote these characters as dynamic and, in spite of the strong Christian leanings in her narrative, she mostly veered away from the hegemonic ideas of redemption we have discussed (I say mostly because she still couldn’t get around Voldemort as “born evil” in the Satan archetype vs. Christ-figure mythic that underscored her narrative) and focused far more on an idea of redemption that is more relatable and allows for human error. We have this inclination as humans to try to rationalize when people do bad things; sometimes we do this by agreeing the person must just be morally corrupt or evil, sometimes (and more problematically) we blame their actions on things like mental illness. Historically, people of color were often accused of being more violent or dangerous and we still see variations of that which contribute to police violence and anti-immigrant xenophobia (e.g. consider Trump’s 2016 speech about how immigrants were “rapists” who brought drugs and crime into the U.S.).

The truth, however, is that people do bad things for a myriad number of reasons. Sometimes they do “bad things” out of a feeling of necessity or desperation (e.g. a person living in poverty who steals to feed their family), sometimes they do bad things out of ignorance to the fact it’s wrong, sometimes they do bad things because they have been taught to believe they’re not bad (i.e. indoctrination), sometimes people do bad things because the world has done bad things to them, and sometimes people do bad things because they want to and they don’t care who they hurt. There are a lot of reasons that a person may do something and one of the most difficult things to realize is that not every person who has done a bad thing (or even several bad things) in their life is a bad person because of those things nor is every person who has done good necessarily a good person just because of the fact they have done good things. There are plenty of wealthy people like the Kochs who have dedicated portions of their wealth to philanthropy (which is good) but that does not erase the harm they have done by pushing their regressive political agenda through lobbying and even by throwing money at academic institutions to ensure they teach from whitewashed textbooks that soften historical events such as slavery or misrepresent science entirely. Ultimately, Rowling’s philosophy on redemption is something far more sophisticated than the idea that bad people make bad choices and there is no coming back from that. Her heroes are flawed, her villains are dynamic and her message is clear: redemption is possible for anyone who may want it and be willing to atone.

This is why Harry even offers Voldemort a chance to atone and to avoid making the same mistakes that destroyed him once before. She wanted her young readers to understand, if the very worst of the wizarding world has the option of atoning then they can too, regardless of how much bad they may feel they have done or how hopeless it might seem. Indeed, I would argue that the worse our actions are the more necessary atonement becomes. In Snape, we see that even if we mess up in a big way and it seems there is no coming back from it, we still must try. Snape didn’t deserve his redemption because Rowling wanted Snape to earn his redemption. He did this by holding himself accountable for the worst choices of his life and he dedicated almost two decades of his life to atoning for them for no reason other than because he felt compelled to repair as much of the damage he had caused as he could.

As I said, Snape’s character redemption can coexist with all of Snape’s many faults because the point was to broaden our understanding of morality, encourage a more complex kind of empathic awareness of each other, and dispute the idea that only certain kinds of people “deserve” redemption because redemption is something we can all proactively earn by atoning for the harm we have done and striving to do better (i.e. to not make the same mistakes again when the opportunity presents itself). Overall, we can look at Snape’s character faults in context of his redemption but not as a disqualification for his redemption. Indeed, Snape as a bully is an equally significant part of his characterization because it reflects a cycle of behavior. As a victim of bullying himself, we can look at the institutional response from the teachers and Headmaster of Hogwarts, and when we do we see a clear pattern of failure and even abuses of authority. Mainly, Snape’s bullying was never addressed until Sirius’s failed prank, wherein Snape as the victim was silenced under threat of expulsion by Albus Dumbledore. Two of Snape’s bullies would have appeared to have even been rewarded from his perspective, in that Dumbledore made Remus a prefect and James a Head Boy. Snape’s own Head of House ignored him and dismissed his potential due to his lack of social connections and impoverished class status. Ultimately, we can see the evidence of Snape’s disenfranchisement while at Hogwarts and a model of authority that leaned towards what would have seemed like evidence bias (i.e. favoring of Gryffindor) and abuses of authority (again, threatening to expel Snape if he told anyone about Lupin). From that, we must ask ourselves how much of Snape’s own behavior is unusual or a reflection of a culture of institutional biases and abuses of authority. This is something that I wrote about at length very recently and you’ll find I more thoroughly discuss the issue of adult bullying in Harry Potter, some of the deeper complexities we can find when we examine Snape as a bully, and my issues with fandom’s double-standards when it comes to their willingness to tolerate similar or worse behaviors in other characters. Importantly, nowhere in my response do I attempt to excuse bullying in any character, rather I merely strive (as I always do) to provide some additional context for consideration and promote a greater understanding of how external forces can influence the choices people make, the way we behave, and our perceptions of our environments.

