What Is Your Interpretation of Severus's Love for Lily?
There’s a story that says it’s creepy that Snape didn’t forget his teenage love until he was 38 years old. However, he was a victim of school bullying and did not forget his hatred for James Potter until his death. It’s easy to take hatred to heart, This it’s a very common thing. But he did not forget the love he received from Lily and lived. I think he accomplished something really difficult. He lived without forgetting love as much as hate. Honestly, if look at values, wouldn't it be more valuable and noble to sacrifice the rest of life for love and atonement rather than hate? In that war, that teenage love saved many people.
I've had people I've hated, but I've yet to meet someone I truly love. Even if liked it, once think of it with hatred, that feeling will evaporate. It's really hard to remember the good more than the bad, so I respect Snape. If it were me, I would have immediately disliked a friend like Lily from the story, but he always remembered Lily's a good side. Snape.......
People find excuses to hate Severus regardless of whether they're correct or not. My interpretation is that he loved her romantically, but different factors led that to not come to fruition. Later on, he just had an idealized image of her in his mind and felt guilt about leading to her demise, which led to him sacrificing himself for the greater good. Or maybe, I am just pulling this out of my, erm never mind.
The way I see it, that love was a mixture of loyalty, kinship, and gratitude. Platonic in nature, rising out of solitude.
Lily was the only one who accepted him for who he was (at least in the beginning), even though he was poor and had poor social skills, because there was no one else at the time to who she could relate to. And conversely, there was no one else he could relate to, as the only other wizard he knew was his mother, and no matter whether Eileen did magic around Severus or not, her most important role to him was that of a parent.
Severus and Lily grew up together.
They were privy to one-another's secrets, failings, faults. Joined at the hip.
The shift from such kinship to romantic love seems too unnatural to me.
The truth about most people whether they are Snape lovers or not that they cannot understand Snape capacity for love or even understand what jk Rowling was trying to tell them at all.
It's easy to reduce Snape love to an infatuation, idealisation or even obsession to understand and yet in that understanding you might never actually never understand it. It's pity readers are pitiable. You can't understand without understanding what was at core of his heart.
First of all Snape patronus is a doe which has actually most virtuous of traits associated with it. First of all it's pure love and self-sacrifice which are traits Snape interestingly is associated with at large. The fact that Snape can produce a patronus so pure that can guide and astound harry is also a factor not noticed by majority of so called fans and haters alike. Obsessive love can not protect, guide and be at any beneficial to anyone and yet Snape love is in contrast to these factors I mentioned above.
Snape is also a character who has a deep emotional capacity for understanding and interpreting emotions. He has a deep understanding of human nature as observed by his keen comments on occulmency and in his ability of fooling Voldemort for all of these years.
It requires a deep emotional strength and resilience to produce a patronus and mind you a full fledged one. An idealised image would not have that power at all especially considering the dark circumstances of Snape environment.
Snape is also excellent at self control and self discipline. An obsessed man would have never succeeded at these tasks.
Snape has an extremely astute perception of the world around him and obsessive love reduces and blinds the intellect. It binds it and yet Snape extremely perspective mindset cannot be hence explained by obsession.
Snape is able to produce a patronus of pure light that can guide harry in a difficult time again obsessive love would not have been able to do so.
Snape is also able to be considerably relaxed in times of stress and an obsessive love would not let the person be relaxed. Bellatrix one perfect example of obsessive love. Look at her and look at Snape. You won't find one similarity.
Snape love is also highlighted by a deep sense of pragmatism. The fact is his ability to atone for his past mistakes and his determination to make his wrongs good is not something an idealised love would be able to do.
Snape is a man who faces harsher truths about life. He is not the sort of person who is going to hold on and idealised image of someone in his mind when he himself has that awareness that nothing is what it seems to be and people are multifaceted.
He is the ond who checks his memory and pensive. No other character does that.
Snape all relationships are pragmatic. His relationship with dumbledore, Lucius and even lily. Love can exist in a pragmatic relationship as well you know.
