Is Snape Good or Bad?

I've created this thread to coincide with the main sites new poll, Is Snape Good or Bad?

I personally still have faith in him, my trust in Dumbledore's judgment is to strong to just give up on.

Paul i agree with you. I mean it just doesn't seem right for Dumbledore to be wrong in such a huge way.

Alright, first off, I can't spell dumbledore's name, so i'm giving it my best shot, now to continue....


I truthfully don't know on this one. Although, I have my theories that say he's evil purty good. Here's what I think. Yeah it's not like dumbledore to make such a big mistake, but maybe he knew what he was doing. Maybe he saw his death as an oportunity to bring the school together, prepare all, on the good side, for battle. It was the last straw for Harry, we could see that easily. It looks to me like dumbledore had one last trick in that magic hat.

Now, this part is not easily argued because truthfully, I feel this would be a stupid way to teach a lesson, especially with so much at stake. But I suppose this works in my favor. Dumbldore may also have done this to teach harry a lesson. In the spider man movie that just came out, aunt may said "Revenge is like a poison, It can take us over and turn us into something ugly." Perhaps Harry still has that lesson to learn. We see in the series he's constantly seeking to kill those who have hurt him and people close to him. Maybe dumbledore's death plays an important part in learning that lesson. And maybe the dear old headmaster knew that.

Last but not least a simple answer, If I were snape, I would rather die myself than follow dumbledore's orders to kill him. Seriously...not kidding. I wouldn't care what stupid vow I made to the malfoys! Dumbledore did not deserve to die and snape should have known that.

Therefore, I propose that Dumbledore knew that he would be brought down by snape and knew he was evil and used that to an advantage. Planning it previously. Also, I propose, if snape was all that good, then he wouldn't have killed dumbledore.

Well one argument to counter your last theory, Dumbledore knew that he was dieing already, and used the situation to stabilize Voldemort's faith in Snape.

Also, Snape could have done it so that none of the other Death Eaters would have killed him in a more painful way, because Draco clearly wasn't going to do it, and the other Death Eaters wouldn't have been as kind, and might have captured him and taken him to Voldemort. Snape did it because of how much he cared for Dumbledore, despite how painful it was for himself. Which could have been the immense feeling of hate which allowed Snape to cast Avada Kedavra, a hate that Dumbledore got in to this situation and that he had to do this.

I don't have an argument for the first one, it's a good one. But the second one.

Snape could have easily kept Dumbledore from being found. They're magical! Although you can't apperate on school grounds, how hard would it have been to accio something to get them out of there, not to mention, didn't they still have the brooms there??? He could have taken him out.

The one problem with that though Ginny is it would have blown his cover with the Death Eaters, and Snape couldn't have taken them all on by himself.

Alright, I might be reading a little too much into this, creating my own story if you will. But here it goes. And yeah, there are huuuuge gaps in this theory. But Like I said first of all, I'm open to him being a good guy, I'm just arguing the other point.

Snape, with the trust Voldimort had in him, we could say he was practically a right hand man, could have sent the death eaters outa there. And when that happened, dumbledore could talk and there was an invisibility cloak on Harry. Dumbledore, if snape was good, could have spoken of the cloak and that would have hid them in their escape. And yes, Harry would have to come along too but, he doesn't need the cloak flying cause he doesn't have the extra weight to hold him back and there were two brooms. haha, like I said, I'm probably reading waaay too much into this.