Wonderful Witchy Things

Snape: 'I made a mistake, my Lord. Please, don't kill this innocent childs mother. You can kill the baby of course, and the father, Idgaf about them.'

Snape: 'Please Dumbledore, I know I WAS the person who told him about the prophecy, with the full knowledge that he wouldn't care about killing a baby if he had to..... But now he hasn't promised to keep Lily safe. Can you please help me, I don't want Lily to die.'

Just because it's a war and it was 'his job' doesn't make it any less horrible. Even if he didn't think it was about an infant, even if he was convinced the prophecy was talking about an adult, Snape wasn't an idiot. He knew what Voldemort was capable of.

Let's just put this into real world perspective. Let's say you're selling illicit substances, and you find out someone has been interrupting your trade and costing you money. One of your cronies says 'I found where their headquarters are, it's here' and you go and kill the people making your life difficult. You're still a damn murderer, and the person who gave you the information is still complicit in that murder.

It doesn't matter if it's a war. Snape DID cause the deaths of James and Lily Potter by giving over that information, he would have been responsible if Harry had died.

But the key point is that, in practical terms, the one who was both intellectually and materially responsible was Voldemort. Everything else is circumstantial.

Again I'll say it, Snape is a wonderfully fascinating character with a complex childhood/young adulthood. It makes him so interesting to delve into.

But he sure as hell ain't the innocent cinnamon roll some people try to make him out to be.

And you're right! The Potters didn't help themselves with their actions, refusing Dumbledores help, trusting Peter and isolating Remus were all big problems. But they wouldn't have needed to do anything in the first place if Snape hadn't heard the prophecy and gone straight to Voldemort.

We know Snape is a powerful Occlumens, he could have kept the prophecy to himself and Voldemort wouldn't have suspected him of hiding anything.

At the end of the day it boils down to this, Snape heard a prophecy that suggested someone would have to die, and he took that information to Voldemort. Regardless of what happened next, he STILL gave Voldemort the information knowing full well Voldemort wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who threatened his power.

The reason a person changes their mind or chooses to atone for their past mistakes is not always the central issue. What matters are their actions. Snape didn’t just betray the side he once aligned with—he spent eighteen years actively working to make amends for his guilt and to repair the damage he contributed to. And he did so while serving people who openly despised him. That’s what we call social reintegration, a process most legal systems aspire to, at least in theory. If your moral compass leans toward carceral punitivism, that’s your prerogative—but it’s not mine, nor is it consistent with a rehabilitative view of justice.

Nobody is saying he was right in his initial choices, we’re saying that:

He didn’t commit any murders. Objectively. He was neither the intellectual nor the material author of the crimes.

Calling him a “bad person” is a narrow-minded interpretation of how criminal motivation and behavior work, especially in sectarian contexts.

Snape is the textbook case of someone who joins a radical, harmful group due to vulnerability, social isolation, and psychological neglect. He later recognizes his mistakes and chooses the difficult path of reparation. That’s not villainy, that’s transformation.

And why exactly do you call him a “bad person”? He clearly wasn’t a saint, but there’s a huge difference between being morally ambiguous and being evil. The case of Snape mirrors that of many young men who fall into extremist groups, gangs, or cults, often as a survival mechanism, seeking meaning, power, or a sense of belonging after enduring family violence, systemic neglect, and social exclusion.

If you criminalize and dehumanize people like that, you're not just making a lazy moral judgment, you're displaying a profoundly classist worldview. Because let’s be clear: if you’ve ever worked with marginalized communities or within a reinsertion program, you'd understand that crime often emerges from lack of resources, emotional deprivation, and systemic failure, not pure malice.

“At the end of the day, Snape heard a prophecy that suggested someone would die, and he passed that information to Voldemort. Regardless of what happened next, he STILL gave Voldemort the information knowing full well Voldemort wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who threatened his power.”

And that action, while undoubtedly wrong, is not unforgivable if the person in question later acknowledges the damage and acts decisively to undo it. Even in real-life legal systems, people who have been accessories to a crime—or who have provided information that led to one—can negotiate reduced or suspended sentences if they later cooperate with authorities. In many jurisdictions, this is standard procedure.

