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We all remember the great Snape debates before DH came out. About where his loyalties were as of the end of HBP, when they changed if ever, how many times they changed. I think we agree that DH settled this question (even if we don't know the exact time-point we know which events triggered the turning points in his path). Another question was how far he went as Death Eater. After DH the consensus in this forum seems to be that canon suggests either at that he did not go as far as killing, or that if he did he fully repented for such killings and healed his soul to the extent that is possible. It is clear from canon that whatever he was as a Death Eater, the man we see during Harry's Hogwarts years is a man with a strong conscience, with a clear view of right and wrong (despite having to act on the edge due to his role as a spy), who does not make light of having to commit harmful acts for a long-term beneficial goal.
But even without ever killing anyone directly, with his own hand/wand, there is much he could have done. The most obvious is the brewing of poisons and other harmful potions that were then administered to innocent victims by others. Then there is the invention of new harmful, potentially lethal spells, and teaching such spells to other DEs, thus resulting in injuries and deaths among their victims. I think the worst I have seen in fanfics is Mengele!Snape - Snape in his DE days using captives (mostly Muggles) to test properties of newly invented potions. Some scenarios get extremely gruesome, with a team of DEs at Snape's command cutting through a still living victim so that Snape could observe damage to internal organs as it took place.
So my question is, would knowing something like that change anything in your attitude to Severus Snape? Is his complete repentance enough for you as a reader to disregard anything, however cruel, he may have done in his dark period, or would the thought that this was a man who may have been capable of such horrors disturb you enough to feel you cannot forgive him completely? Do you think a man who had commited such actions is capable of abandoning them for good or would he always be at risk of backsliding?
But even without ever killing anyone directly, with his own hand/wand, there is much he could have done. The most obvious is the brewing of poisons and other harmful potions that were then administered to innocent victims by others. Then there is the invention of new harmful, potentially lethal spells, and teaching such spells to other DEs, thus resulting in injuries and deaths among their victims. I think the worst I have seen in fanfics is Mengele!Snape - Snape in his DE days using captives (mostly Muggles) to test properties of newly invented potions. Some scenarios get extremely gruesome, with a team of DEs at Snape's command cutting through a still living victim so that Snape could observe damage to internal organs as it took place.
So my question is, would knowing something like that change anything in your attitude to Severus Snape? Is his complete repentance enough for you as a reader to disregard anything, however cruel, he may have done in his dark period, or would the thought that this was a man who may have been capable of such horrors disturb you enough to feel you cannot forgive him completely? Do you think a man who had commited such actions is capable of abandoning them for good or would he always be at risk of backsliding?
IF I had not seen the POA movie (and immediately plunged into obsession with Severus) before reading any of the books, I might have been of the opinion that he was a right bastard, and he probably performed heinous acts up to his death.
IF all of the books had been written before any movies were produced, I might have fallen for JKR's deception and believed Snape was a cold-hearted Death Eater, only out to protect his interests.
IF I had not read 1000 times more words of fan fiction than in the original text, I might be inclined to agree that Snape was an evil git who deserved the torment he endured.
IF JKR had not tried so very hard to mislead us about Severus' true nature, if she had not shown so much contempt for him in interviews after each book was published, my fierce protection of Severus might not have developed. I guess her repeated prohibition against the slightest sympathy for Severus was the ultimate factor for my complete forgiveness for all that he may have done.
So, how could I ever believe that Severus even needed forgiveness, taking in my irrational obsession, my not too slight crush on Rickman!Snape, my hatred for the author's despicable treatment of Severus?
Ultimately, my view of Severus' nature/character is colored by so many things, not the least by his complete manipulation between three heartless masters (Voldemort, Dumbledore and JKR), that I could forgive him anything, and I would never accept that he might have performed horrible acts unless under threat of another person's death.
He more than made up for anything he did as a young Death Eater, he sacrificed his very life and soul as restitution. That is quite enough for me.
