I don't love Snape, but I love the character. Just because he is 'redeemed' at the end -- he is still an ass. And I think it AR works well in the movies, but he is much prettier than the book version. But since some very pretty people are bad guy in the movie it all matches.

More seriously: did you love him before Rickman was cast? If so, at what point in the series did you love him?

I did not because i did not read the books until after the seeing the second movie. Before that I was Not Interested.

Rickman/Snape was a factor in my love of the Snape, for sure.

One of the things that the casting of AR really screwed up was the slow realization by the reader that Snape is, at best, 30 when Harry comes to Hogwarts. Because Lily & James married really early, right, and they were all the same year. Snape, Lupin, and Sirius are all still young men, which I think is really interesting.

So here's an intelligent young(ish) man, marooned on the ass-end of nowhere in a job that requires him to deal with all these difficult kids--as well as the blossoming girls in the top grades--and he's got (so far as we can tell) no social life at all. Instead of getting his shit together and making a life for himself (regardless of his childhood woes), he spends his time making schoolchildren miserable and catering to the whims of the upper class jerks in his own house.

He's really pathetic.

But how do you really feel?

Goodness, you're having a strong reaction to the character.

Instead of getting his shit together and making a life for himself

This really isn't that possible for him. He's bound by his guilt about Lily's death and his service to Dumbledore to protect Harry. He is much more dickish and petty in the books than in the movies, but his entire story does a pretty good job of showing that he's a rather tragic character.

He's ambitious and talented and because he made the mistake of becoming a Deatheater - a decision he regretted and which contributed to Lily's death - he has squealched the rest of his life. When Voldemort returns Dumbledore enlists Snape to work as a double agent, using him (as Dumbledore uses many people) by exploiting his sense of guilt.

He honors his promise to Dumbledore to protect Harry even though he resents Harry deeply.

Goodness, you're having a strong reaction to the character.

Well, I'm not emotionally involved, really: but the dude's a teacher. He's not supposed to be screaming at his students, or taking out his own childhood traumas on them.

And I'm trying to figure out why he's so popular, when at this point (three books into the series), Snape has been consistently a dangerous threat to the protagonists, and if not evil, at least completely misled. Because at this point, we don't know any of his backstory other than that he hated James & the others. So why the fannish love?

Wait, have you not read the last book? Because that's where he was truly redeemed (in my eyes at least.) In ways i can't explain without total spoilery

No, I've read them all, but I'm rereading from the beginning. And I only ever read them each once, as they came out, so most of the details are pretty fuzzy.

Wait, have you not read the last book?

That is a key question, because it does address Snape's backstory and motives in detail.

And I'm trying to figure out why he's so popular, when at this point (three books into the series), Snape has been consistently a dangerous threat to the protagonists, and if not evil, at least completely misled. Because at this point, we don't know any of his backstory other than that he hated James & the others. So why the fannish love?

Because he's flawed and damaged and people like the broken teacup characters?

people like the broken teacup characters?

Too true, but there's quite a gulf between Snape and Rodney McKay, or even Snape and Alex Krycek. (Nick Lea, for one!)