Snapeshots

Severus Snape is "a professor with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin." His eyes "were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels," and he has "uneven, yellow-ish teeth."

Do you see him in your head? Or do you see Alan Rickman?

Before the Harry Potter movies, every reader's Snape would have been unique in how the individual put his key features together and filled out the rest.

After the movies, I think it's safe to say most of these millions of Snapes have been usurped -- or at least annexed -- by Rickman. Yes, he has that wicked tuba voice and is perfect in the role, but I'm not concerned about him personally. It's the Snapey homogenization that brings up some mixed feelings.

I'm not attacking movies or visual media. And I'm not longing for some fanciful purity of imagination, because even if it were possible, it'd make us all islands and erase our shared experiences. It can be really beautiful, everyone seeing the same awesome thing.* And in cinema, Alan Rickman's Snape is as iconic and awesome as it gets.

I just still kinda mourn the Snapes that lived in people's heads, even if they can't measure up to Big Ricky. But I know they aren't all lost and it'd be melodramatic to really claim they were. Evidence of Snape diversity is readily available in fan art land, an always growing and occasionally disturbing menagerie.

So, I'll just say long live Snape, whoever he is to you.

*You could argue we don't see the same thing even in a uniform image, as individual responses are unique. But that's another matter! Sort of.