Is Snape Good, Bad Or Does He Have A Twin?

Andrew: Just everyone’s dying to know: Is Snape good or is he bad? Or how about this, ooo, new theory popped into my mind? What if Snape has a twin?

[All laugh]

Andrew: One’s good, and one’s bad.

Laura: The evil twin.

Eric: And then...

Andrew: Yeah.

[Laura laughs]

Eric: No, I think everyone should take responsibility for his or her own twin's actions.

Andrew: God, I’m so good.

Eric: Or maybe a little Snape that he can detach and wreak havoc.

Kevin: A little Snape [laughs]

Eric: A little mini-me Snape.

Andrew: It’s all figured out. I have it. Snape has a twin. That’s it.

Eric: I think...

Andrew: Just look at the fan-art pictures. Don’t they all look different from one another? I think he has like 40 brothers. [All laugh]

Eric: Andrew!

Laura: And twins look different from each other?

Eric: It's different artists' interpretations.

Andrew: Ohhh.

Kevin: Ohhh, that explains it.

Eric: Yeah, they are different artists so the artists aren’t like twins so they...going back to where Laura...

Andrew: Okay, well...

Eric: Eh, Andrew?

Snape And The Dark Arts

Andrew: Let's do some comparing here. What's the first thing that comes to mind? He's into the Dark Arts.

Eric: Okay great. Well, hang on here... Yeah.

Andrew: Making him loyal to Voldemort, you would think.

Eric: Well, making him...

Kevin: Yeah.

Eric: Good guys...no, good guys have to know the Dark Arts too. As Slughorn had said, the best wizards still kind of are interested in the Dark Arts.

Laura: Yeah.

Kevin: Of course, because how do you know your enemy if you don’t know they're doing?

Laura: Exactly.

Eric: Exactly, exactly. So, just because he’s into the Dark Arts I think that gives him more of a reason to be more knowledgeable and be more mysterious and stuff.

Kevin: I think his original motivations for going into the Dark Arts were those of being on Voldemort’s side. You know? Like his motivations now aren’t what they used to be. His intentions aren’t that way.

Eric: I see what you mean. Yeah, Laura mentioned Spinner’s End and Snape being compared to a spider like that. I think that’s cool. Also, Spinner’s End, I think, has something to do with him creating a web of deceit. You know, a tangled web of, we don’t know what side he’s on and things like that. That could be the spider reference. You know?

Laura: Mhm.

Eric: Just that he's this tangled web of people who think he’s good, who think he’s bad.

Laura: Definitely.

Ben: Okay, well the one reason - hear me out here - the one reason I think Snape is a good guy is because he absolutely has to be because he’s been around Harry for all these years. Why couldn’t he have zapped Harry once? What happened in Half-Blood Prince was at the end after Dumbledore gets killed by Snape, Harry’s unfrozen and he starts chasing after Snape, and he tries to do the Cruciatus Curse on him and is unsuccessful. And Snape’s yelling at him "You idiot, just go!" and all this stuff. At that moment, why couldn’t Snape have gone Petrificus Totalus and then went and grabbed Harry and taken him off to the Dark Lord...

Kevin: And drag him along.

Ben: And then zap zoom bammo.

Laura: That’s one of the reasons that I’m on the fence.

Eric: Guys, I have a great theory, I have a great, great theory. Okay, you guys. Ben, I think Snape kind of at least described himself well enough for Bellatrix on why he didn’t kill Harry yet, but at the end of Book 6, he said, "No, he’s the Dark Lord’s" when he’s chasing him across the grounds and he should have taken Harry away. Do you think, similarly to the Peter Pettigrew life debt that Pettigrew owes Harry, do you think Harry owes Snape now for saving his life like that? Because if you really...

Ben: No, because I think with a life debt, it has to be something, you blatantly save a life. I think Snape would have to zap one of the Death Eaters after they said half of the death curse or something.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly.

Ben: Because he didn’t actually save his life; he just told him to turn and go.

Kevin: He just chose not to kill him. [laughs]

Eric: No, but still, that’s all it was with Wormtail. They were kind of pointing their wands at him and Harry said "No."

Laura: Yeah, but Wormtail was also the reason Harry’s parents died.

Kevin: And Harry wasn’t the one who was going to be doing the killing.

Ben: And also, they said they were going to kill him together and then Harry said, "Don’t kill him." And in Half-Blood Prince, Snape really didn’t say - Snape said, "Turn and go ease the Dark Lord." It wasn’t like he was saving his life, he was just delaying the moment that he was going to be killed by Voldemort.

Eric: All right. Fine. I get it Ben. Fine, crush my theory. Whatever. I’m going to go and cry now. Okay, I get the point. You don’t like me, you don't like me. It’s fine.