Are you saying that had he survived and eventually gone on to live a reasonably functional life you would have been less sympathetic with him or more critical regarding his past?
I think that a Snape who would personally commit horrific atrocities is not the same Snape who would not stand by and watch death if he could save the person -- even, in the case of trying to save Lupin, a person he disliked, at possible risk of his own life. I could explain in more depth, but I'll leave it at this: a Snape who personally commits serious atrocities is not the same personality as the Snape in canon.
But what if...? I wrote a story where Snape had done more evil as a Death Eater than I really thought he did, brewing a destructive potion and testing them with the same detachment our scientists use to test chemicals on animals. I quit a job because of the callous attitude towards life on the part of scientists I was working with... and, of course, their work was all in the name of saving lives. Yet, I don't hate any of those scientists. I don't admire or support them, but that is something else. I wrote Snape as the creator of a biochemical warfare-type potion partially to explore whether he could create something like that and be forgiven. In my story, he mouthed Manhattan Project-type justifications that would make his actions acceptable in war (this will serve the greater good in the long run, I'm not the one unleashing it on human populations) and in many scientific communities (I'm merely testing interesting concepts and expanding our knowledge), but my Snape never forgave himself, was never less than honest about his past, and always tried to mitigate the harm he might cause. He wasn't necessarily graceful to others in his actions, not forgiving of others' weaknesses, but I love the character with his flaws as well as his strengths.
I guess the larger meta question is, can one forgive a torturer? What of the soldiers at Guantanamo depriving prisoners of sleep, quiet, and warmth, playing mind games like Russian Roulette, beating and perhaps even water-boarding detainees? An individual asked to inflict these abuses may have the option to leave, although I know not at what cost. But if soldiers do not leave, should we not forgive them? This is a tremendously difficult question to answer, especially when soldiers do many horrendous things these days and are told it is part of their missions, or serves to make the world safer, or is just part of their job. I could give you my personal thinking on this subject, but it's quite complicated and here might not be the place.
In the end, Severus was trying to do what he felt was right, but he was a follower of men who routinely lied and abused others. Further, he accepted that he couldn't save everyone. (The only reason Harry saved everyone was because Rowling said he could, based on the lie Voldemort told.) Should Harry have taken himself out of the action and ultimately given up his life while others suffered? Should Severus have sat there and let Voldemort kill Charity Burbage? What would you have done?
I felt so bad for Snape in that scene. The requirement to follow Dumbledore's plan overrode all other considerations. Both Harry and Severus were following orders to the extreme, in Snape's case, possibly against his conscience (in terms of killing Dumbledore or watching others die). I think Harry's forgiveness of Snape partially grew out of their shared "following orders" situation. Of course, those orders were Dumbledore's. Did Harry forgive Draco for following Voldemort's orders?
In my story, he mouthed Manhattan Project-type justifications that would make his actions acceptable in war (this will serve the greater good in the long run, I'm not the one unleashing it on human populations) and in many scientific communities (I'm merely testing interesting concepts and expanding our knowledge), but my Snape never forgave himself, was never less than honest about his past, and always tried to mitigate the harm he might cause. He wasn't necessarily graceful to others in his actions, not forgiving of others' weaknesses, but I love the character with his flaws as well as his strengths.
I agree that one thing that makes Severus an interesting character is that he does not forgive himself easily, does not make up excuses or find the easy way out - and he holds others up to the same standard.
I felt so bad for Snape in that scene. The requirement to follow Dumbledore's plan overrode all other considerations. Both Harry and Severus were following orders to the extreme, in Snape's case, possibly against his conscience (in terms of killing Dumbledore or watching others die). I think Harry's forgiveness of Snape partially grew out of their shared "following orders" situation. Of course, those orders were Dumbledore's. Did Harry forgive Draco for following Voldemort's orders?