Snape didn’t murder anyone. He didn’t mastermind the deaths. He gave partial information to a terrorist leader before realizing the real consequences. And upon understanding them, he acted to prevent the worst: he warned Dumbledore, and later put his entire life at risk to protect the child many fucking times even if he didn't like him. That’s what we call informant cooperation, and it’s often legally protected. You may not like it, but from a legal standpoint, Snape would have a very solid case for non-prosecution or conditional immunity.

“How is it possible that Snape isn’t in the wrong for this? It was a bad thing that he did!”

Yes. It was a bad thing. Nobody is denying that. But you’re inflating his responsibility to suit your own emotional reaction. And that's not how either law or ethics work. In criminal justice, what matters are facts, context, motivations, and reparative actions. And in all those categories, Snape meets the criteria for rehabilitation, not damnation.

That all being said, I still don't like him and I still look at his actions critically, because if you don't or won't acknowledge them as the horrific actions they were then it makes his character arc seem fruitless.

Snape: 'I made a mistake, my Lord. Please, don't kill this innocent childs mother. You can kill the baby of course, and the father, Idgaf about them.'

Snape: 'Please Dumbledore, I know I WAS the person who told him about the prophecy, with the full knowledge that he wouldn't care about killing a baby if he had to..... But now he hasn't promised to keep Lily safe. Can you please help me, I don't want Lily to die.'

Just because it's a war and it was 'his job' doesn't make it any less horrible. Even if he didn't think it was about an infant, even if he was convinced the prophecy was talking about an adult, Snape wasn't an idiot. He knew what Voldemort was capable of.

Let's just put this into real world perspective. Let's say you're selling illicit substances, and you find out someone has been interrupting your trade and costing you money. One of your cronies says 'I found where their headquarters are, it's here' and you go and kill the people making your life difficult. You're still a damn murderer, and the person who gave you the information is still complicit in that murder.

It doesn't matter if it's a war. Snape DID cause the deaths of James and Lily Potter by giving over that information, he would have been responsible if Harry had died.

But the key point is that, in practical terms, the one who was both intellectually and materially responsible was Voldemort. Everything else is circumstantial.

Again I'll say it, Snape is a wonderfully fascinating character with a complex childhood/young adulthood. It makes him so interesting to delve into.

But he sure as hell ain't the innocent cinnamon roll some people try to make him out to be.

And you're right! The Potters didn't help themselves with their actions, refusing Dumbledores help, trusting Peter and isolating Remus were all big problems. But they wouldn't have needed to do anything in the first place if Snape hadn't heard the prophecy and gone straight to Voldemort.

We know Snape is a powerful Occlumens, he could have kept the prophecy to himself and Voldemort wouldn't have suspected him of hiding anything.

At the end of the day it boils down to this, Snape heard a prophecy that suggested someone would have to die, and he took that information to Voldemort. Regardless of what happened next, he STILL gave Voldemort the information knowing full well Voldemort wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who threatened his power.

Snape: 'I made a mistake, my Lord. Please, don't kill this innocent childs mother. You can kill the baby of course, and the father, Idgaf about them.'

Snape: 'Please Dumbledore, I know I WAS the person who told him about the prophecy, with the full knowledge that he wouldn't care about killing a baby if he had to..... But now he hasn't promised to keep Lily safe. Can you please help me, I don't want Lily to die.'

Just because it's a war and it was 'his job' doesn't make it any less horrible. Even if he didn't think it was about an infant, even if he was convinced the prophecy was talking about an adult, Snape wasn't an idiot. He knew what Voldemort was capable of.

Let's just put this into real world perspective. Let's say you're selling illicit substances, and you find out someone has been interrupting your trade and costing you money. One of your cronies says 'I found where their headquarters are, it's here' and you go and kill the people making your life difficult. You're still a damn murderer, and the person who gave you the information is still complicit in that murder.

It doesn't matter if it's a war. Snape DID cause the deaths of James and Lily Potter by giving over that information, he would have been responsible if Harry had died.

