Character development: Snape

Character development builds sympathy, and sometimes empathy, for characters in a story as they grow and change due to the challenges they face as the plot progresses. These challenges can be due to external factors or they can be internal conflicts that they must wrestle with to follow the arc of their development and fulfil their role in the plot.

If characters in a story do not change over time they tend to be one dimensional, flat, and the story has less depth and nuance. But there are different ways for an author to portray character development. In some stories, a character may not change so much as she or he affects those around them, effecting change in the world or in other characters who learn and grow based on their interactions with this iconic character. The character might also remain steadfast in the face of incentives to change, for better or worse. In other cases, the reader learns more about the character as the story progresses, which makes it seem as if the character has changed because they develop more facets and the reader’s view of the character alters as more information is revealed.

It is this latter type of character development that we have with Snape. Snape seems to have done all of the growing and changing of which he was capable when Lily died and he risked his life to become a spy for Dumbledore’s Army. He never wavers in his love for Lily nor in his loyalty to Dumbledore. He never falters in his courage, no matter what dangerous, difficult, or distasteful task is asked of him. He also remains a horrid teacher, treating his students with favouritism, contempt, and cruelty. One might argue that this demeanour helps maintain his cover as a Death Eater but he behaves this way prior to Voldemort’s return.

Does Snape develop as a character if he remains static and the reader simply learns more about him as the story progresses? That becomes a semantic question that depends upon one’s definition of character development. Does this “count” as character development or merely as the author revealing more about the character. What do you think? As the reader learns more about Snape, he appears to change, which makes him more compelling, even though he is not changing in the current story arc. That a character be engaging is what matters, regardless of how the author achieves it. Snape is one of the most memorable and most analysed characters in the Harry Potter series.

Which Harry Potter characters have the most interesting character development? Which characters have the least character development? Which characters do you find most, and least, compelling, and is this linked to their development over the course of the books?