Snape Headcanons
Quote from SanctuaryAngel on June 20, 2023, 2:45 amWe definitely need more information on the Snapes. Or even the Prince family.
I mean Prince as a surname is pretty awesome. They sound like such an important family.
I also believe that the Prince were an important family and it is a pity that it was never and explored. Something tells me that Rowling in the future will do that who knows maybe during the HBO reboot💚
Quote from Naaga on June 9, 2023, 1:05 pmQuote from Dark Angel on June 9, 2023, 12:08 pmQuote from Naaga on June 8, 2023, 2:25 amI headcanon that there was something going on between Snape and Narcissa more than friendship. She was intimately touching Snape in the Spinners End chapter and Snape seemed far more comfortable with her than most people and even treated her quite gently. My first thought after reading that chapter first time was Yup, these two are definitely fucking. 😹😹
Not gonna lie when I first read that chapter I was sure Rowling was drunk when she wrote it. There's so much sexual tension between the two and I was just thinking about how it's so out of place for a children's book. I can't even point anything out that's particularly inappropriate but there's so much between the lines when you read it when you're a little older and not exactly a child.
Nice to see I'm not the only one who interpreted it that way. 😸
Ooooh yes, even to me when I first read that chapter and I was a 16/17 year old teenager (the book had just come out in bookstores) it seemed to me that there had been something between the two. In my opinion Rowling implied it on purpose between the lines, being a book for a teenage audience, considering we were now in the sixth book of the saga, she could not be explicit. We can see for the first time Severus concerned and available for a woman, not even their physical contact destabilizes him...I am curious to see if they will deepen this relationship.
Oh I forgot, the scene in the films is masterful partly because of the skill of the actors but, in my opinion, it lacks that sexual tension.
I actually lowkey love that the best (?positive) interactions he's had in the series, have been with prominent female characters. (Lily [early], Narcissa, Minerva).
I guess since the doe is considered a feminine representation, and a testament of his softer side, buried under that harsh, guarded exterior.
Quote from SanctuaryAngel on June 20, 2023, 4:19 amI actually lowkey love that the best (?positive) interactions he's had in the series, have been with prominent female characters. (Lily [early], Narcissa, Minerva).
I guess since the doe is considered a feminine representation, and a testament of his softer side, buried under that harsh, guarded exterior.
Absolutely.
Severus has a soft, almost protective side to female figures 🥰🫠
I really do love how the doe represents him. His hidden guardian is a gentle creature representing intuition, unconditional love, safety, and protection. Does being more sensitive, reserved creatures.
It really is beautiful.
Snaters never want to acknowledge his good side, and yet fail to consider what the doe actually represents from a spiritual standpoint, and not just from Lily.
Like, of all the animals he could have as a guardian, and he obtains the doe. Someone so externally imposing, dark, bitter, and resentful, could have an inner side represented in such a soft, pure way.
(For those who are into Astrology, it kind of reminds me of the Sun, Moon, and Rising signs - Sun being his external perception/force, moon representing inner/soul behind the identity, and rising representing social personality).
I know I'll make myself really unpopular with this opinion and I have mentioned this before in a discussion with @naaga, but Rowling giving Snape a feminine doe was not meant as a favor.
A lot of Rowlings stances are very old-fashioned and misogynistic. I won't go deeper into that but Snape is presented as a emasculated man. The description of his appearance is reminiscent of traditional witches, you know wearing all black, long hair, a large hooked nose and standing over a bubbling cauldron brewing potions? That's a fairytale witch and not a wizard! He is even made to wear his MOTHER'S old shirt although I'm sure his dad must have had some old clothes lying around that Eileen could have shrunk down to Severus'size. Everything about Snape is more feminine than masculine and designed to show him as the poorer choice of man when compared to James. Even their friend groups are different: Snape's best friend is a girl and James has a whole group of best guy friends. James has a stag patronus (male) while Snape's is a doe (female). James is rich and died protecting his family, Severus is poor and therefore not a provider and practically got Lily killed. James is direct and does everything possible to get Lily's attention and bullies her into dating him (how cute, boy's just don't know how to express their feelings Haha!) but Snape never seems to have pulled together the courage needed to tell Lily how he really felt about her. Even during the lake incident, Snape can't stand up to James and a girl, nevermind that it's his supposed bestie, has to come and help him. By old fashioned standards, that's practically social suicide for a man. Even his personality is not reminiscent of toxic masculinity, the fact that the Marauders nicknamed him Snivellus shows that they must have seen him cry and any emotion other than anger is just plain embarrassing for a man as we all know. (I hope you are getting the sarcasm) and canon shows him crying as well. I honestly do not think that Rowling meant to be flattering here.
Quote from Dark Angel on June 20, 2023, 8:59 amI know I'll make myself really unpopular with this opinion and I have mentioned this before in a discussion with @naaga, but Rowling giving Snape a feminine doe was not meant as a favor.
