Black Snape casting is way, way worse than we all thought
A contingent of fans aren’t even calling him Severus Snape. He’s Black Snape to them, and he may go down as one of the most infamous castings in history.
When the Harry Potter trailer first unleashed, we knew we were going to see at least a snippet of Black Snape (the fans’ take, not mine), and my first instinct was just like everyone else’s: this is bad. But I was wrong, because the fallout from seeing our first images of Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape looks like a cosplayer who has only the vaguest idea of what Snape is actually supposed to look like.
One of the shots showed us what might be Snape’s robes when we was standing in the Forbidden Forest during what I’m assuming is the scene when he confronts Quirrell following Gryffindor’s win over Hufflepuff. Honestly, he looks like he’s wearing a windbreaker under his cloak, which is a first regarding wizarding attire on the screen if I’m remembering things right — not counting Muggle clothing that we’ve seen the main cast wear in the movies, of course.
Related: Racism is collectivism in the worst ways
I’m also getting Kel Mitchell from Good Burger vibes regarding the dreadlocks (which is nowhere near book-accurate) or the way he’s giving presumably Quirrell “the eyeballs” kind of glare. Not that piercing stare you’d associate with book (and movie) Snape.
Not only is that already a massive turnoff, but the fact that, when you look in the comments section of a few YouTube channels like MovieFlame, Harry Potter Theory, and Nerdrotic, Black Snape is the recurring theme, and it didn’t need to be that way.
The issue with Black Snape goes far beyond the inaccuracies
This is why Black Snape is such a bad idea, and it has nothing to do with the fact a black man is playing a character who was described as “sallow-skinned” multiple times in the books. A character who, in J.K. Rowling’s original sketches, was also white.
Remember, Snape attended school in the 1970s, where James Potter and the Marauders bullied him relentlessly. To paraphrase Rowling from Harry’s point of view in Chapter 28 of Order of the Phoenix: “Snape was clearly unpopular.” But it gets worse, since James and mainly Sirius humiliate Snape in front of the school, hanging him upside down.
Of course, Snape’s the one who utters a racial slur in that flashback, and it caused Lily, his only ally in that particular scene (Snape was part of “a gang of Slytherins” but they were no use here) to break ties with him. She leaves Snape to fend for himself while James and Sirius have their fun, which was heavily implied to have occurred multiple times before. This alone makes the Marauders and many in the school out to be racists in the 1970s, mind you.
But it gets worse.
👉 Check out Tarja Titan for a Harry Potter-inspired novel
Harry and Ron have shouted obscenities and insults at Snape
Remember in Prisoner of Azkaban, when “Ron called Snape something that made Hermione go, ‘Ron?’ Or in Goblet of Fire, when Draco Malfoy’s spell hit Hermione and gave her fangs? After Snape said, “I see no difference,” Harry and Ron roasted Snape with insults, causing him to take points from Gryffindor and give them detention.
Did someone from Warner Bros. forget to read the books? If it wasn’t a good look when they first cast Essiedu, when you step back and look at the big picture, it’s awful from all angles.
Related: Revealing my most controversial book outline ever
Not to mention that, in Philosopher’s Stone, the Golden Trio thinks Snape is going to steal the stone. Given that Snape is the only major teacher who is black in the TV show, it just goes from bad to worse.
Or when Prisoner of Azkaban rolls around, and Neville sees Boggart Snape walking out of a closet?
Snape’s entire backstory doesn’t help…
Finally, you have Snape’s backstory. He grew up in poverty, wore beat-up clothes, came from a broken family with an abusive father, and found solace in Lily when they were friends. Then, after he’s bullied at school, loses the love of his life because they had a falling out, and had grown up in some of the worst conditions imaginable, he joins a gang of racists called the Death Eaters.
It’s almost like Warner Bros. collectively decided to ignore all of this and cast Essiedu anyway. While he doesn’t deserve death threats, at the end of the day, he still signed on to play this character.
Essiedu ultimately decided to audition for the role and agree to play it, so it’s hard to say he’s not at least partially responsible for this debacle. Let’s just hope there’s a saving grace and that he portrays the unhinged, short-tempered, and borderline abusive Snape from the books as opposed to playing the deadly-calm, no-nonsense disciplinarian that made Alan Rickman’s portrayal legendary.
If you need an “out” from this nonsense, look no further
Luckily, 2026 doesn’t mean you need to be part of and embrace the DEI cult that continues to plague the entertainment industry. You can read books, listen to music, and even watch TV shows and movies produced by normal people who buck virtue signaling and tokenism.
My books may feature protagonists and main characters of different backgrounds, but nobody’s going out of their way to say, “Oh, look, that TC Marti guy has an Asian girl as his lead character,” “a bisexual girl taking center stage,” or “a black man leading a school.”
They’re just there. I don’t write to win brownie points. Instead, my characters organically come to me, and I’d be damned if someone turned Civil War into a TV show and cast a white girl to play Mina Hirai, orientation-swapped Liza Fury in Catch 22 into being strictly heterosexual, or made Professor Ray Fitzgerald white.
Meet both girls, meet Fitz, and a plethora of other misfits who producers wouldn’t dare to retcon at my personal store, The Rebel Lore Vault.