When it comes to Draco, I believe that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child went a long way towards expanding on the suggestion of redemption for Draco that Rowling’s epilogue hinted at. Unfortunately, Cursed Child has been much maligned in fandom so not everyone has given it a chance, which is unfortunate because I believe it had a lot to offer. In fact, much of the content that fans labeled “OOC” (particularly Harry’s struggles with Albus-Severus and navigating fatherhood and his own survivor’s guilt post-War) struck me as a more realistic exploration of the kind of people you might expect these characters to have developed into once stripped of the more childish Dahlesque style that the YA series was written in. In my opinion, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child simply matured with its audience and it provided us with a more honest look into these characters sans all the slapstick to soften the blow. Draco, in particular, stands out and I honestly liked him and the self-awareness he seemed to have developed as an adult. So, if you haven’t yet read the screen-play of Cursed Child or seen it live I would recommend doing either if only because of what it does for Draco –a lot of his redemption can be found there.

snapescapades

@raptured-night just wanted to say that I’m an undergrad English Major, and I learn so much from you! Thanks for all you do!

could i get this as a pdf, pls

m0chik0furan reblogged

sidsinning

etheringtonbrothers

SHOULDERS! I’m creating the world’s first true ENCYCLOPEDIA of drawing tutorials under the hashtag #howtoTHINKwhenyouDRAW, all of which is FREE for EVERYONE, FOREVER - you can see EVERY TUTORIAL on OUR MASSIVE INSTAGRAM HERE and OUR GIANT TWITTER HERE!

PLUS! CLICK HERE for 300 EXTRA FREE TUTORIALS!

Lorenzo!

m0chik0furan reblogged

intercoursefluids

s-n-arly

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse. It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable. As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

m0chik0furan reblogged

mistarover

Anonymous asked:

deyjah. ur bias is huening kai and you just DIDN'T TELL US???

mistarover answered:

anon i have to have SOME secrets /lh

NO, ANON HAS A POINT OK WE NEEDED TO KNOW YOUR BIAS WAS HYUKA AKSJHDFKJASDHF WE COULD HAVE SPENT SO MUCH TIME TALKING ABOUT HIM AHHHH

m0chik0furan reblogged

dailyau

Anonymous asked:

Do you have any prompt based in the Roaring Twenties?

dailyau answered:

they live here

also consider:

You time traveled to the 20′s to chill with the flappers but you got caught immediately because you wore the wrong type of bra AU

Caught in an alcohol raid AU

Yes I run a speakeasy no you cannot come in AU

Stop flirting with all my musicians if I lose another one of them to your wily charms I’m going to kick you out for good AU

Help bobs are a lot of effort to maintain and I think I’m falling for my hairdresser AU

No officer there definitely is not a speakeasy here how could you even think that AU

~Nicole

#write later

m0chik0furan reblogged

amesliu

m0chik0furan asked:

OPINION ON "TAKE WHAT YOU WANT" WHICH WAS A COLLAB BETWEEN 5SOS AND ONE OK ROCK (evaluation doesn't have to relate to the Percabeth au, but also, I kinda wanna know—)

amesliu answered:

I have had Take What You Want on my liked songs for YEARS now. It's SO GOOD. I need them to do some shit like that again.