Kevin: 3 on 1. [laughs]

Ben: You know what, Barty Crouch Jr. is a good guy.

Eric: He is.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: No, actually, I’m going to talk about that for one second. If you look in the books, he’s actually really a good guy and it was a surprise because I had forgotten all the good stuff pointing to him in the books when I said that. But he doesn’t really seem evil in the trial before he gets put in Azkaban, and when he comes out, I think is when he’s really evil, but also the fact that he’s soul-sucked by a dementor just says we may never know stuff about him that could have come forward if he were still alive.

Kevin: Yeah.

Eric: As to his past and stuff. So, I think there is a good margin for him being good, but back to Snape. But thank you for bringing that up, Ben.

[Andrew laughs]

Eric: Made me feel better about you crushing my theory. So, okay. What else? What’s up?

Ben: Do you think Snape’s a good guy, Eric? Do you think Snape's a good guy?

Eric: Ooh, ooh wait, I forget, guys...

Kevin: I wouldn’t say he’s a good guy, though.

Eric: Yeah.

Kevin: Just because he’s good in the sense he’s on the right side doesn’t mean he’s a good guy.

Eric: He's still...

Laura: Just like Sirius said, there’s no defining line between Death Eaters and good people, it’s the same way...

Kevin: Exactly.

Laura: ...on the other side.

Kevin: I mean if, if Bellatrix was on the Order of the Phoenix - doesn’t mean she’s a good person, she’s just supports them.

Ben: Definitely.

Eric: Oh, I have a great contribution. I’m sorry, Andrew, go ahead.

Andrew: I was just reading through some quotes that JK Rowling has said about Snape, and in the majority of them, she’s always reiterating how horrible Snape is. One quote calling him "Deeply horrible." Does...can he be on this good side while still being this "deeply horrible" quote un-quote?

Ben: I have a reason for that. First of all it’s JK Rowling. And second of all, I think that absolutely... He can be...

Eric: You know what? That’s a good point, Ben.

Andrew: My point was that she kept reiterating it. She kept saying...

Eric: Well, he is a bad guy.

Andrew: Her point is that Snape...

Ben: Just because he's a bad person doesn't mean...

Eric: Yeah.

Ben: Just because he has a nasty personality doesn’t mean he has to be on the side of Voldemort.

Andrew: Nobody said it was personality.

Eric: He was picked on by Harry’s father. He’s not going to let that slide. He has a grudge and the best of people can hold grudges...

Andrew: Yeah.

Occam's Razor

Eric: And can be pretty mean, I guess. I’m not saying he’s a good guy, he’s not, but that's...I see that as a flaw. I still think there might be good, and are you guys familiar with Occam’s Razor?

Ben: No.

Kevin: Yeah.

Eric: Okay, Kevin is, he’s the college boy.

Kevin: Yeah.

Eric: Occam’s Razor is a postulation, if you will. It’s a postul-ette thingy that states that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. In short, it means, the shortest answer is the best answer.

Ben: You shouldn’t give that advice.

Andrew: See, Eric would learn from that.

[All laugh]

Eric: Okay, okay, guys, besides that, the point is, people are using this to say that Snape is bad. And they say that, "Okay, so, all right, now Snape is bad or he’s good but he tricked Dumbledore, but he tricked this, but you know, he’s tricking Voldemort and he’s going on both sides," and they make it out to seem that Snape being a good guy is such a long, drawn-out thing, that it's just Occam’s Razor says we should make it out like he’s bad and in reality, I just think there is just enough explanation required for him to truly be bad. Which includes the fact that he has been proven good all throughout Book 1, and all throughout the whole series in all these different events.

Kevin: Yeah, but at the same time, we know JK Rowling and she tends to hide things in her books. So, typically - with her at least - things don’t go according to Occam’s Razor.

Eric: Oh, well yeah. That’s just more proof that he’s good though.

Ben: Well, for example look at this show. Look at all the things we talk about, look at all the analyzing we do. Occam’s Razor, whatever postulization it is, is ridiculous because we come up with long-drawn answers because the thing that’s not true about that is...Well, I think it means that the simplest answer is usually the correct answer, but at the same time we have to provide proof for what we’re saying. We can’t just make flawed assumptions based off nothing.

Andrew: So let’s go around the table before we get to the voicemails. In one word, Eric [laughs]...

Ben: One word, Eric. One word.

Final Answer: Good Or Bad?

Andrew: Explain, [laughs] not explain, say if you think he is good or bad. Ben? Or both.

Ben: Did you say Ben?

Andrew: Yeah.

Ben: Oooh, good.

Andrew: Laura?

Laura: Don’t know.

