Even In Childhood, I Knew The Light Was Always Yours, And Even In Death, It Remains So. But The Darkness

Even in childhood, I knew the light was always yours, and even in death, it remains so. But the darkness was always mine, following me into my final breaths, just as it had shadowed me all my life.

Snape blinked? Must be abuse

Snape smiled… emotional damage confirmed

Literally anything happens: How dare he!

Oh, and reading a book? Yep, totally abusive behavior right there.

He’s just walking: Snape abuses gravity by walking

I honestly don't understand where the idea of Snape being ugly and him spending his entire life alone because he was "so ugly no one could love him" comes from. And I’m not just talking about Snaters here.

Even many Snape fans insist that any artwork of him or the actor chosen for his role must have a hideous, monstrous face. I constantly see posts where people demand a "disgusting, ugly Snape" because they say, “that’s canon Snape.”

Yes, Snape doesn’t fit conventional beauty standards, and he’s never described as handsome. But that doesn’t mean we should turn him into some kind of grotesque creature with zero appeal. This is yet another instance where Snape’s character falls victim to a black-and-white worldview. Just because someone isn’t described as beautiful doesn’t automatically make them hideous or unbearable to look at.

(Part of the idea that canon Snape must be ugly and repulsive seems to stem from the fact that he came from a working-class background and didn’t appear to have any romantic relationships. It’s as if people forget that the real obstacle between Snape and a romantic relationship with Lily was his obsession with the Dark Arts—not his looks, his clothes, or his lack of wealth.)

I can think of plenty of people in the real world who are like Snape. They’re not stunningly beautiful, but they’re not ugly either. They have average, normal faces, and some might even be attractive or "hot" depending on personal taste.

Hey I just read your post and to be honest, I completely agree with you! It's refreshing to see someone challenging the notion that he was alone because he was ugly.

But now I'm curious: how do you picture Snape? Is there an actor you've always thought would have nailed the role?

Hey Anon!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a specific actor in mind who perfectly matches my vision of Snape, but there’s a lot of artwork out there that aligns really well with how I imagine him. I’ll try to include some of those in this post.

My top pick would definitely be @ kdrobz’s work. I think the way they portray Snape fits Rowling’s canon version of him so well, and I’m a huge fan of their art:

@ravmint has also captured him in a really compelling way. I absolutely love the expression in this art; it gives off a mix of sadness, detachment and underlying anger that feels spot on:

These are a few more pieces I found on Pinterest that I think really match canon Snape, though sadly I’m not sure who the artists are:

And here’s a female version of Severus Snape that matches my own vision:

I honestly don't understand where the idea of Snape being ugly and him spending his entire life alone because he was "so ugly no one could love him" comes from. And I’m not just talking about Snaters here.

Even many Snape fans insist that any artwork of him or the actor chosen for his role must have a hideous, monstrous face. I constantly see posts where people demand a "disgusting, ugly Snape" because they say, “that’s canon Snape.”

Yes, Snape doesn’t fit conventional beauty standards, and he’s never described as handsome. But that doesn’t mean we should turn him into some kind of grotesque creature with zero appeal. This is yet another instance where Snape’s character falls victim to a black-and-white worldview. Just because someone isn’t described as beautiful doesn’t automatically make them hideous or unbearable to look at.

(Part of the idea that canon Snape must be ugly and repulsive seems to stem from the fact that he came from a working-class background and didn’t appear to have any romantic relationships. It’s as if people forget that the real obstacle between Snape and a romantic relationship with Lily was his obsession with the Dark Arts—not his looks, his clothes, or his lack of wealth.)

I can think of plenty of people in the real world who are like Snape. They’re not stunningly beautiful, but they’re not ugly either. They have average, normal faces, and some might even be attractive or "hot" depending on personal taste.

This is an excellent analysis. Snape's harsh behavior towards his students didn't lead me to see him as a cartoonish villain; instead, it made his complexities and vulnerabilities even clearer to me.

The way he suppresses and hides his emotions is deeply unhealthy and destructive. There's a quote from Freud that fits perfectly here: "Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."