I do have an AU related angle which is that I tried to fenagle it into the plot a bit but haven't quite found a good spot for it.

slightlyrebelliouswriter23

I'M SO FRICKING HAPPY AHHHHH THIS WAS THE SONG THAT GOT ME INTO 5SOS (I was a Ruroni Kenshin fan, then became a fan of One Ok Rock, then 5SOS) JFJDMF like maybe Lukabeth 2.0 one of Percy's reactions because he knows Luke isn't good for Annabeth and Annabeth knows that but goddamit it's luke sorry I'm rambling skmfncnvnf

m0chik0furan reblogged

risefromtheashes11

suffersdoodles

Disclaimer: this probably isn’t a very good recipe but it’s mine. Also, details of the recipe can be found in the tapas link below (if you wanna try it).

⭐’s Diary

theforeverknight

I tried this today and it was so good!

Okay looking good.

Okay we’re ready

Holy Shit

Well that was the best 5 minutes of my week! Guess who’s making hot chocolate every morning for the rest of forever?

wingolight

Your eyes got MASSIVE!

@outcastedangel for you (us?) to try one day?

m0chik0furan reblogged

rinadragomir

𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉 𝑷𝒊𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒘🌒

The link 👈

Im just obsessed with this one

Open tag!

Keep reading

Thankyou for the tag!!

I really like how this turned out

Tagging(no pressure ofc) : @witching-by-the-willow @ssardothien @polaroidsintheocean @brekkersfeed @lost-in-fictionn @evolving-dreamer @positivewitch @figonas @juliettecxi @adxmparriish @tangledinmysoul @simoneashly @penellaphedaneer @moononastring @seramierels and @ anyone who sees this because i suck at remembering urls!!!!

adxmparriish

thanks for the tag bell! ❤️

I tag @figonas @laequiem @hazelsheartsworn @vexderolo @witching-by-the-willow and anyone else who wants to do it!!!

Thanks for the tag Kristen!

I love it! Tagging @witching-by-the-willow @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 @searingdestiny and anyone else who wants to do it!

ahhh thanks for the tag @vexderolo ! 🥺❤️

tagging @kevin-day-is-bi @lavenderlemonrose @hemmingsbirdy @jurdanhell and anyone else! no pressure 🖤

hemmingsbirdy

Thanks for the tag! I had fun doing this ☺️

Tags: @nobodycallsmerae @ollie-jpg @xxlietomexx @shamevillain and anyone else who wants to do it

nobodycallsmerae

skaksk thank you so much for the tag!!

this is so cool ahhh 😩😩

further tagging (no pressure ofc): @skyland2703, @garnimalia, @callmefairyofthesea, @the-lighthouse-lit, @lilytimbers, @spider-jaysart and anyone up for it!!

spider-jaysart

Ooooooh I just love how she came out here!💖💖💖💖💖💖

Thank you for tagging me @nobodycallsmerae !😃💖

This was really fun to do!💖

Tagging:

@quartzgallery @cats-and-katanas @momma-alghul @fluffykitty149

And anyone else who wants to join are welcomed to do so!

Thanks babe!! @spider-jaysart

I love these piccrews!

I’m happy with the result

Also some tags if anyone wants participate

@monobunii @fluffykitty149 @cats-and-katanas @teenagemoonfox @jason-toddbandit

spider-jaysart

@momma-alghul She looks great!💖

She also reminds me a little bit of Talia

Oho maybe she influenced me a little

Also I also think she is very pretty! Anyways I’m happy,if you find any piccrews game I’m glad to make part of it.

jason-toddbandit

This is inspired by one of my favorite witches manon blackbeak

@fatherlaide @rasalghul777 @red-bottomjay

tags: @heybabybird @cheetahleopard @timdrakecaffeineshakes @wellthatjusthappend @whumpbby @glaciya and anyone else who wants to join!

not sure if my tags will work lmao

timdrakecaffeineshakes

Tags: @almostbutnotdeadenough @unalonliness @ididloveyou @tristicorde @brosianaomi @itzagothamcitysiren @helentess @uncannyvee @jasonsemotionalbaggage @caffeinatedcorvidae and whoever else!!