But I knew the second I saw this shot that they didn’t love him. They didn’t answer his letters.  Never. Didn’t even read them.  Don’t try and tell me Greg didn’t try.  Don’t tell me he didn’t reach out.

Greg didn’t just say they just discouraged music or pushed him to do sports, this isn’t a Barbara kind of miscommunication.  He clearly said they forced him to do sports and music was off limits. He tried.  From the looks of it, he tried many years after he left too. 

Don’t try and tell me that parents that saw their kid constantly frowning or looking like they were gonna cry in their photos and did nothing about it loved their kid. 

The only picture we see Greg look happy in was his school photo.  Not the one they liked enough to frame.  It is possible there are happy pictures around here with him and his parents we just didn’t see, but I wouldn’t place any bets on it.

The only mistake Greg made in Mr. Universe was not being more tactful with how he explained all of this to Steven.

Greg never specified the lack of love, and therefore Steven just didn’t get it.  He saw all these pictures and trophies and baby items and thought, that’s love, right?  He doesn’t understand or know about the parents who obsess over nick knacks, doesn’t get that these weren’t treasured memories to them, they were collectibles.  Anybody who’d still keep the letters, but not open them, was clearly after the status of being parents, not the actual time with their kid.  They kept in view things from a time he was obedient.  But all Steven sees is the image of a pretty, normal family house, the image Greg’s parents were more obsessed with maintaining than communications with their actual kid.  

They wanted him in their life at first, sure, but only back when they still thought there was hope that he’s end up just like them.  Back when he would still go to the island, back when he couldn’t fight his hair getting cut, back when they thought he could be the cookie cutter clone of them that looked neat in family photos and would prevent them from having to explain to people what he did for a living or why he wasn’t going on vacation for them, yet again, using him as a part of their image, not their son.  

Greg wouldn’t have called all of that junk, when he’s been shown to love collecting and having random junk, failed to emotionally connect or get nostalgic about a single item there, if there had been any love or bonding attached to any of them. 

Greg is a loving, loving, forgiving man.  If there had been any good memories in that house, 

he wouldn’t have constantly looked miserable in it except when he was talking about when he escaped it.

Greg, unknowingly, and only trying to help, bless his heart, made a huge mistake with a single sentence.  

“Trust me, your better off than I was!”  OUch.

He pushed Steven away the second he made a comparison between their lives.  You just can’t play the comparison game with people who were traumatized. 

Was he right that Steven got to grow up with love Greg didn’t? Well, yes, but Steven doesn’t realize that.  All he hears is the man who grew up in a nice, warm, not corrupted gem attacked house, with a nice, normal, not training just in case someone was on their way to murder you education, in a calm, relaxed, not born a war criminal childhood.  And complaining about it!

Of course he got mad!! Even if Greg had specified he wasn’t loved, how could he dare use the word better to describe Steven’s life?  Greg meant nothing bad by it, but as far as Steven was concerned, Greg was telling him he had a wonderful childhood, a wonderful future ahead of him, “just like mom” did.

Greg couldn’t have just brought up a half alien baby wanted dead in a normal community, training with the gems, unstable parents or not, was necessary for his survival.  But in the heat of the moment, Steven doesn’t think of that, the way he talks in this scene, he really thinks he could’ve had that, that a normal childhood could’ve “fixed” him, and that his dad’s choice was the only thing that stopped him from having that.

And between that and the crash, that was the trigger needed for Steven to push his dad away.  The guilt for yet another person he thinks he’s a danger to, and the huge feelings of jealousy he was too ashamed yet still too angry to voice over his dad getting to grow up human.  Steven saw his yearbook pictures and nearly got choked up saying the words “more human” pausing with a frown he quickly gets rid of, yearning to be the human in Greg’s pictures.  

So many out here are trying to take sides, either saying Greg was wrong and Steven was right, or Greg was right and Steven was wrong, but in the end both are true.  Both had the right to be unhappy with what they were given, and both should have done a better job trying to understand and listen to the others plight. 