Harry and Severus were unique tools in Dumbleodre's arsenal. Because of Harry's fate as Voldemort's Horcrux and because of Severus' place as the only undercover agent in Voldemort's organisation and as the only surviving person who knew about Harry's being a Horcrux they were irreplaceable. This means that neither of them could be judged by what some other order member would have done in their place, for neither of them could have been in their place. While someone like Arthur or McGonagall may have jumped in a vain attempt to help Charity Burbage, neither of them was burdened with the knowledge of what their death may mean to the overall plan beyond the loss of yet another person to their side.
But why try to argue haltingly what terri_testing already wrote so beautifully. Please read her essay 'Death Eaters in the Seventies; Or 'What Were They Thinking':
http://terri-testing.livejournal.com/10
You will find that the DE were NOT a group of rampaging, murdering terrorists in the seventies. How many young DE's joined what they thought was a political group that represented their interests, and found out, like Regulus, the Malfoys and Karkaroff, that being Marked was not really a Good Idea, but one that was irreversable and put them on the Ministry's 'shoot first, ask questons never' list?
So to answer your question; I think we must all rethink our preconcieved notions. Who says that Snape (or the Malfoys for that matter) ever did anything violent during their seventies cloak and dagger stint? Voldemort never, during the seventies, poisoned wells or blew up public buildings (no DE on a broom with dungbombs strapped to his chest ever flew into the Houses of Parliament). The notion of 'Dark Revels' are straight from fanfiction and have no basis in canon.
But don't take my word for it.. Read terri's excellent essay and try to shake the Dumbledorian propaganda!
And don't get me started on dark revels... ugh.
Going to read that essay.
First war, part 1
We know there were disappearances in the first war, and we saw the inferi in the cave. Putting 2 and 2 together, I think this is where many of the disappeared ended up. The cave was ready for the placement of the Horcrux in the summer of 1979 (shortly before Regulus died) and was not visited by Voldemort since then until just before the battle of Hogwarts. We aren't told how many inferi were there but some 50 would be enough to create the effect we see in HBP. If those were killed between the time of Voldemort's return and 1979 that would be around 4 a year. From what we see of how the DEs opperated, I'd guess the DEs did the abductions, Voldemort did the killing and turning into inferi.
So here is my reconstructed history of the first war:
- Before the job interview: Dumbledore heard scary rumors about Voldemort's experimentation - these must have sprung from his experiments with curses to put on his Horcruxes, '101 things to do with an inferius' and his attempts to come up with the green potion he later used to protect the locket.
- As early as 1970 wizards were scared of Voldemort and the DEs, causing fear to say his name and multiple cases of elopement. The fear was probably triggered by marches of cloaked and masked DEs, combined with the occasional disappearance and political assassination (mostly of people known to be aligned personally with Dumbledore), only a handful of deaths per year.
- Later in the war the Ministry was in disarray, leading to the policy of allowing Aurors to use Unforgivables on suspects. I suspect much of the disarray was caused by the extra workload for the Magic Reversal squads and Obliviators who had to take care of DE marches in Muggle streets combined with Muggle baiting as well as the occasional giant rampage. Another element was the accumulation of unsolved disappearances and the effect of targeted assassinations. It is possible Voldemort stepped up the attacks after he was more secure in the success of his plans for immortality, which would be after he placed the locket in the cave (and perhaps also developed the formula for his re-embodiment potion). I think it is obvious that to Voldemort ensuring his immortality came before the political goals of his supporters.
First War, part 2
The way I see it the war only really stepped up after the summer of 1979, by which time Severus had already joined and Regulus joined and died.
Seriously, talk about committing atrocities all you want and I'm fine, mention him harboring a deep, unrequited love for Potter's mother, and I'm looking for somewhere to be sick.
I think the dark side of his character is what makes him such an interesting character, one that is worthy of all the praise and defence by fans. If he had truly done nothing wrong, either because he hadn't been a DE, or even though he was a DE, I wouldn't have found such an interest in him. That he has done evil, and turned his back on it to do good, is what is so interesting. Alternately, if he had done evil, and hadn't gone through the torment and self-sacrifice, if JKR hadn't heaped such loads of shit on him, would we love him as much?