(thanks for tagging me i love these)

almostbutnotdeadenough

This was fun! Thanks for tagging me! : )

@red-bottomjay @ladytauria @princess-honeybun @wrath-of-medea @cassarson @the-alice-of-hearts

the-alice-of-hearts

Oooh this was fun!

Besties, make your witchsona: @jovialjuggernaut-draws @not-the-drones @boldlyanxious @jumpingjoy82

I love!

Tagging: @nightlychaotic @the-witches-you-couldnt-burn @tim-drake-is-underrated @khneltea

the-witches-you-couldnt-burn

As accurate as I could get it

Tagging: @miraculousmelodies @emilyphee @izanae @alytori @paintball169

El idk your tumblr but I did Sol

paintball169

I don’t even know anymore. I’m too sleep-deprived for this shit.

@couffeeine @kellydoll6 (You’re welcome bestie, Also, msg me If you don’t understand wtf is this) @adrestar @anjuschiffer @anyone else who wants to

Also, Vuka, Thank you for tagging me.

adrestar

Try guessing what my favourite color is.

~~I don’t even know if I’m doing this right.~~

Tags: @jayjayspixiepop @achaoticmess1 @m0chik0furan (honestly, I just tagged whoever shows up first when I pressed @) @anyone who wants to do this

Also, thanks for tagging me Paint!

@lost-in-the-muse @miraculouspenta @miraculousfanfic127

oh, hey again :)))

I'm Nelly, btw

m0chik0furan reblogged

borntodrift

In case anyone is having a bad night:

Here is the fudgiest brownie in a mug recipe I’ve found

Here are some fun sites

Here is a master post of Adventure Time episodes and comics

Here is a master post of movies including Disney and Studio Ghibli

Here is a master post of other master posts to TV shows and movies

*tucks you in with fuzzy blanket* *pats your head*

You’ll be okay, friend <3

i will reblog this everytime it shows up because any of my followers could have a bad night right now

All these links, besides the first, are broken. So here’s some more.

Here’s an emergency compliment

Here you can play 2048

Here’s a playlist of Bob ross

Here’s a website to watch movie’s and shows for free

Here’s a website to watch documentaries for free

Here you can to nothing for two minutes

Here you can break something. It’s good for anger

Here’s a button to press to make everything okay

Here’s a site to cut something up (TRIGGER WARNING)

Here’s a site that makes you a website depending on a song you choose

Here’s a gay comic. It’s adorable

Here you can spend Bill Gate’s money

Here you can draw your own island

Here you can learn about patterns website’s use

Here you can get your life stats

Here you can listen to the Tucker Zone (Headphones needed)

Here you can see how fast you’re moving

Here you can see the progress of time

Here you can see the future of the universe

Want some more?

Here’s the butterfly project

Here’s a snickerdoodle mug cake

Here’s a link to some free audiobooks

Here’s something to read when you feel like a burden

Here’s a secret

Here’s my playlist of some sea shanties

Here’s another secret

Here’s a link to some cool websites

Here’s a blog that gives you recipes for when you’re low on spoons

Here’s some Brony Headcanon’s

Some more? I’ve got plenty

Here’s 100,000 stars

Here you can control the weather (TW FLASHING IMAGES)

Here you can weave silk

Here you can make a castle of your own

Here you can make a kaleidoscope drawing

Here you can explore recursion

Here you can play a jelly block game

I’m back with some more!

Here you can draw with pasta

Here you can draw logo’s from memory

Here you can play this is sand, here you draw cool sand designs

Here you can play The Organ Trail

Here’s a customizable white noise website

Here you can simulate gravity

Here you can create your own guardian of the galaxy

Here you can make your own galaxy

Here’s a website you can get some support at.

to find later

so anyone can find this easily :)

take care out there <3

m0chik0furan reblogged