The fact is let's say If dumbledore died and Snape held on to his memory it won't be idealised because dumbledore gave him a lot. Look at cursed child where Snape is still fond of dumbledore even though he is dead. Love isn't something most of us can understand because our definition of love is faulty, one dimensional and limited by many factors. Snape and lily despite the turmoils of their environment actually had a strong bond if one reader actually observed the prince tale chapter with precision and objectivity.
It's human nature to love someone more than others.
The thing again is people don't want to understand.
I just saw many answers on quora that hurt my head.
I objectively like answers that are deep and multidimensional. They align with both perspectives. Snape conversations are never objective no matter what.
The thing again that Snape feelings for lily developed over years and years like how Ron developed feelings for Hermione.
What's odd? Odd is a subjective interpretation based on personal bias whether good or bad.
I may have said it before, or not, my memory is a bit hazy or perhaps I am just growing old. But it was most definitely romantic and not platonic. And since she was the only one to show him some semblance of normalcy, even if later they had a falling out and she chose Potter when Severus was not even a mere thought in her mind at that point (Yes, yes, I am aware she's free to love whoever she wants, don't even attempt to drag the conversation to an entirely different thing), ahem, Severus loved her and was considerate and did as she had told him thus staying away from her, unlike Potter.
That aside, in my honest opinion, it was a misguided devotion. Yes, yes, I understand we don't always choose who we fall in love with. But I would've ended my "friendship" with her long before she did, had I been in the position Severus was in, let alone torture myself all my life in some foolish endeavor just for a silly memory or two. Perhaps, I have a rotten black heart that oozes darkness all the time or something. I do like to think myself as the most rational and pragmatic person so take that as you will. Perhaps a wee bit of narcissism there too, along with that heart of stone.
Well that's your interpretation to be fair and the one interpretation that truly holds water is jk Rowling whether people like it or not. The thing is I already mentioned that Snape love was pragmatic. It's not idealistic and I even mentioned why.
If you think an idealistic love can fight the darkness as his could then you are blind. Snape is pragmatic. His connections are pragmatic. Literally everything Snape says it's pragmatic. It's a pity that such a complex character relationships are seen as one dimensional and every other character relationships are seen as multidimensional even though their connections are more idealistic then Snape. Truly pity people are so willing to be blind but no can change anyone views anyway.
Try to understand their connection.
@az-aquarius You're welcome to share your opinions, but there's no need to be condescending about it. Calling other members "blind" or "pitiable" and suggesting that they/we "just don't get it" really isn't necessary and adds nothing to the points you were trying to make.
We all see Snape (and by extension his love) a bit differently, and that's okay. No interpretation (yours included) is more or less valid than any other. I
Look that's different but the novels suggest an objective hierarchy. If it's not understood accurately then there are problems in representation and understanding of Snape. That's what even Snape haters do, they take their point from the book and twist it or put it with another point that is said in another context.
Like for example Snape is obsessed because he thinks about lily all day.
Where is this proved? No book context just that's his patronus is the same.
Like then James love was genuine because he sacrificed his life for lily but Snape wasn't because he didn't give up his companions for her but again the context, timing and situations differ.
James is her husband here and Snape was a bullied teen when he didn't want to give up his companions.
Again we don't know if he didn't give up his companions eventually.
No context. Just a few scenes in the pensive.
The thing is there is limit to interpretation if we look at the book. There is rational, a rational rarely is followed.
The thing is I am going to be honest, my point wasn't to troll the person even though I was angry . The point was him or her to try to understand the characters and their connection with eachother.
I have one problem with how Snape and lily connection is interpreted by fans and that's with pity or like it's not even worth it rather then something that was complicated and deeply faced with flaws and strong points.
I mean even we take Rowling points where we want to and reject it where we don't want to.
But there is no fifty fifty percent. It's a whole. If think about the context we can see they can be applied.
