Can someone please explain the end of Harry Potter to me?

[Tonight37]

Please explain it to me as though I’m 5.

Is Albus Dumbledore good or bad?

What about Snape?

Thanks

Are you basing this on the books or the films?

I don’t realise there was such a difference between the two..

Dumbledore - good, on the whole.
Snape - ultimately on the right side but did a lot of bad stuff.

Lots of people really love Snape, I don't get it myself.

It’s nuanced. Both are good and bad, like all people.

They were neither all good nor all bad.

Dumbledore decided he alone knew how to defeat the big bad, but unilaterally took decisions for Harry that meant an abusive childhood.

Snape was on the good side in the war but was still an awful teacher who delighted in belittling children, often just because of his relationship with their parents at school a generation ago.

And presided as headmaster over a school where first years were being tortured for practice...

(I mean Snape, obviously.)

It’s not as simple as good or bad really.

Snape always loved Harry’s mum and hated her Dad (for justifiable reasons, he was bullied by him) so he betrayed them in a way which contributed to their death. He was so heartbroken he made a life long commitment to protect Harry and so even though Harry was a constant trigger to him (because he reminded him of his mum and his dad) he saved him countless times. So a goody really by the end.

dumbledore definitely a goody overall but made some bad decisions along the way that left Harry exposed and feeling unloved etc. at times.

What specific bits don’t you understand?

They are both deeply flawed characters who played a crucial role in defeating a great evil. It’s like reading a book about World War Two and asking whether Churchill, De Gaulle, Truman and Stalin were good or bad.

The books are a pretty on-the-nose World War Two allegory and we are explicitly reminded that the world is not divided into good people and death eaters. Just as ours was not divided into good people and nazis.

AD had good intentions, but made some bad decisions, based on his life experience and motivations. Ultimately he wanted the best for Harry and to beat Voldemort. He achieved this in the best way he was able.

Snape had good intentions, but made some bad decisions, based on his life experience and motivations. Ultimately he wanted the best for Harry and to beat Voldemort. He achieved this in the best way he was able.

Thanks all. Looks as though I missed the point a bit in posing such a black and white question

Harry was the final horcrux so had to allow himself to be killed by Voldemort to allow Voldemort to be defeatable. Harry of course didn't actually die, the horcrux part of his soul did but not him. He came back and defeated Voldemort, with the help of Dumbledore's spirit. Snape killed Dumbledore as Part of a plan to save Draco from having to be a murderer and because he was dying anyway, Voldemort later killed Snape.

Great explanation, thank you

Genuinely thought you meant Dumbledore and was trying to remember what bit that was, but fully believing you were right.

Good job I edited to clarify, then! 😆

I think the book/film question is important because there is a hell of a lot more information and back story in the books that of course could not be fitted into the films.

So if you are only going off the films, then you do not have all the information. The books go into much more detail.

dumbledore and Snape were both complex and flawed characters, dumbledore was well respected and did a lot of good but he was secretive and somewhat arrogant ultimately though he cared for harry and the decisions he made rightly or wrongly he made with the best of intentions. Snape could be cruel he relentlessly bullied neville, mocked Hermione, and treated harry with contempt purely because of who his father was, he was written to be unlikeable but had redeemable qualities as you discover more of his character and why he did the things that he did, Alan rickman's portrayal of Snape endeared a lot of people to the character myself included. even though Snape wasn't a kind man he remains one of my favourite characters because he was a grey character and as the reader you still until the very end didn't really know who's side he was on.

I think the question that most people struggle with is "Did the end justify the means?" So was Dumbledore allowing Harry to suffer an abusive childhood, and abuse at the hands of people like Snape and Draco justifiable because ultimately it led to him having the skills and understanding to defeat Voldemort when he was the only one that had a chance at doing it? Was Dumbledores poor decision making and at times cruel treatment of Harry excusable if, although Harry suffered, many tens of thousands of others didnt?

Personally I stand by the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Snape and Dumbledore may have had good intentions but I dont think either of them went about their plan in the right way.

Oh and @Tonight37 if you want to see how JKR really wanted Ginny to be, definitely read the books, especially the last 3. She was far from the wet simpering fan girl they portray her as in the films, she was fucking bad ass!

I agree. the films did ginny dirty. and Ron aswell for that matter.

Neither AD nor Snape were good, or bad, they were both very Grey for their own reasons.

I think the moment that snape and dumbledore were discussing having to basically keep harry alive like a lamb for slaughter as he was a horcrux, and Snapes horror at what it would mean, was quite an edifying moment for both of them.