Andrew: Kevin?

Kevin: Good.

Andrew: Eric?

Eric: Loyal. I’m not going to say loyal to Dumbledore or loyal to Voldemort, I’m just going to say loyal and let people figure it out.

Andrew: I’ll take that as a both.

Ben: And yourself?

Andrew: I’d like to think good. I’ll say good because it’ll end up as not.

Ben: You’re just going with Kevin and I.

Andrew: No, no.

Ben: You’re just going with what the group thinks.

Andrew: No, I’m thinking about Book 7.

Kevin: He’s a trend-follower, not a trendsetter.

Andrew: No, obviously cool people say "good." So...

Laura: Aw, me and Eric aren’t cool.

Eric: Guys... Hey guys, at the end of the book of Book 1, "The Man With Two Faces" when Harry is confronted by Quirrell and he says, "You?" and Quirrell smiled and says, "Me? I wondered whether I’d be meeting you here." Harry says, "But I thought Snape..." and he goes "Severus. Oh yes, Severus seems the type, doesn’t he?" And then he goes on "So useful to have him swooping down like an overgrown bat. So, next to him who would expect p-p-oor stuttering Professor Quirrell?" But I think it really, that emphasizes too the fact that Snape really does seem like a bad guy, but really he’s just clouding the pool of potentials. I think that Quirrell really used that to emphasize how next to Snape, he could blend in with the good guys very easily. So, even though I think he’s distinguishing Snape as a good guy, what do you guys think?

Ben: There’s a lot of deception going on in these books.

Andrew: Yeah.

Ben: [Yells] Constant Vigilance! Constant Vigilance!

Eric: Thank you, Ben.

Andrew: And like my solution is every week, we’ll just have Jo on the show and we won’t even have to have these podcasts anymore. [laughs]

Eric: Not that she’d answer any of our questions, as said before.

Andrew: Good thing Jo doesn’t update her site anymore because otherwise, we’d run out of stuff to talk about. [laughs]

Kevin: I know.

Laura: Yeah.

[Eric and Laura laughs]

Andrew: Well, well let’s get to the voicemails now.

Voicemails - Why Didn't Harry Kill Snape?

[Audio]: Hi, I’m Catherina for Yano, Austria, and I really love your podcast. I have a question concerning Harry and Snape. In the sixth book when Harry was chasing Snape on the grounds of Hogwarts, why did he try the Cruciatus Curse and not the Avada Kedavra? For me, it would be clear that Harry would just kill him after all that he had done. Or is that Harry is not powerful enough to cast such a spell? Just tell me what you think. Thank you.

Ben: The central theme of this book is the power Harry has that Voldemort knows not is love, and I don't think, I think Harry has too much love in him be able to kill someone, as of right now. Eventually, he's going to have to find a way to do it to Voldemort in Book 7 if he wants to defeat Voldemort. But the problem is right now, he doesn’t have, as Bellatrix told him in Book 5, "You have to really mean it, you have to really mean it to torture the person," and right now he hasn’t developed enough hatred, he hasn’t practiced the spell really enough to actually torture the two people he’s tried it on. He tried it on Bellatrix in Book 5 and then Snape in Book 6. I think he would be capable of performing the death curse, but I don’t know if he really wanted to try it because he’s never really killed before and he’s a loving person.

Kevin: You think he would use the death curse?

Ben: Well, he’s going to have to.

Kevin: Will he?

Ben: Well, he’s going to have to find some way to kill Voldemort unless he uses one of the Top 100 Ways. I can see Jo borrowing one of them, borrowing from our contest winners.

[Kevin and Eric laugh]

Kevin: I just asked because it seemed as though Voldemort wasn’t hesitating to cast it at Dumbledore but Dumbledore was, you know what I mean?

Eric: Yeah.

Kevin: It seems as though there’s more to the death curse than we know, and there are better ways to do it as someone who’s...

Ben: Yeah, maybe it's similar to drinking unicorn blood because when you drink unicorn blood, you have that half-life, a cursed life, but then all the Aurors would be doomed too, so I don’t know. Dumbledore may have been hesitant to do it, but I think the reason he was hesitant was because the fact he knew that Harry had to be the one to do it and if he tried anything, that it wouldn’t work anyway. That Harry had to be the one to confront Voldemort in the end because of what the prophecy said.

Eric: Yeah, I think Harry is a lover not a fighter. By that I also mean that...

Ben: Ginny knows what you’re talking about.

[All laugh]

Eric: Yeah. He’s not a killer; he really, really isn’t. I think there are several other books series, including Narnia, which I just saw tonight, but I don’t want to talk about that because you guys are going to do that next week, but even in Narnia the hero is given a sword and he really doesn’t use it until he absolutely has to. He doesn’t just go wield it around and kill people for target practice, and I think Harry is definitely one of those people who doesn’t kill and it’s brought up.