Severus' behavior shows what happens when emotions are deeply repressed. Psychologically, when people suppress their feelings—especially painful ones they don’t go away. Instead, those emotions build up inside and eventually come out in unhealthy ways, like anger or cruelty. Severus didn’t just ignore his emotions; he buried them for survival, but that only made them worse.

People who bottle up their feelings for too long often lose the ability to understand or manage them. This is why Severus lashes out—his pain is still there, but he never learned how to deal with it. Over time, repressing emotions can make someone feel emotionally numb, like Severus seems cold and distant. But underneath that, he’s still full of unresolved pain, and it shows in how he treats others.

Repressing emotions also stops people from growing. When someone can’t face or work through their feelings, they stay stuck in the same emotional patterns. This is why Severus reacts like a hurt, angry teenager instead of an adult because emotionally, he never had the chance to move on from his past.

How can you reconcile being a fan of Snape and defending him so much, while also knowing about the terrible attitude he has as an adult toward his students? This isn’t a malicious question,I’m genuinely curious

I don’t justify Severus’ behavior, I simply understand it. And it’s not for the typical reasons like Harry being a copy of James, or Neville being clumsy, or Hermione being insufferable in class, or just because he can’t stand kids. I understand it because, in my view, Severus is still very much a child.

Take Sirius, for example. We can all see that being locked up in Azkaban for so many years essentially froze his life at a young age, so even though he’s old enough to have grey hairs down there, he still acts like a childish, immature person a lot of the time. And well, that’s exactly what Sirius is—an immature kid. He never had the opportunity to have experiences or grow throughout his twenties. Maturity doesn’t come with age alone but through everything we go through during that time and the experiences that shape us. Without those experiences, there’s nothing to build on.

Severus’ case is different from Sirius’, but it also stems from a lack of maturity and the inability to grow. Severus was a victim of violence from childhood, and that violence didn’t end—it continued throughout his school years. After all that torment, instead of leaving Hogwarts, telling everyone to screw off, and starting a new life where he could rebuild emotionally, he ends up trapped in the same school, playing a role to maintain his cover with pureblood families and burdened with having practically sold his soul to Dumbledore. He has no space to heal, no tools to work through his traumas, and no safe, healthy environment to grow into an adult. Severus is stuck in his adolescence, haunted by his past, his traumas, and totally incapable of managing his most visceral emotions. Sure, he’s great at faking it, acting indifferent, and wearing a mask to hide what’s going on inside. But just because he’s good at repressing doesn’t mean he’s good at managing his emotions, because in that regard, he fails completely. I mean, there are so many moments throughout the saga where Severus gets triggered, and every time it happens, his serious, unflappable façade crumbles, and he acts like a kid throwing a tantrum, someone with unresolved anger issues. That’s when you see that, deep down, he doesn’t know how to handle himself, which makes sense because he never had the chance to do so. We’re talking about an abuse victim who, instead of processing and exorcising his demons, had to lock them away and throw away the key—literally the last thing you should do when dealing with trauma.

What I’m getting at is that, on one hand, it’s reasonable to expect an adult to act like an adult. But on the other hand, as I grew older, went through years of therapy, and worked with people who come from messed-up backgrounds and have lived through terrible things, when I revisited the series and saw certain scenes where Severus is being an absolute jerk to his students, I didn’t just see an adult acting out. I saw the teenager he once was, insecure, feeling worthless, scared in the hallways. And now, for the first time, he’s in a position of power where he can say what he thinks and lash out without consequences. It’s not an adult acting here—it’s a kid who never grew up, trying to have the moment of glory he never had. It’s incredibly childish. And I have to say, I really like this aspect of his character because it’s so consistent with his backstory, even though it’s clearly irresponsible and abusive.

Severus shouldn’t be a teacher because someone who hasn’t matured, grown, or healed can’t be a role model, nor do they have the tools to properly handle situations where it’s so easy to project their insecurities and abuse their authority to compensate for their own shortcomings. But we can’t really expect anything else from him—if he were a well-adjusted adult, it would make him an unrealistic character. It’s impossible for someone with his background, without professional help and many years of personal work, to function properly in an environment like that.