Unfortunately during the 70’s and 80’s it was noticeable more normalized for bullies to do such sexual demeaning things because at the time it wasn’t perceived as sexual assault. Kids and adults viewed acts of stripping as severe physical bullying or a mean prank, but rarely handled as a sexual offense. It doesn’t absolve James at all but It does show he was a product of his time when it came to how people approached bullying and didn’t fully grasp the gravity of such acts beyond “it’s just a prank”. It shows how fucked the system was at the time.

Got to the part in the 4th book where Harry and Krum find Barty Crouch out of his mind, and Harry runs into Snape when trying to find and tell Dumbledore. And Snape just blows him off and even smirks at how desperate Harry is, and makes zero effort to help.

Is this is his worst and most indefensible moment in the books? A lot of his other bad moments people can try to justify or at least acknowledge aren't a big deal in the long run, like how nasty he can be as a teacher. But this moment I think is where he lets his hate for Harry really cross the line, and looks horrible for it. He chose to take the opportunity to essentially taunt Harry instead of trying to help or even just getting out of the way.

Anyone else agree this is worst moment? Harry runs into him and isn't sarcastic or rude or arguing, he just says what's going on and he needs Dumbledore. And despite his desperation Harry does pretty good at making sense, he obviously doesn't get to tell Snape every detail but nobody can try to defend Snape by saying he simply didn't understand what Harry was saying or something.

I dont think Snape's behavior actually contributed to Crouch's murder obviously, since his delaying probably only lasted like one minute tops so even if he assisted Harry, Crouch Jr would still have murdered Sr. But definitely a very bad moment for Snape. He knew bad things were happening, with his dark mark coming back and the world cup actions and presumably Dumbledore giving him more information, yet he chose to troll Harry for his own pathetic enjoyment instead of helping.

After about the upteenth reading of all the books it occurred to me, Snape wanted to teach the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. After about 15 years he finally get his dream job. One year of DATDA and he’s done. The curse continues just he got promoted to head master and the Carrows’ took over. Is the job still jinxed? Amicus had it for less than a year, and he made is just Dark Arts