The thing about harry potter Is that it is not something you can hundred percent say it's subjective. There is a truth to it that is often overlooked.
Bias, greed, resentment, complexity of human nature, blind ideologies and complicated connections all play a central role in harry potter. What I like most about the characters is they don't fit into archetype role of heroes and villains that how to train your dragons and Kung Fu panda characters mostly do.
Everyone has done something wrong. Harry has made fatal mistakes. Snape has done twisted things. Dumbledore was deeply flawed. James and lily weren't the perfect idealist couple weeks know and Sirius and Remus had deep issues.
So there is an objectivity and a limit where we can't cross you know that like James was a bully but it's unlikely he was a rapist.
Snape was a horrible teacher and could be a bully perhaps even sometimes something to be actually feared. He despite that was capable of companionship and justice.
That's my point. There is limit we can't use our interpretations blindly. I mean then what makes us different from Snape haters? They do the same thing.
Afterall there are things in the novels we cannot overlook and pretend that they don't matter or that they don't shape the characters journey and views.
Everyone relationships shaped them not just Snape.
Like if Snape changed for lily so he is bad and yet even let's suppose Snape haters avid comment on favour of James. That James changed for lily,So he is good?
The same old comment stands. It changed the agent not the argument.
There is so much to lily and Snape then that meets the eye.
What were their ideologies as teenagers?
What they fought about?
What they talked about?
What they thought about eachother?
They had so much in common from shared childhoods to even similar deaths.
My point wasn't to humiliate anyone.
I think I haven’t yet seen a post taking this kind of an outlook before, so I’d like to state that in all honesty, I don’t strongly believe in either that Snape was “obsessed” in derogatory sense like some (mostly anti-fans) put it, clearly in a very negative meaning of the word, nor that his love lacked at least that limerence (arguably a form of obsession) component. Both seem too… black and white of a way to put it to me, especially when speaking about a character known from his moral grayness (and as someone who also got to experience this kind of ambiguous greyscale situations in life that also might affect my perception of what’s inherently negative and what’s not).
First of all, I think that it’s a very much of an oversimplification in the first place to deem every single kind of obsession as something inherently creepy, dangerous, predatory, all this kind of concerning associations considering it necessary for us to fret at the sole mention of it. People usually imagine all obsessed people as some kind of a mentally unwell stalker who only cares about their cravings while lacking any self-control, basic decency and respect for boundaries, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily true in literal 100% of the cases. We can also pretty much agree that it wasn’t whom Severus was, anyway considering he just left Lily alone when she cut ties with him nor he did ever attempt any kind of stalking or harassing her (which arguably, can be more so applied to James whom pestered Lily around until she agreed to go out with him, or even trying to blackmail her and “buy” himself Lily’s attention through “trading” it for not bullying Sev).
But… I think it’s very “modern” of a concept to consider every sort of admiral from a distance to put into stalker, incel or any other nonsense label, ignoring the historical and varying between cultures context. I see Snape as more so of an limerence-driven admirer (genuinely enthralled by Lily, respecting her will to leave, wanting best for her and keeping very strong feelings despite years passing) rather than a stalker (intrusive, obnoxious, not listening to “no”, following her despite her clear discomfort, strongly but ultimately shallowly interested in her while only wanting his needs met). Modern western society currently is very much focused on the negative end of it, and I feel like in recent years we’ve forgotten of all the old works’ takes on love, the “limerential” 19th-early 20th century or as I said, different culture’s takes on what’s desirable in love. There’s no one “valid” template at all nor does limerence even signify necessarily a mental health problem in the first place as long as it doesn’t bring harm to anyone. It’s also not meaning that only one or another is possible, quite the contrary - I’d say that Snape could be in fact, both in state of a less harmful obsession and love, neither canceling another out (even though that both can also exist as completely separate things and not all obsession types is necessarily romantic either).