Ben: Right, but Harry has to make sure - to use the sword analogy - to keep his sword sharp, so to speak. So, he needs to practice the death curse, practice it on pixies or something so that he knows how to do it when it comes time for the final battle.

Laura: Well, like you were saying, Bellatrix was telling him you really have to have enough hate in yourself to be able to cast an Unforgivable Curse, and I think Harry knows that. Also, I think part of the reason he didn’t use the Killing Curse is because in Book 5 when Sirius dies, Harry is described as wanting to track down Bellatrix and make her to feel the pain...

Kevin: Yeah.

Eric: Yeah.

Laura: ...that she has given Harry and I think Harry wanted Snape to feel the pain. I don’t think he wanted him to get a quick way out. He wanted him to suffer.

Ben: That too.

Eric: Like in court and trial. A lot of time. especially in Batman and X-Men, all the superheroes and stuff, they turn them over to the cops instead of killing them because that’s justice and they have this big emphasis on justice being done to them and death is the easy way out.

Laura: Mhm.

Eric: And I think one of the things bad guys definitely capitalize on is the term, the sentence, the phrase: "You should have killed me when you had the chance." Because that’s just plain wrong. They shouldn’t have killed them. I believe Dumbledore says, Voldemort says that to Dumbledore, and the thing is that they’re drawing on... It's love and they aren’t killing them, and then the bad guys make it seem like it’s the weak thing to do...

Ben: When you think about it, Eric...

Eric: ...and it’s not.

Ben: And this is sort of contradicting what I said a few minutes ago, but this just came to my mind is that when it comes down to it, we’re going to have to see some way to kill Voldemort other then using the Killing Curse because we saw in Book 4 what happens with Prior Incantatem.

Kevin: Right.

Ben: And it’d be a regurgitation of the previous spells that the wand committed. So, Harry’s going to have to find some other way.

Kevin: Well, that’s only when you cast the spell at the same time.

Ben: Right, but both of them have to be ready. I doubt... If you can block the spell, If you know you can block the spell by just throwing up Expelliarmus...

Kevin: Yeah.

Ben: ...then that’s what Harry is going to do. To prevent himself from being killed.

Kevin: That’s true.

Eric: Yeah, I thought that was what pretty much what happens, it was emphasizing the connection between them and the fact that they had the same wand. So, and I think we answered this in a voicemail, like one of the earlier shows, about how Voldemort might want a new wand or something since theirs can’t work together. I think there will have to be another way for Harry to kill him.

Ben: I don’t know. We’ll find out.

Eric: I don't know. What scares me, what scares me, even though this is SnapeCast, is how close Harry and Voldemort are even now.

Kevin: Do you think so?

Eric: But that’s for another show. I think they are incredibly alike. In every book they are alike.

Kevin: Oh, okay, I thought you meant in strength. See, the whole problem I’ve been seeing is that - and it’s emphasized even by the point that Harry can’t really cast these high-level dark magic spells - is that he always seems to be a little too weak than the competition. And he always seems to just squeak by with his life, kind of thing.

Eric: Oh, and we’ve said this on the earlier shows too. He's pretty much screwed.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly.

Eric: We should really...

Kevin: It seems like he has to do a lot of learning before he even attempts to face Voldemort because the last thing we want as fans is to see him kill Voldemort out of luck. [laughs] You know?

Ben: I was actually reading a very interesting fan fiction story the other day in which Harry - he's doing these studies about things and he gets some war guide, and he realizes it’s time for him to confront Voldemort, that he has to confront the enemy, because in the previous books, the confrontation has always been basically been set-up by Voldemort. Voldemort had the Portkey. Voldemort led Harry down into the little dungeon place with the Mirror of Erised. Voldemort led Harry to the Chamber of Secrets. Then we saw in Book 4... We saw in Book 5, Voldemort gave Harry the vision of Sirius being tortured and led him to the Department of Mysteries where there was a confrontation there.

Kevin: Yeah.

Ben: And...and Harry has to finally...he has to set it up this time around if he wants to have a shot at beating Voldemort. He has...it has to be on his terms.

Kevin: He also has to hit the books. [laughs]

Ben: Rather than...yeah. Rather than Voldemort actually, you know, setting it up again and then having the upper hand because he's going to know the terrain, he's going to know what's going on and Harry will have to reverse the tides this time and...

Eric: You know what guys? Unfortunately this wasn't even really a high-emphasis Snape voicemail so we should talk about Snape. [laughs]

Kevin: Okay. Well let's move on to the next one.

Click here to go to page three