If JKR and most of the wizarding world and a great number of the fans didn't completely hate him, would we defend him as fiercely? Maybe not. And they wouldn't hate him if he hadn't done awful things. Therefore, the argument could be made that he wouldn't be as well-loved if he hadn't done awful things. All right, it's not an air tight argument, but it's something to think about.
I noticed another comment that mentioned soldiers torturing prisoners of war, and questioned forgiving those people - it's not black and white. I've known a former soldier who tortured because of direct orders, and I liked him as a person, but in private I did feel a bit guilty about being his friend, because I don't personally condone torture.
But that's the nice thing about Severus - he isn't real. Death Eaters aren't real, that war didn't happen. It's a lot easier for me to like Severus - and indeed, prefer the dark, evil characters in JKR's world, because they aren't real. I could never admire a real-life Voldemort or any evil tyrant responsible for the deaths of many people like him, and I definitely wouldn't call them cool. But I think Voldemort is cool.
I've seen a lot of fans through their fanfic try to explain away his years spent with the DEs, or make light of what he did, or make him secretly enjoy petting kittens. They try to add in ways to make him a more likeable person, but I will remain a great admirer of Severus Snape's evil side.
However Calvinist JKR's attitude to salvation, Christianity does recognise repentance and grants absolution.
This is a man who has changed. We aren't God, to evaluate that change properly, but shouldn't we give Snape credit for whatever that change involves? Goodness knows other people in the series did - and do - horrible things, and they get something like a free pass from many readers (starting with Dumbledore).
Fanfic is of course free to elaborate on both aspects of his actions as a DE, real or pretend. Snape's actions in canon in DH, however - especially in regard to protecting the students as far as he can, even when they do damn-fool things that must have him rolling his eyes, if not raising them to heaven in despair - suggest that he is prepared to take considerable risks, in a time of great peril, and lacking any support system, in pursuit of what he now believes, and has long believed, to be right.
Surely that persistence suggests that he will not, at the least, backslide?
/gets off moral high horse
How much I would be willing to forgive would depend on the degree and motivation behind the acts. I truly believe that Snape committed not only murder, but some truly heinous acts during the time he spent at the service of the Dark Lord, and quite possibly while he was spying for the Order. I base this on the fact that both Draco and Bella refer to Snape as Voldemort's favorite, and in the scene at the Astronomy Tower just before Dumbledore is killed, the other DE's seem afraid of Snape when he shows up. I mean, how vicious/dangerous do you have to be before DE's start being afraid of you, especially when they outnumber you four to one? And I don't think Snape earned so much favor from Voldemort by baking him cookies – he had to be doing something to earn this favor/trust, and it probably wasn't something pleasant.
So if you tell me that Snape killed/tortured a few people in order to keep his cover as a spy and consequently save thousands of lives; that I could forgive. If you tell me that in his misguided youth he killed or participated in someone's torture in order to be accepted by the other DE's, but later saw the errors of his ways and repented; yes, I can forgive that too.
But your example is pretty extreme. Someone who can do something like what you describe for no other purpose than scientific curiosity and feel nothing while he is doing it has to by definition have a sociopathic personality, and sociopaths don't change or repent; they don't suddenly grow a conscience – any person with a degree in psychology can vouch for that.
So if Snape ever went that far, then his whole repentance and everything good he did after would have to be a sham, and then we wouldn't even be talking about the same character since there's no evidence in canon that Snape wasn't really remorseful for whatever bad acts he might have committed and that he pretended to repent as part of some hidden agenda.
So I guess I'm willing to forgive a lot, within the boundaries of sane, pathologically normal, credible behavior.
