I read the books first, and Snape chooses to bully eleven-year-old children, which is always a choice. (Also, why is Hogwarts not protecting them better? Snape may be a good potions teacher for children he likes, but he's not a good potions teacher full stop. But I forget: the wizarding world has no concept of things like 'anger management' (or 'management' in general).)
I'm also not sure about the 'capacity for love' bit. He was infatuated with Lily, obsessed, but that's not the same. I'm not seeing him _being loving_ (or even just warm and supportive) to anyone (ok, kind of hard to meet new people if you're isolated in a tiny bubble).
Love means seeing - and accepting - the other person as a person, warts, annoying habits [*] and all. I don't see any of that in Snape.
[*] harmless things that annoy you and you put up with. Bullying the kids you teach, for instance, would NOT fall into this category, as you've pointed out. That's a point of 'either you stop NOW or I'm out'.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2020-05-04 10:24 am (UTC)I'm also not sure about the 'capacity for love' bit. He was infatuated with Lily, obsessed, but that's not the same. I'm not seeing him _being loving_ (or even just warm and supportive) to anyone (ok, kind of hard to meet new people if you're isolated in a tiny bubble).
Love means seeing - and accepting - the other person as a person, warts, annoying habits [*] and all. I don't see any of that in Snape.
[*] harmless things that annoy you and you put up with. Bullying the kids you teach, for instance, would NOT fall into this category, as you've pointed out. That's a point of 'either you stop NOW or I'm out'.