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[snipped me saying I understood why she didn't post to Tumblr or whatever, and asking permission to post on Snapedom. you can see my review here amongst the others, which may themselves prove interesting reading.]
It is already apparent that Severus is not just another blonde surfer, grabbing his board and heading to the black-lake.
Although surfing Snape as a general image is hi-LARious. (My own personal favorite totally silly Muggle thing to cast him in, especially as a young man, is either torn Sex Pistols shirt and spikes kind of punk, or something more modern in the darkwave/goth/emo spectrum - with that long black hair hanging down over his face as he plays the electric bass. RAWR.)
I'll mostly skip the gushing over Alan Rickman because while I agree he's a good actor and I like his delivery speaking as Severus, he kind of lost it for me visually past the first couple of films (which were borderline to begin with). I don't find him very personally attractive out of the Snape getup, although he was definitely handsome in his youth (e.g. Barchester Chronicles) - it's just that I tend to go for "pretty" rather than "handsome".
It is common knowledge to all those who read the books that Severus dabbled strongly in the Dark Arts. Is that a terrible thing? Of course it is, and yes he should be blamed.
Well now, it depends on your definition of "Dark Arts", and even within the books it's not consistent! But I do think he probably did some rather distasteful, even nasty things. But then there is a kind of "good dark", in the real world anyway - a darkness which is perhaps frightening, definitely mysterious, and possible to let out of control, but which is not inherently degrading, destructive, malicious... Again, think goth, or other macabre things. Death is death; it's not evil in itself. etc.
He killed, tortured and more
We don't know this. That Severus seems rather struck by Dumbledore's accusation even about how many people he has watched die suggests that that is primarily what he did - not murdered them himself. The Death Eaters amount basically to a terrorist organization and it's definitely possible he did awful things - I doubt if he was squeamish when he joined up and hoped to do a desk job and keep his hands clean! But we can't assume that he necessarily committed this or that atrocity that people's brains seem to attach to all the Death Eaters. (My jury is out on whether he viewed such things as necessary evils or otherwise rationalized them, or whether he was bitter and angry enough by the point of ca. 18-19 years old that his streak for needling people and petty vengeance might have deepened to taking some true joy in the opportunity to cause real harm to those he despises - but I imagine in either case he would have convinced himself that what he was doing was just, rather than having a penchant for random cruelty like Bellatrix.)
Snape went through (probable) hell through his childhood, and was bullied at Hogwarts by the erm, 'good guy'. It can be argued that Harry didn't turn to the dark side, and he had a terrible life.
And Voldemort had a similar bad childhood and came out an evil psychopath. There's a lot of narrative links between Tom Riddle, Severus Snape, and Harry Potter, which sometimes comes out as a spectrum dark to light, and other times as a triangle. (You have probably seen the images making the rounds which map them to the Three Brothers?)
(continued in next comment)
It is already apparent that Severus is not just another blonde surfer, grabbing his board and heading to the black-lake.
Although surfing Snape as a general image is hi-LARious. (My own personal favorite totally silly Muggle thing to cast him in, especially as a young man, is either torn Sex Pistols shirt and spikes kind of punk, or something more modern in the darkwave/goth/emo spectrum - with that long black hair hanging down over his face as he plays the electric bass. RAWR.)
I'll mostly skip the gushing over Alan Rickman because while I agree he's a good actor and I like his delivery speaking as Severus, he kind of lost it for me visually past the first couple of films (which were borderline to begin with). I don't find him very personally attractive out of the Snape getup, although he was definitely handsome in his youth (e.g. Barchester Chronicles) - it's just that I tend to go for "pretty" rather than "handsome".
It is common knowledge to all those who read the books that Severus dabbled strongly in the Dark Arts. Is that a terrible thing? Of course it is, and yes he should be blamed.
Well now, it depends on your definition of "Dark Arts", and even within the books it's not consistent! But I do think he probably did some rather distasteful, even nasty things. But then there is a kind of "good dark", in the real world anyway - a darkness which is perhaps frightening, definitely mysterious, and possible to let out of control, but which is not inherently degrading, destructive, malicious... Again, think goth, or other macabre things. Death is death; it's not evil in itself. etc.
He killed, tortured and more
We don't know this. That Severus seems rather struck by Dumbledore's accusation even about how many people he has watched die suggests that that is primarily what he did - not murdered them himself. The Death Eaters amount basically to a terrorist organization and it's definitely possible he did awful things - I doubt if he was squeamish when he joined up and hoped to do a desk job and keep his hands clean! But we can't assume that he necessarily committed this or that atrocity that people's brains seem to attach to all the Death Eaters. (My jury is out on whether he viewed such things as necessary evils or otherwise rationalized them, or whether he was bitter and angry enough by the point of ca. 18-19 years old that his streak for needling people and petty vengeance might have deepened to taking some true joy in the opportunity to cause real harm to those he despises - but I imagine in either case he would have convinced himself that what he was doing was just, rather than having a penchant for random cruelty like Bellatrix.)
Snape went through (probable) hell through his childhood, and was bullied at Hogwarts by the erm, 'good guy'. It can be argued that Harry didn't turn to the dark side, and he had a terrible life.
And Voldemort had a similar bad childhood and came out an evil psychopath. There's a lot of narrative links between Tom Riddle, Severus Snape, and Harry Potter, which sometimes comes out as a spectrum dark to light, and other times as a triangle. (You have probably seen the images making the rounds which map them to the Three Brothers?)
(continued in next comment)