Another point to ponder is exactly when these misdeeds occur. Did they occur when Snape was serving Voldemort of his free will, or when Snape was spying for Dumbledore? I'm sure that Snape was ordered to do horrible things, but Dumbledore might have ordered him to do worse (or these worse events might have occurred as an end result of his spying). For example, Snape had to stand by as Burbage was killed. That has to be hard to live with. Snape also had to murder Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders. Dumbledore says that Snape's soul might not be damaged if he views it as helping an old man, but such a violent act surely would not leave him unscathed. Severus would have to be devious and ruthless in order to maintain his cover.
In review, I would be more lenient toward Snape if he did something because he needed the DE's protection and respect, rather than because he enjoyed it. I would be even more lenient if he had to do evil in the name of the Order. I always viewed it like this: though others risked their lives for the Order, they didn't have to lead two separate lives. Snape did the Order's dirty work and got no thanks.
His love for the dark arts wasn't a huge plus, but it's also understandable. Since he arrived at Hogwarts with a knowledge of dark arts, his mother must have taught him, or he learned on his own. Dark Arts made him feel powerful and protected in uncertain times. I don't buy DD's supposed excuse for keeping Snape from the DADA position, because Snape has to perform dark arts for Voldemort. Snape would likely not be demonstrating dark arts, so who better for the job? It's like a former thief teaching how to protect your home.
He arrived at Hogwarts with a knowledge of some curses, and this is according to Sirius, so should be taken with grain of salt.
He does say it closely after claiming that Severus was "famous for" being "fascinated by the Dark Arts" (although note that "fascinated by" is not the same as having real knowledge of, nor practicing for their own sake), but it's a separate sentence, and he also takes time to call Severus a "slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid" in between them, so there's some conceptual distance between these utterances as well.
The rest of the sentence in question is saying, essentially, that he was precocious: "more curses ... than half the kids in seventh year", if Sirius is correct and not just exaggerating. A lot of things call this claim into question: How did he know what seventh-years did or did not know? Is he comparing it to what he himself knew at that point? How did he know what Severus did or did not know "when he arrived at school", i.e., when they'd barely met? Unless there's a scene we didn't see where Severus rattled a bunch of stuff off or there was a fight that sounds like it would have been rather one-sided, Sirius has to be assuming based on some later experience (or perhaps just repeating rumour).
Anyway, overall it is not clear that he is claiming the curses were Dark, and even if he is, we don't know that he would be correct to say so. Exactly what constitutes "Dark Arts" is very ill-defined in canon.
Note I'm not saying Severus did not know and practice Dark Arts at any point. He must have, to have been the expert in residence for such situations as the curse on Katie Bell and whatnot. I just think think that he was barely getting started during school, and it was more an intense interest than anything else -- a fan, if you will, rather than a genuinely Dark wizard.
No.
or would the thought that this was a man who may have been capable of such horrors disturb you enough to feel you cannot forgive him completely?
No.
Do you think a man who had commited such actions is capable of abandoning them for good or would he always be at risk of backsliding?
The latter.
Now, having said that... The issue to me is not which horrors he actually committed. I've said before, and I know some disagree with me, that the Death Eaters were a terrorist organization. I've read some of the fanfics you describe and, while I don't necessarily believe the worst of them (which I think are just bizarre), I do think that Snape was more culpable than just a needy teenager who fell with the wrong crowd but never did anything wrong himself. Snape may not have realized exactly what he was getting into, but you can bet he thought it was more than tea and strawberries at Wimbledon.
But for me, the path to forgiveness is a 3-step process: 1. recognizing that some action is wrong; 2. acknowledging that you did wrong and accepting responsibility for your own actions; and 3. taking affirmative steps not only to right your wrongs, but to change yourself so that you do not do wrong in the future.
I am able to forgive canon Snape just about anything, not because he repented, but because he repented and strove to put those things behind himself and become a person who would not do those things again. Throughout the series, we saw instances of Snape's having done that. After the Harry-Draco Sectumsempra incident, I think we also saw Snape's hamhanded and overbearing (and therefore totally ineffective) attempt to get Harry to see that about Harry. DH hit us over the head with the fact that Snape had changed himself.
