#hbo Severus snape

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

Waking up to the news that JKR is going to try to distract from her transphobia by trying to use POC as a sheild to curry favor with the American left is not the take away I was expecting today. It’s not hard to see why she would do this. The show runners have already had to defend her, and this is an easy way to deflect criticism by claiming anyone who disagrees with JKR or this casting is just racist, instead of a nuanced disscussion of class dynamics and race we will get a ham fisted attempt to salvage JKR reputation and cover up the years of cruelty she has inflicted recently on the LGBT community. Please don’t let this slide. I get that we all interact with this media, and that in itself is a controversial risk, but for the love of all that’s holy do not let JKR FOOL YOU into sweeping all her transgressions under the rug because she is casting people in a “diverse” role.

Besides this while Hermione’s race isn’t specified in the books, Severus Snape’s is, and it is really an important aspect of the character since his appearance is referenced unkindly through the series. If they had wanted to race swap him as many have done in this fandom an Asian actor or Pakistani actor could be a good choice. There are other reasons but I won’t go into them here as it isn’t the main point.

Just don’t give JKR a pass on the transphobia because she is definitely trying to distract from it with these choices.

[maxdibert]

I've seen a James Potter fan complain about the possibility of Severus being black in the HBO series, not for canon reasons or anything like that, but because, literally, they say: IT'S A PLOT TO MAKE JAMES LOOK LIKE A RACIST. I mean, my dear Marauders stans, if thinking of Snape as a racialized person immediately makes you realize how problematic the attitudes of your beloved privileged bullies were, why can’t you understand that they’re just as problematic with him being white, because on top of that, he was a boy from a VERY LOW SOCIAL CLASS WITH ZERO SOCIAL OR FAMILY RESOURCES??? I mean, you’re seeing it clearly—if you didn’t imagine Severus as white, you’d clearly see that there’s a problem that goes beyond him being from Slytherin, his connection to Lily, or him ending up in the DE. You’re literally saying it yourselves. Honestly, these people must have bought their brains on AliExpress.

[sonoroquiescing]

casting a black man as Snape would be fine if the show were able to handle what that means for the series. however, doing so would establish that a black man is: 1) the first season’s main antagonist and abusive to harry for the entire series, 2) canonically made fun of for his nose and hair, 3) tormented for fun by james and sirius, and 4) as an actor, going to receive an unprecedented amount of vitriol from the most disgusting sect of a fandom already led by a proudly bigoted author. i don’t care that HBO is largely responsible for the last two decades of prestige television. they are not equipped to handle such a complex addition to the story or defend the actor who will inevitably face the worst of the backlash

[isroji]

Hear me out: David Dastmalchian as Severus Snape.

Please see my vision. This man as Severus Snape.

I can't be the only that see it! Please, cast this man as Severus Snape! He matches the physic, the age and David is such a great and talented actor. Also, David is well known for his gothic and dark style. Also, his story as actor and person would make him empathize with Snape character so fucking much. Please, please, see my vision.

[kruzbr]

Nap Time

[iambingegod]

I think this is a TERRIBLE idea, but what’re your thoughts?

[mermaid886]

Ok, 2 more posts then I’ll stop for awhile, I promise. Since I’ve seen more than one person trying to argue that Snape was always meant to be black in the books, I’m going to drop this reminder of who JKR based the character with “pale skin the color of sour milk” on.

[theflikchic]

There's too many problems here with Snape's alleged new casting.

1) Too handsome

2) Black people are often considered ugly so if they do nothing with his face and the characters still mock his appearance, that's racism. Full stop.

3) Snape is impoverished and while Black peoples being impoverished is common, it's a stereotype.

4) Snape's father is canonically abusive. Yet another harmful stereotype added if Snape is Black.

5) Black men specifically are also seen as predatory so the whole "Snape is obsessed with Lily" perspective from the fandom will get a whole lot worse. Especially since Lily is a pretty, white, ginger girl? Mmm??

Colourblind casting does not work. They have not thought this through and risk making him into a racial caricature. My problem is not that Snape is being played by a POC. I think you could totally do it! The problem is...everything I just said. This solidifies my point that JKR doesn't care about her series anymore, just the power that comes with having it. I have no beef whatsoever with the actor, I'm sure he's amazing. But I worry now how the fandom AND series will now treat him and the character. A lot of racism is about to get exposed in this fandom.

[thistuesdaynight]

I saw some fanart of Paspa Essiedu as Severus with the canon typical long, straight hair.

(I'm not gonna reblog bc I don't want to send any haters to that person's art) but it exemplifies the reason that I can't trust Hollywood with race swapped characters.

If they do end up casting a black severus snape and he has straight hair.....

I think I might actually just keel over and die atp

It would be like what they did to Jamie Foxx in The Amazing Spiderman 2. They gave that man a comb over. A fucking COMB OVER.

Most people don't know how black hair works, which makes sense, bc most people have never HAD to know. But lemme tell you: It's a lot of fucking work to maintain straight hair as a black person.