The Wikipedia article about Limerence states pretty much:
“Limerence is a state of mind which results from romantic feelings for another person, and typically includes intrusive, melancholic thoughts, or tragic concerns for the object of one's affection as well as a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and to have one's feelings reciprocated. […] In the 1999 preface to her revised edition of Love and Limerence, Dorothy Tennovdescribes limerence as an aspect of basic human nature and remarks that "Reaction to limerence theory depends partly on acquaintance with the evidence for it and partly on personal experience. People who have not experienced limerence are baffled by descriptions of it and are often resistant to the evidence that it exists. To such outside observers, limerence seems pathological."[50] Tennov states that limerence is normal[199][200] and says that even those of her interviewees who experienced limerence of a distressing variety were "fully functioning, rational, emotionally stable, normal, nonneurotic, nonpathological members of society" and "could be characterized as responsible and quite sane." She suggests that limerence is too often interpreted as "mental illness" in psychiatry. Tragedies such as violence, she says, involve limerence when it is "augmented and distorted" by other conditions, which she contrasts with "pure limerence."[201]”
None of which state that it’s necessarily and inherently negative, and for me, it’s the closest kind to what I’d put my bet on if we were to pick and settle of what kind of obsession do I see it coded as. It inherently shows concern for the object of it, as well as longing for one’s feelings to be reciprocated (which both fit Severus) while still having the obsession aspect of said thoughts being intrusive or strong enough to persist, and despite being commonly seen in mentally healthy people is also often concerning and happening to people who show through traumatic response (which we still have to keep in mind while analyzing Snape’s childhood and how his love for Lily began to be) and for neurodivergent people naturally prone for very involved, deep interest for hyperfixations that sometimes happen to be directed at people, like their friends (which isn’t an inherently mental illness either and very often neurodivergent people aren’t just mindlessly invested into something on that fixated level without having any deep understanding and genuine intent behind it). Deeming limerence as something inherently derogatory, or, if we take that route too, the way attachment can work differently for people raised in abusive background is in my opinion very disrespectful and marginalizing these people, as if claiming that they are “incapable” of “real love” and only the mythical big bad obsession. It’s very much untrue too, that every case necessarily must show through as idealization, shallow drive or projection without ability to see someone’s core. It doesn’t collide at the very level, really.
Many however, ignore that Severus pretty much had reasons to fall for Lily and for her to be the first glimpse of any affection, at all. In his generally abusive household, chances are high that he never got to see any typical healthy ways of showing feelings, nor receive them thus being left alone with his own ways to cope with the strong feelings felt for the first time. Lily gave him the first example of any significant friendly interest in him (while he was outcasted and gossiped on by other neighbors for his appearance, behavior and clearly poor background) and was likely his first friend he’s had in life. He for once could feel not judged, just enjoying someone accepting him (a lot of it basing on gratitude - like an abused dog lapping at the new owner being the first to pet and feed it properly).
And for similar reason I think it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to see him being very affected and distressed for the rest of his life for the intense bullying. He just generally feels like a very composed, but ultimately also very intense person, holding both grudges and positivity/love in his heart for long. Marauder fans usually use the argument regarding them “growing out” of being jerks, but at the same time, it’s overlooked that they were the bullies in this dynamic (of which’s no explanation would ever justify committing sexual harassment anyway), getting at most attacked back in self-preservation whereas Severus is left alone with his trauma once Lily leaves, for him to deal with it on his own. If someone thinks it’s that easy to let go of traumatic events even supported, probably never experienced any trauma, so the more goes here on if we have unaddressed and deeply seated things he hasn’t ever gotten over for, which despite it affecting his negative behavior in the future, still being in fact, tragic rather than something to only bash him for and put all the blame in.
As some say, it’s also not easy to heal if you keep at place that made you sick, which is pretty obvious is going to be the result while he was still put at Hogwarts - where he was both reminded of Lily and his bullies, constantly.