The question of just how much he changed, or how far a journey he had to get there, is to me what your question raises. Yet his starting point is not the deciding factor; it's the ending point that matters. And we saw his ending point and know that he traveled however far it was necessary to go.
Some will disagree because he was "mean" to Harry or a "bad teacher" or a "mean teacher". I just don't buy that. First, the equivalence Rowling wants us to draw between "nice" and "good" is a load of hooey, to put it politely. Second, Snape just was not that bad. Reading back through the books, there are so many places where Snape could have been completely and totally horrible, and yet was not. For all the whining about how terrible Snape was to Harry, remember that this is the teacher who stood there and did not discipline Harry for repeatedly screaming "shut up!" at him. How mean, huh?!
Oh, don't get me *started*!
This seems to be an American thing... I've heard so many American fans squeal 'but he's meaaan! He calls Harry/Neville *naaaames*!', and really, I can't understand that. Here, in the following sketch by Rowan Atkinson he portrays an acerbic teacher, a very recognisable, almost cliche character, especially to those above 30. Teachers like this were a dime a dozen in the seventies, and were considered *normal*.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiWJWLCo
(if you want to see a more, ahem, smutty version of this, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seEGwx2t
ahem *looks furtively around*)
I cannot accept what you call Mengele!Snape; any kind of this is unforgivable to me, but it's so out of character for the Severus I've seen in the books that I've refuse reading any fanfic with this sort of thing. I've been certainly fed an overdose of the Viking honour thing to respect anyone who did the same thing as Karkaroff for simply saving their own sorry hide, but that's also completely out of character for Severus. In real life I never got along with those who were in denial of what happened or claimed the Muggle version of Imperious curse 'only followed orders'. As a teenager I shared Barty Crouch's attitude about Death Eaters who walked free, not just because I thought they deserved punishment for their crimes, but also because I thought, if they really believed in what they did, they should hold on to their own standards and admit it. I once met with the man who set fire to the synagoge in my birth town with a 12 year old boy inside. I was about 6 and refused to shake his hand, courtsey or speak one word to this man. My family was quite annoyed about my lack of manners. Killing children outside combat sitiuations seems unforgivable, too. The man also got away without imprisonment by denying any involvement, so it's probably the cowardice as much as the crime itself which disgusts me.
I also have a problem with the seemingly unavoidable conclusion that a Death Eater must have done some atrocities. I remember a high SA member, my husband's grandfather, the commander of a slave workers camp who was put to trial and acquitted 3 times, because his former prisoners testified that he never did torture or kill anyone and tried everything to provide for them. I've read the files. He was a firm believer in the Nazi ideology, but killing and torture for him was no part of it. He was one of those who later did their best to prepare the young ones against making the same mistakes he had made.
The only things I cannot forgive are those for which I can honestly say I wouldn't have been tempted to do them in the same situation. I can't imagine Severus doing anything like that; I never could.
I hope I have not offended anyone with this post. I'm not excusing anything, but I had the rare opportunity to hear the lies and the confessions first hand. The maternal side of my family were in the socialist resistance, my grandfather imprisoned by the GESTAPO. I heard their side of the story, too.
I'll make it short.
"And my soul, Dumbledore, mine?" says it all, IMO. That was a desperate and honest. A murderer and cruel torturer would not have said this, because his soul would have been ripped already. Severus is concerned about his soul, even though he isn't asked to committ cold-blooded murder but more a kind of assisted suicide.
Bellatrix mocks Severus in the 'Spinner's End' chapter about being cowardly and always hiding under Dumbledore's protection. That doesn't look like a cruel torturer to me either. I think that Severus did just that, once he realized that being a DE was wrong: use Dumbledore as an excuse not to have to commit atrocities.