Are you telling me Severus Snape goes to the salon every 2 weeks to get a silk press??

He wraps his hair in a satin scarf every night to keep it from kinking up?

Did he get a fucking weave?

Did he get a relaxer?

He owns a straightening iron to do touch ups if his hair gets frizzy?

He refuses to go out in the rain bc it would ruin his hair?

And alright, some of you might say: they're wizards, so maybe there are spells/potions for that. But then I ask why would he use them??? There is simply NO WAY that Severus Snape grew up straightening his hair like that. And are we going to explore the implications of internalized racism and assimilation inherent in charming your hair straight every day?? Especially when that is a hairstyle that black men RARELY have.

The reason why women do it in this world is multi layered: white beauty standards, easy maintenance with a trip to the salon every couple weeks, and internalized beliefs that our hair is unkempt, wily, and too difficult to care for. Some people do just like the style, though.

And which reason, pray tell, would be Severus Snape's???? I would need a whole episode just to explain that choice alone, bc it's just too big a change to his character.

I would hope that Hollywood would have more sense than to give him straight hair, but.... frankly I can't trust them.

[72crowe89]

Reactions to Reactions to Snape's possible casting

The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Ghanaian-British Actor Paapa Essiedu is being looked at to play the role of Severus Snape for the upcoming Harry Potter show. Here are some of the reactions I've seen of the news from, imho, worst to best, and my reactions to them.

Now, because it needs to be said, every opinion is valid. Even if I respect many opinions and roll my eyes at others, I 100% believe that everyone has the right to feel about this news anyway they want and to express that publicly, as long as they are not harassing either anyone with different opinions or, especially, anyone connected to the production of the TV show because of it.

And now to my reactions:

I don't want a Black Snape because Snape shouldn't be Black: Thank you, next

I don't want a Black Snape because Snape has a specific description in the book that doesn't work with a Black actor: Fair, but Neville was blond in the book, but no one cared that Matthew Lewis wasn't. Daniel Radcliffe famously did not have Harry's iconic black hair and green eyes, but after some grumbling people overall accepted it because Radcliffe embodied Harry's character. Umbridge looked like a frog in the book, but Imelda Staunton's grandmotherly appearance, imho, made Umbridge's actions even more horrific than an actress with a book-accurate appearance. For me, I don't care about changes to a character's appearance as long as they embody that character's personality.

I don't want a Black Snape because a book-accurate Black Snape would be a Black man bullying a White child (because Harry not being White will open up a bigger can of worms) due to lusting after his White mother: Yes. One of the downsides of race lifting characters is that many productions don't consider the nuances in putting a racial minority in a certain role, especially one originally held by a White person, has on the story. This production is going to have to balance book accuracy with the image of a Black man who's main motivation is a White woman who ultimately chose his rich White bully, all the while bullying a White child. Same story, but there are racial politics that weren't there before.

I don't want a Black Snape because any Black actor playing Snape will be harassed to hell and back: I definitely agree with this. I haven't seen Paapa Essiedu in anything else, but I've heard that he's a good actor. It won't matter, however, how talented either he or any other POC actor they consider for Snape is. At best, people just won't get attached to their portrayal because it's too different from the Snape they know. At worst, it will leave them prey to all of the virulent racists who need a new target.

There is no Snape but Alan Rickman: 1000%, which is the real crutch of the matter. The Harry Potter movies are just as iconic as the books, so much so that people sometimes mistake things that were movie exclusive as things that were also true about the book (e.g. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were both coed in the books rather than one-gendered schools as they are in the movie). Similarly, the cast of those movies were just as iconic. Daniel Radcliffe will always be Harry Potter, Maggie Smith will always be Minerva McGonagall, and Alan Rickman will always be Severus Snape. Rickman's tour-de-force as Snape is so entrenched in the minds of many fans that his portrayal of Snape as a stern but completely over it teacher overshadows the petty and casually cruel Snape from the books. To ask any actor to fill Rickman's shoes in this role is a tall order, taller still for any actor of color, even taller still if the meaner book version of Snape is the one they're aiming for.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Not gonna lie, quite telling how when it comes to making the characters diverse (aka the only appeal they got for this reboot as everything else about it isn't appealing) for the Harry Potter reboot, the only confirmed one we got so far is the role of Snape being offered to Paapa Essiedu....because out of all characters to make diverse, its the abusive incel who literally joined the bad guys obsessed with making the wizard world pure blooded at one point and went by 'the half blood prince' and only stopped being a member of the bad guys obsessed with making the wizard world pure blooded....because the girl he's still obsessed with years after school was on the killing block and ended up on said killing block because she refused to let Voldermort kill her son, who Snape was fine with dying alongside her husband and only asked for her to be spared. Just....that's certainly a fucking choice by the reboot/HBO and JK Rowling.

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

Gotta Get This off my Chest

Severus Snape & HBO Series

Alright first off, I know you are generally expecting well thought out essays from me but here I’m going to Ramble Freeform. You’ve been warned.