While Greg should have worded things much, much more tactfully, and definitely, even if accidentally, hurt his kid with his words, he meant no more harm than any of the other people who’ve tried to cheer him up, and was right about all he said.

Yet you can’t get mad at Steven either, because as far as he’s concerned, all he learned today is that his dad had it so much easier, less terrifying, and found an identity in a way that Steven couldn’t relate to, couldn’t use.

That his dad can’t help him anymore.

Edit:  I’m not saying redemption is impossible for his parents,(Steven Universe is all about second chances), I’m saying that I can’t see it happening.  If you wanna be technical about it, anyone can be redeemed.  But that’s the point isn’t it? Anyone can change, but they have to want to.  The only person I could see being less likely to want to change is Marty.  

While possibilities are endless, the people who can not love their own child while raising them don’t tend to be the kinds of people to have a turnaround.  Not saying it hasn’t happened before, just that it’s so very, very rare.

These two made it very clear they didn’t want to, that they don’t want to.  It would be different If the letters were opened.  For a redemption/family reunion to work with these two, they’d have to make the first step.  Perhaps they’d get wind of Steven’s existence, and in a change of heart that came in old age, they’d get motivated to try getting back in touch even though they thought at this point it was too late.  Perhaps we’d get a shot of opened letters falling down not neat and tidy on the dresser.  

For it to work for me, Greg would have to receive a letter.

The Demayos would absolutely need some sort of motivation to try to get back in contact with their son, and obviously receiving letters (for what may very have been decades) from him isn’t going to cut it.

Only thing I can think of that would maybe do the trick, is this:

They’re on their way to or from some vacation home or another (no doubt they have several; they seem the type) and their car breaks down. This is an inconceivable inconvenience and their fancy-dancy phones are struggling to get a signal.

They’re three seconds from acting “uncouth” when an older car comes by and stops when it sees their problem.

Out hops a young man who asks if they need a hand, and normally they’d never talk so some strange car-hobo, but they’re desperate; they’re in danger of missing hors d'oeuvres at the country club or something.

In a flash the kid’s popped the hood and is quick to identify what the problem is and how to fix it. They engage in small talk while he works, saying they’re off to an exclusive something or other and the boy is polite, saying that’s interesting, and explains he’s on a road trip to see the country and find somewhere to live.

Being polite, for they are always polite, they ask where he’s been so far, and he names off a few states and cities, including the one where they live. They say as much and ask what he thought of it (secretly hoping he hated it so that they don’t have to worry about some vagabond moving in, no matter how helpful).

He says it was fine but that he probably wouldn’t move there because his grandparents on his dad’s side live there and he wants to avoid them.

They ask for the grandparents name, maybe they know them (and maybe they can get some dirt to use later, never hurts to be prepared).

And this curly haired kid looks them dead in the eye and says with a smile that looks so familiar, “Mr. and Mrs. Demayo”

And their faces just drop and all the blood drains from their face as they put together that they’re the grandparents, this is Greg’s son, sweet blueberry pie they have a grandson! 

And the kid just keeps working on the car all the while, oblivious to the bomb he just dropped.

They answer that they know the Demayos, is he by any chance Greg’s boy? And he’s all like yeah! Did you know him? And they say yes but mostly skirt how they know him. Instead they ask what Greg’s been up to all these years (and it has been years and for once they’re just a little bit curious about what he’s been doing and how in the world it lead to him having a kid?! Why didn’t he tell them? ….did he tell them? Was it in one of those letters?)

And the kid starts talking about? Gems and aliens and cat-cookies?! And it all sounds very…. questionable. But, there’s no denying that the boy (Steven, his name is Steven. Steven Universe? what kind of cockamamy–) is polite, bright, and obviously intelligent as he soon has their car back up and running, so Greg must have been doing something right.

He’s waving good-bye and is gone in his car before they could even think to offer him anything in return (or to properly digest the bombshell he just unwittingly dropped on their heads) and they spend the rest of the drive silently stewing in their own thoughts.