Severus watched Burbage die and did nothing. Yes. If he had tried anything, he would have died, too, as others have pointed out, and risked his mission, and Harry's. I think that is most of his crime and tragedy: that he had to watch and could do nothing. I think this scene was there to show a contrast to our hero Harry who saved these Muggleborns in the Ministry despite being in grave danger. Yes, but at that point Harry didn't know yet that he was a Horcrux. And the whole scene is so strange anyway that it is hard to analyse it. The invading DE are just as stupid, or more so, than Ministry staff. Neither protects themselves against Imperio or Polyjuice. Sigh… How can you analyse something in all seriousness that was plotted so carelessly? ~despairs~
Why were the other DE afraid of him? Perhaps because he didn't belong to any of their groups and had Voldemort's trust? Perhaps because he managed to be just as menacing to them as he was to Harry and the students, or most likely more so? The conversation with Bellatrix and Narcissa is very telling, IMO. A series of veiled threats, mocking and lying by telling the truth. If only DH had followed up on that, I loved that chapter.
How much would I forgive? I don't know. I always found it one of the most admiring characteristics of Sev to turn his back on the DE and spy… I admire people like that. However, there's a difference between people who pretend to turn last minute and those who turn because they realize the error of their ways.
I, too, grew up in Germany and had relatives and acquaintances who claimed they 'didn't know anything' or said about Hitler: 'it was wrong what he did with the Jews, but he gave people work'. I don't know how I would have reacted in those time, I'm not a brave person. I admire everyone who is, and stands up.
I don't think I could really forgive someone who enjoys killing and torturing. I might forgive standing by and doing nothing. It much depends on the circumstances, in real life just as much as in fiction.
It would be difficult to forgive someone who enjoyed torturing and killing. I really don't think that canon-Snape would have enjoyed killing even if he'd been forced to do it as a DE. I can forgive a remorseful Snape, partially because, as others have said, of his miserable and possibly abusive childhood. Maybe it would be harder to sympathize with someone like James, who appears to have had every advantage. I honestly don't think that (canon) Snape is in danger of backsliding, after everything we've seen of him, and his "Lately, only those whom I could not save" statement.
I can't really picture this hypothetical torturer-Snape, which maybe is an indication that it's something I could not forgive.
Slightly OT but I've been thinking a lot about Japanese detective dramas, and how there's an emphasis on redemption over revenge in them. The police often convince the criminal to voluntarily turn himself/herself in, and they say something like, "Serve your time, and then start over again." I think with Snape I can forgive him because he is both remorseful and more importantly, he is working to make up for his past wrongs.
Of course, it's easy for me to forgive Snape, since he's a fictional character who hasn't done anything to me. If I were a friend or relative of someone that he hurt (or failed to save, such as Charity Burbage), maybe I wouldn't find it so easy to forgive, even if I believed that he was sincerely remorseful. To quote another of my Japanese shows (this one a samurai drama), "One can still feel hate even if the head understands the reasons."
Getting back to Severus, I knew, at least from the fourth book, that he had been a Death Eater. I assumed he must have done terrible things, but that he was truly repentant. That was why I loved the character. To change one's path in life takes courage and resolution; to do so with as little support as Severus got (as we now know after DH) is truly heroic.
But it is also true that the character, as written, is not particularly sadistic (no mater what JKR says) and definitely not a Mengele type. At the end of HBP, I was certain he had killed, but thought he'd killed other Death Eaters - which was why the four on the tower were so afraid of him. After DH, I am not sure he ever killed anyone directly.
So, the short answer is that, though I might struggle to forgive Severus if I knew, for example, that he had tortured innocent children (and no, he did *not* do this in the classroom!), if he remained the brave, sensitive and repentant character he was written as, I think I would still love him in spite of his dark side. And yes, of course there would be a danger of his backsliding. There is for all of us. We are all human, and all imperfect. But I think that there would be rather less danger of his backsliding than of Dumbledore or Harry doing so, because he had acknowledged his own sinfulness in ways they had not.
Just my two cents.