In Half Blood Prince did you think Snape was a back stabbing fiend,when he killed Dumbeldore?

[Krauser108]

I have to admit i did,but i thought something did'nt seem right.

[Salma]

i thought something was not right too. i always thought snape was not that bad, not a KILLER. but whaen he killed Dumbeldore i said that nothing explains this.

[Faith]

i knew snape was working in some way on dumbledores orders. i didn't know how or why. but just before snape killed dumbledore, dumbledore begged or should i say pleaded with snape. i knew then that it had been planned between them. and then when harry chased snape and was about to use an unforgivable curse on snape, snape told harry no. i felt it was not because he was afraid of harry because we all know he wasn't from past books but that he wouldn't allow harry to use a dark spell. also some time before at christmas when harry was talking to arthur weasley and lupin, lupin said to harry something to the affect that , it comes to this if you trust dumbledore then you trust snape.

so i felt in the next book it would explain, had to explain snape. plus i felt that snape had some sort of connection w/harry's mom because the worst memory that snape had that he tried to hide from harry, that caused him to kick harry out and not teach him anymore, was when he had called lily a mudblood. the hurt in lily's words was enough for me to know that it was not just the word that made her turn her back on snape at that point.

but you also need to understand i read each book but the 2nd one ten times. so i was looking for clues. i did think snape was bad until the third book. that is when i accepted that snape was what dumbledore said and that i needed to not look for clues to his evil doing but to look for clues as to why dumbledore trusted snape so much.

i still don't know why harry was supposed to have the text book that snape had owned when he was younger.

[Kim]

I figured immediately that there was something going on. For one thing, I always try to remind myself that the books are predominately from Harry's point of view and he does not always have all of the information to view a situation objectively. Harry has never trusted Snape, so it wasn't surprising when Harry immediately lashed out at Snape after he killed Dumbledore.

Perhaps more importantly, when Dumbledore turned to Snape, saying "please" and such, I knew that there was more going on than Harry knew. I knew DUmbledore was NOT begging for his life. Dumbledore did not fear death, and he was keen to keep Snape within the DE ranks, so he wouldn't put Snape in a position where he had to blow his cover.

Yeah, a lot of this went through my mind after I stopped crying over Dumbledore's death.

[Dusty]

Rowling gave enough hints to know there was a reason behind it all. From the pensive statements in book four, the promise to Narcissa, and the "please" as mentioned by Kim (knowing begging was out of character), one would have to expect Snape did not act out of malice. Although, in book seven, JKR did a nice job of helping doubt these notions until late.

[Dusty]

Janet wrote: "I knew Snape was good all along, even though he obviously had a lot of baggage [anger/envy/social anxieties:]...He was one of my fave characters from Book 1...I i knew he had been in love with Lily..."

I would NEVER have categorized Snape as good. Many of his actions were not good. He attepted to do the right thing when it concerned Voldemort, or even when Harry was facing death or definite injury, but rarely otherwise.

[[deleted user]]

Severus Snape never wanted to kill Dumbledore, it damaged him, he tried and tried to convince Dumbledore that it wasn't a good idea. Snape loved Dumbledore and Harry. He was one of the true heroes of the books to me.

[Diana]

The reason I could not believe that Snape was evil after book 6 was that the first thing Harry ever really learned was that people are not evil just because you do not like them. It seemed like such a waste to undo that lesson for the sake of drama that I felt sure that unless JK Rowling was a idot--which also did not seem likely-- there had to be a reason behind the apparent betrayal.