Snape both loved and hated Harry, and his motivations for what he did were very personal in relation to his feelings about Lily Potter... whereas some of the more petty/spiteful stuff he did to Harry was also purely because of his feelings about James Potter and the bullying.

I always got the feeling in the books that Snape both loved and hated working for Voldemort.. like most he revelled in the power it gave him, but inside he recoiled at some of the awful things Voldemort and the others did.

Dumbledore is a bit harder i think. What a previous poster said about him making some questionable decisions for the right reasons is probably the best way to put him.. but i don't think it excuses the treatment that he allowed the pre-hogwarts harry to endure.

I felt Snape was all in for Voldemort until he killed Lily. That was the only reason he changed sides, not because he generally disagreed with Voldemort, although he may later have come to do so. He did have a bit of a redemption arc but if Lily hadn't been murdered I'm not sure he would ever have switched sides.

Long time since I've read the books mind you, so I could be wrong.

I read Snape really differently to a lot of others.

I definitely see him as a grey character but I also see Harry as an unreliable narrator when it comes to Snape. It’s telling that in HBP when Harry is outraged at Snape getting the DADA job, he’s pretty much on his own. The other Gryffindors aren’t bothered and many seem to think he teaches well.

I also think that throughout the books, a lot of Harry’s assumptions about Snape turn out to be wrong. He assumes that Dumbledore kept him at Hogwarts because he didn’t fully trust him and that that was the reason he didn’t get the DADA job. Dumbledore didn’t give home the DADA job because it was cursed and he needed Snape for the long-game. I think Dumbledore wanted Snape undercover at Hogwarts, as head of Slytherin house, in order for Snape to build up a network of ex death eaters that he could ingratiate himself with. Dumbledore always believed Voldemort would return and Snape’s job was to make sure that when he did he could plausibly return as a death eater. All the schmoozing of Lucius Malfoy and years of favouring the children of former death eaters had a purpose. As did his unpleasantness towards the children of the key resistance members and Aurors.

Snape was by all accounts the most gifted Occlumens in the series. He was able to hide his true feelings from Voldemort. It seems unlikely that the rest of his behaviour in the series is a true window on his soul and much more likely that it is part of the role that Dumbledore needed him to play.

I see Snape as quite a sad figure. He lives a miserable fake life and doesn’t live to see Voldemort defeated. Who knows what sort of person he might really have been were he just free to be himself? You get a sense that he was well liked and respected among the Hogwarts staff, so it’s a shame that he dies effectively still undercover.

It's an interesting take - I hadn't considered Harry as an unreliable narrator.

I do think you're right that he was generally liked and respected by the staff. Remember poor whatever her name was, the Muggle Studies teacher, appealing to him before she was killed by Death Eaters - "but Severus - we're friends!". That must have been harrowing for him (and her, lol).

He is definitely a sad figure. It seems his life has been defined by loving/obsessing over a woman who didn't love him back, or at least not the way he wanted. He never seems to experience any happiness, apart from perhaps the odd smirk at Harry's misfortunes 😄

That scene was actually one of the ones I was thinking of.

I also think it’s pretty clear that Snape loved Harry.

Dumbledore in one of the books says something to Harry along the lines of “nobody could watch you as closely as I have over the years and not come to love you”. And Snape watches Harry every bit as closely as Dumbledore and spent far more time with him as his potions teacher than Dumbledore did as headmaster.

Snape clearly hated James, but it’s made very clear in the books that Harry is far more like his mother than his father. Harry’s childhood also has far more in common with Snape’s own than it does with either James or Lily’s.

People will always point to Snape making nasty comments and constantly trying to get Harry expelled but he only ever does that when it’s ridiculous and no sane person would agree. When Harry sectusempras Draco and does something he might reasonably get expelled for, Snape covers for him. I see the other stuff like taking points from Gryffindor for stupid reasons as all part of the role he has to play.

Dumbledore was a General fighting a war. He was looking at the bigger picture and was willing to sacrifice some of his own soldiers to win. Does that make him good or bad? That is the question we have to ask about every commander leading a just war.

Snape was horribly bullied and sought acceptance in a group that would have him. He didn’t understand the consequences of that choice until he was personally impacted. He is at best naive and at his worst selfish. He does try to make amends for his choices and he definitely should be counted as a war hero. That doesn’t mean he was a good person. He couldn’t see beyond his anger over his childhood bullying to fully play his role as protector and trainer to Harry, but he took great risks to be an effective spy.

I like that our hero’s aren’t all good. Even the Golden Trio fall victim to their own hubris at times.