My Apology to JK Rowling

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

The characters are my favourite aspect of the books. No one is exactly as he appears. They're very real and layered.

I agree. Characters in HP are great, much more interesting and layered than in LOTR - *Gordis runs and hides*

The only obvious good and evil characters are Dumbledore and Voldemort respectively. Everyone else, even Mr. Potter himself, is on a very complex spectrum.

As Inked quite rightly pointed out, Dumbledore is far from perfect. Perhaps he is one of the most controversial guys out there. But for the accidental death of his sister, he could have turned out worse than Grindewald. And even after having turned wholly to "Good", he was still more interested in his little plots and scheming than in people around. It was so evident in the case of Harry, but there were other, worse mistakes.

For instance, I think Dumbledore had failed the young Tom Riddle miserably. He was the first of the "magical people" to find the boy, and all he did was to humiliate Tom, cutting off all the possibility to influence him positively afterwards. Dumbledore was quick to accuse and slow to understand what it must have been like for the very young, exceedingly proud and very powerful wizard to survive in this disgusting Muggle orphanage. I guess Tom was not the only one to steal there: it must have been common practice. Neither was Dumbledore interested to learn what the other children did or tried to do to him, making him retaliate with magic.
I wonder, perhaps at this time Dumbledore already knew that Tom was the last of the Gaunt family, descendant of hated Slytherins, that's why he was so unsympathetic from the start? Or was it his usual attitude?

Throughout the books, Snape does not once give in to evil, or betray Dumbledore's trust.

Well to start with, Snape had willingly joined the Death Eaters, even despite Lily's attempts to stop him. He had been genuinely attracted to Voldemort's ideas. But for Voldemort's hunt for the Potters, for Lily, he would have happily remained with the Dark Lord. Even had Voldemort spared Lily, Snape would have remained faithful to him.

He is also unbelievably vindictive, to the point where he does flirt with being evil (his actions in the Prisoner of Azkaban, for example), but this is because in some ways he's extremely immature. He, a grown man, nurses a grudge against a teenage boy. I mean, seriously Snape? Grow the heck up.

I don't think he flirts with being evil: he is evil enough by nature. It just so happens that he works for Dumbledore.
It would have been immature if Snape only hated James Potter for the pranks he and his pack of followers had played on him in school. But in fact he hated James for taking his Lily away from him, maybe also accusing him of Lily's death (had James not married Lily and got her with child, she would have been alive)- and that is an adult reason. Harry looked so much like James, but with Lily's eyes: seeing him every day must have been agony.