I don’t know how I feel at all about another actor attempting to play Severus Snape. JK Rowling is the main producer and honestly this worries me a lot considering the amount of hatred she has for LGBTQ people and the amount of hatred Severus has gotten in the last years. This space is bad sometimes but generally we have a fantastic community of people in this snapedom who love the character as he is written positives and negatives. I for one liked Snape from the first book I read and the first movie I watched.

I’ll be the first to admit that my image of him is very much wrapped up in Alan Rickman, and tho I greatly respect other peoples images of snape and I love the fan art they make, the thing that made Alan such an amazing character actor for the part was the unabashed love he had for the character. Look at any interview of him about Severus and you will see that he went to bat for him at every turn. What if we we are given someone who sees Snape through the eyes of the marauders fandom? What if they erase all of Snapes goodness or heaven forbid write extra scenes of cruelty to Lily that didn’t exist, or have him creep over her, or physically attack her, or characterize him as the aggressor with James when we all know it was the other way around? These kinds of fears keep me from being excited about the new series and instead leave me anxious.

For one thing, I wish they had focused more on a different period of wizard history, or a different part of the 1st wizarding war or even marauders/young Severus era, because there is so much to explore. I would have liked to explore story lines that really could use more fleshing out, and if JK Rowling is going to be a part of this she could have easily written new passages or short stories to suit this new narrative. I also worry about the fact that yet again because she is a producer there will certainly be no LGBTQ characters in the narrative and that’s a waste to me. We already have a fantastic interpretation of the books, and if they are doing a redo why not cast people of color or trans or any LGBT characters in the mix? It will be the same story just perhaps fleshed out more? I’m not sure what this series will bring to the table that the movies did not unless they radically change some things.

Yet, with this interpretation we may see many thing in the series that we don’t see in the books. Severus has two big scenes at the end of POA and GOF that were totally left out of the movies, and if this was left in and the “prank” was explored more in depth we could get to see an even more complex narrative than Alan was allowed to portray in the movies (largely due to directorial choices).

Severus as we all know is a complex character that can be different or difficult to understand without a trauma informed lense and the last thing I want is for them to shove him into a gross stereotype, or give him attributes that don’t exist in the books in order to cater to certain fandoms. I’m genuinely worried about the prospect of this. I also don’t want our fandom safe spaces that we’ve spent years curating to be over run with Snape hate again just because of the series. I could be being pessimistic. It’s just been on my mind lately.

No hard feelings it’s just…Severus Snape is my comfort character and I don’t want the idea of it ruined by people who don’t really understand him or who wouldn’t bat for him the way Alan did. Please understand me. Does anyone else have mixed feelings this way?

[maxdibert]

People are completely freaking out about the news that the role of Snape in the new HBO show has reportedly been offered to a Black British actor (who is talented, but really good looking. Not going to be remotely believable that he’s unpopular)

There are a million ways that could go very very very wrong, but it does at least imply that the showrunners understand that the magical world’s axes of discrimination is not equivalent to an American audience’s understanding of racism. And that Snape wasn’t a racist incel, but an outsider briefly radicalised by a life of abuse and othering. And that the Marauders weren’t committed anti-racist activists when they strung him up by the ankles. And that they’re not prepared to acquiesce to the average TikToker’s understanding of his story. Ironically, it’s made me a tiny bit interested in a retelling I expected to care nothing for.

Honestly, I’m quite picky about Snape’s physical appearance because it’s something essential, relevant, and deeply defining for the character—something that’s constantly emphasized throughout the series. I’m not convinced at all by that actor. I’m always in favor of representation, but it has to make sense. They could have cast an Asian actor, for example, who, with the right nose, would perfectly match his physical traits without needing to stick to the white Western canon. Pick someone from Korea, Japan, or a Chinese actor. They would fit his physical description perfectly while maintaining the canon and achieving inclusion at the same time.

[thosearefuckingonions]

The Harry Potter tv reboot is nothing more than a cash grab for a dying company and a shitty author and you’re all blinded by nostalgia. Oh and we already have a book accurate cast, so let them go balls to walls with diverse casting since you all can’t live without peeves the poltergeist and missing scenes.

**it’s not normal to have TWO adaptations when the books and movies are barely thirty years old.

[what-ami]

So I've been seeing stuff about Harry Potter remakes around and I just recently saw an article about casting choices for actors. I really hope that Snape is portrayed much more accurately to the books. I honestly believe the only reason Snape had any sort of charm was because of the late Alan Rickman. I really really hope people can see him for the true creepy asshole he is.

[xeyesofstardust]

I just heard about the casting for the new Harry Potter HBO series and that Snape got cast and a lot of people are upset about it.

Me, personally, I don’t care if he is accurate to the books in appearance. I mean I adore Alan Rickman as Snape and he was too old to be book accurate. So needless to say I don’t care about physical accuracy.

I want Severus Snape to be as moody and dramatic as the Phantom of the Opera.

I see some major cape twirling.