A lot of Rowlings stances are very old-fashioned and misogynistic. I won't go deeper into that but Snape is presented as a emasculated man. The description of his appearance is reminiscent of traditional witches, you know wearing all black, long hair, a large hooked nose and standing over a bubbling cauldron brewing potions? That's a fairytale witch and not a wizard! He is even made to wear his MOTHER'S old shirt although I'm sure his dad must have had some old clothes lying around that Eileen could have shrunk down to Severus'size. Everything about Snape is more feminine than masculine and designed to show him as the poorer choice of man when compared to James. Even their friend groups are different: Snape's best friend is a girl and James has a whole group of best guy friends. James has a stag patronus (male) while Snape's is a doe (female). James is rich and died protecting his family, Severus is poor and therefore not a provider and practically got Lily killed. James is direct and does everything possible to get Lily's attention and bullies her into dating him (how cute, boy's just don't know how to express their feelings Haha!) but Snape never seems to have pulled together the courage needed to tell Lily how he really felt about her. Even during the lake incident, Snape can't stand up to James and a girl, nevermind that it's his supposed bestie, has to come and help him. By old fashioned standards, that's practically social suicide for a man. Even his personality is not reminiscent of toxic masculinity, the fact that the Marauders nicknamed him Snivellus shows that they must have seen him cry and any emotion other than anger is just plain embarrassing for a man as we all know. (I hope you are getting the sarcasm) and canon shows him crying as well. I honestly do not think that Rowling meant to be flattering here.
Very interesting reflection.
Actually Rowling has never been flattering towards Severus often pointing out his flaws even physical ones even on Twitter.
I have never understood this doggedness not to mention an utterance of hers that particularly struck me years ago where she claimed that Snapedom was only interested in the "bad boy" because of Alan's charm.
My theory is she projected her own teacher issues with her old chemistry teacher John Nettleship, the person Snape is based on and gave Snape parts of her personality which she hates. She frankly can't understand that people may like something about herself which she hates.
I wouldn't call Snape emasculated. Professor Snape seemed masterful, dominant, most often in control and seemed mostly masculine in my reading. Yes, he does carry some feminine characteristics so did the other characters.
He was Potions master because John Nettleship was a chemistry teacher and potions are magic counterpart of chemistry and I won't call chemistry a feminine discipline. Also, all the major famous and eminent personalities in Potions were males including the likes of Horace Slughorn, Damocles Belby and Fleamont Potter and none of them are feminine.
Plenty of wizards kept long hair, that doesn't make them feminine.
Hooked nose was a feature of many male characters including Victor Krum and Dumbledore yet we don't call them feminine.
Spying in the series was done by only male characters including Snape, Lupin, Pettigrew, Barty Crouch Jr, yet we don't call them feminine.
He was wearing an oversized coat, probably belonging to his father over his mother's smoak so he didn't just wear his mother's clothes. And he was eager to shed his muggle clothes and wore his school robes when he went to Hogwarts express so he was keen to perform masculinity.
Snivellus as a nickname was bestowed upon him in his first ride itself when James or Sirius gave him that name while leaving their compartment and I am pretty sure he didn't cry at that time so his nickname was meant to be humiliating, not based on fact he cried all the time.
While James is probably based on her first husband who turned out to be an abuser which we often discuss in James criticism of being a potential abuser.
Snape hated hypermasculinity or toxic masculinity not masculinity.
She definitely projected her dislike for her former teacher onto Snape but I can't help but think that there's even more between the lines.
Obviously a hooked nose is a feature that men also have and it is more undesirable in women but if you combine it with his hair and his talent for brewing, the first thing coming to mind is a traditional witch, even his introductory speech considering wand-waving silly makes you think of how often wizards use a wand and witches go for trickier means of magic (poisoning, cursing people etc). Remember how we discussed that Snape's potions skills infer that he is good at cooking, traditionally that's also a skill associated with women.
I personally do not see him as a feminine or emasculated man, I'm straight as ruler and would choose a man with brains over brawn any day. But given the mentality of the past, Snape would not meet the exact expectations of a suitor. Lily's family would definitely prefer someone with good looks, money and a good name like James over the Snape boy from the bad side of town and James'negative qualities would be brushed off.
For nowadays standards, Snape would definitely make a better man precisely because his kind of masculinity isn't toxic.
Yeah, JKR was inspired by a witch cartoon she used to watch in her childhood, witches often had hooked nose in that series that's why JKR kinda made hooked nose a defined feature of many wizards and witches. Snape's nose is more noticed because Harry hated him and made sure to exaggerate his features in negative way.
I agree that Evans family would've preferred likes of Potter over Snape because conservative mindset of parents often want rich and providing husband for their daughter (still true in many countries today). Evans parents in my headcanon were also like Petunia, snobby and classist, played favorites with Lily over Petunia and looked down on people like Snape not the gentle, loving, saintly surrogate parents often depicted in many fics.
Btw, I don't know how true this is as I have never been active on Twitter but Rowling supposedly mentioned that Snape is of Eastern European descent.
What do y'all think of that?
Remus mentions that there is no Wizard royalty but what if that's only the case for UK based magical folk? What if Eileen is a descendant of an old magical royal family and therefore they took on the surname Prince?
I even have to think, what if Dracula was a wizard before turning into a vampire and he is Snape's ancestor?