Ultimately, I also think that no matter how one could deem limerence as something “creepy”, it’s only natural to love someone and the way people love are shaped by their individual personalities, experiences and people they love in the first place. It’s silly to bash and pathologist anyone for having feelings that aren’t something anyone has control over for solely feeling them, caring for someone and craving reciprocation of theirs. It’s valid to bash for them only if someone actually stands danger to themselves and others because of how they respond to these feelings - which again, neither is applying to Severus. It’s also always been very iffy to me to hear about basically consider it evil for the sole fact of… lasting years rather than him moving on and just finding someone else, but at the same time, is he to blame for loyalty? For caring? For experiencing this strong and persistent love? For still remembering the ways he messed up in and blaming himself to the point of later on sacrificing his life? I don’t think it is in the way it was shown. And while it not being the same for everyone, there are also completely respectful about it people for whom their exes or old crushes will always have their special places in their hearts for, beyond their control yet more so showing the depth of those feelings not being just a fad or something shallow in the first place. It becomes even more prominent when it might’ve been hard for him to form connections with others in the first place (considering his very narrow friend circle in his entire lifespan) let alone something as intimate as romantic love, nor when still loving someone else to the same extent. Even despite them never being a couple, I imagine what Snape felt must’ve been something akin to one party slowly dying piece by piece, internally after the death/loss of the second one in an old marriage. Up until he had no will to live anymore (admitting it to Dumbledore) and only continued on to redeem himself and do something good to the world before he passes, his love even coaxing him to bring it out of himself.
What are you interpreting? Look Snape isn't exactly blind to anyone how could he be?
You do realise that psychological factors always can not be implied when Rowling is talking about souls and you are looking through a different lens.
Snape love for liliy is about not kindness or pity I don't why readers assume that it's about under standing.
I mean why did Rowling wrote it that way and not another?
Psychology is limited and we cannot put psychology theories on everything especially Snape love.
Snape is very capable of deep love and affection.
Look at his connection with dumbledore and Lucius or even narcissa. It's not about being stuck on liliy or forgetting it.
It's about understanding remember that Snape was a leglimence not a child who didn't understood love.
His story is reflective not some obsessive creepy story about infatuation.
Look I am glad you are trying to explain but the thing is not everything comes in the same category.
It's not he saw the pretty girl rho was kind to him and became a dog no.
He remember love is not just infatuation or emotional. It has intellectual and spiritual domains and patronuses are about soul what's within.
The thing is infatuation if any kind is too weak to describe Snape devotion and his patronus afterall or they liliy wasn't good for him rather than understanding their history with each other or understanding the circumstances of their connection.
Snape cared about emotional depth and the truth is infatuation isn't exactly something Snape would allow to control him if dark arts couldn't compare and again intensity is not infatative this is a limitations to his feelings.
The fact the patronus is so bright that burns harry retina can not be out into limerce or anything like that.
Liliy did love him even if not in the way he wanted or hoped for and that allowed him to love her.
Their connection is too complicated and believe me I hate this idealisation point.
Harry isn't idealised in love matters his love is perfect.
Dumbledore isn't but Snape is?
Look at the way Rowling wrote him his connections his feelings.
I mean why is not harry love infatuation or dumbledore whose love Rowling called infuataion for grindleward.
When she called Snape love as infatuation?
Snape memories his lectures to harry don't indicate anyone obsessed afterall if he was he would have been dead the Mental exertion would have been too much.
How would he spy?
Or be effective occulmence?
The truth is we don't love as much as Snape so we are going to assume that because it's easy to assume it because we can't understand that love.
It's spiritual and intellectual in essence reflective as well.
I mean he wanted his love to be reciprocated but who does not?
His advice to liliy his looking at her eyes.
Eyes are the window to the soul which indicates a deeper connection.
No infatuation can actually define it and psychology is too limited in its essence.
Snape patronus is a doe which represent selfless, deep love as doe in literature represent this so strong infutation is not an accurate term.
Grief is natural because he knew liliy, he regretted being involved in her death.
His reflective attitude can not truly suggest intrusive thoughts.
It's deep abiding love by choice.