When they eventually return home, one of them grabs the letters (dear lord when did they get so many of them?) flips to the first one-

So, Jowling K rowling chose to write the most heartbreaking, absolutely soul-crushing, heart-wrenching chapter about Ron's deepest and darkest insecurities and did him justice FOR ONCE by proving to readers that he's not useless and unwanted, just for her to deny his arc, turn around and say "Ron didn't stay with Harry but Hermione did, and that says a lot about him"

EXCUSE ME

YOU WROTE HIM JOWLING. YOU WROTE HIM SO WONDERFUL AND AMAZING AND DEDICATED THIS CHAPTER TO RON TO PROVE HOW IMPORTANT HE IS AND NOW YOU SAY "NAH FUCK IT"

You know what else says a lot about Ron? THE FACT THAT HE'S BEEN SUPPRESSING HIS PROBLEMS AND INSECURITIES, BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT TO BOTHER HARRY, WHO HAS IT MUCH WORSE. The fact that HE ASSIGNED ALL THE BLAME FOR LEAVING TO HIMSELF, because he KNOWS WHAT HE DID WAS WRONG. Ron said "I'm not making excuses, Harry, for what I was like", because, even after getting psychologically tormented by Voldemort's soul, he still knows he has to be brave enough to admit his mistakes. And after enduring a SECOND ROUND OF THAT TORMENT, HE STILL FEELS GUILTY AS SHIT. Poor boy, won't even defend himself.

How can people not feel the slightest bit of sympathy for Ron, seeing him sobbing his heart out, broken, shaking, crushed by the weight of his own remorse? You will hate Ron less if they see his departure in DH as a clever plot device rather than something he did because "he's selfish"

I mean, it's one of the smartest plot devices I've ever read because not only did it show in an ironic way how Ron is in fact useful, that the trio is incomplete without him, but also while Ron was away, he got extremely important information such as

•the location of shell cottage, where Ron took Hermione in to recover after she was tortured. Imagine if Ron didn't know where to go for help, the poor girl would have probably died in Ron's arms

• informing them about the snatchers. Honestly I was impressed by Ron. Bro managed to fight off FIVE MEN, possibly stronger than him. AND he got one of their wands.

• getting a wireless radio to listen to potter watch, the only reliable radio station as he described it

While Hermione and Harry were struggling to find a way, Ron was in no less danger than they were. And he did it. He found a way ENTIRELY ON HIS OWN, with the help of his deluminator of course. Just think about all the nights Ron spend away from them, while Hermione was crying, Ron was probably in no better state too, hating himself every second of the day for leaving them, but still, not giving up on his hope that he'd find them.

Honestly it was a crucial part of the story. And no, haters, it says absolutely NOTHING about his "disloyalty". Only that Ron sometimes breaks but then comes to be even stronger than before. And it combines so many emotions, it's devastating, heartbreaking, wholesome, it made me cry because I can't understand how and why could Ron ever leave him, leave her, but deep down YOU KNOW it's not Ron's fault, it's not anyone's fault because they are all misunderstood. Harry had worried his whole life that everyone he loves will be gone. Ron worries that everyone he loves will brush him aside. And Voldemort's soul made those nightmares true...

At least they thought he did. Because, if Ron had never given up on his hope that he would find them, if he never stopped caring about Harry and Hermione, did he really give up on them? If Harry's dearest friend, his most beloved had been Ron Weasley all along, how could Ron ever be unloved?

You can hate Ron as much as you want but never forget that he was brave enough to take all the blame for the fight with Harry without looking for excuses.

Also people don't talk enough about the fact that Ron, before he found them again, had to fight off FIVE snatchers before he got somewhere safe. While Harry and Hermione were basically in mourning state, and tried to find the strength to keep going, Ron was completely lost. All the days Hermione spent silently crying, Ron spent holding onto his hope that he'd find her again. He kept looking and never gave up on finding them.

Can we just not bash ANYONE in the trio for their reactions. Blame Voldemort, the master manipulator that got Ron, a ray of sunshine to break and be the opposite of himself, not three teenagers who had to save the world. Criticisms of them are valid of course, BUT DON'T PORTRAY THEM AS DEVILS FFS

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