Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. Now, lately I’ve made quite a few
videos where I’ve ranked the witches and wizards of the harry potter universe by power-
these lists included alumni from hogwarts houses, aurors, order of the phoenix members,
and even death eaters. No one witch or wizard made it in to every video, but there were
a few that ended up on a couple of the lists, for example Mad Eye Moody made it to both
the top 5 aurors list AND top 5 order members list.
As power rankings are LARGELY subjective, many of these videos were subject to some
controversy- as every Harry Potter fan undoubtedly feels differently about which witches and
wizards are more powerful than others. One comparison that I noticed was discussed quite
a lot in the comments, across multiple videos, was Hogwarts Potions Professor Severus Snape,
vs Hogwarts Transfiguration Professor Minerva McGonagall. Now, the first thing that should
be mentioned is that both Snape and McGonagall are substantially more powerful than the average
witch or wizard. They’re each at the top of their game in their respective disciplines,
and both hold a level of power that is unlikely to be achieved by the vast majority of the
wizard population. So they’re immensely powerful..BUT, one has got to be more powerful,
and in this video I’m going to be answering the question: Who is more Powerful? McGonagall
or Snape?
To better compare them, let’s take a brief dive in to each of their histories, and see
if we can pick up any clues along the way.
We’ll start chronologically, and begin with Minerva McGonagall, who is at least 25 years
older than the deceptively young Snape.
Minerva McGonagall’s exact birth year is unconfirmed-largely due to a blunder in the
Fantastic Beasts film that showed a 20-something McGonagall teaching at Hogwarts in the 1920s.
However, fortunately we know just about everything else about McGonagall. Minerva McGonagall,
born to witch Isobel Ross and muggle Robert McGonagall, was a Scottish half-blood witch
that hailed from Scotland.
From a very young age McGonagall began exhibiting signs of her magical abilities-doing things
like summoning toys to herself and making the family cat do her bidding. For some witches
and wizards, this can take some time, but for McGonagall-it was nearly instantaneous.
For many years, Minerva’s father had no idea that his wife, and Minerva’s mother,
was a witch, but because Minerva began showing signs of magic very early on, it became clear
that she would have to come clean.
When McGonagall became of age, like many other witches and wizards, she began attending Hogwarts
school of witchcraft and wizardry. Upon starting at the school, she quickly set herself apart
from her fellow peers- boasting an immediate innate magical proficiency for learning and
performing magic. She was the shining light of the school during the time that she went
there, and when it came time to test her abilities in the form of OWLs and NEWTs- McGonagall
achieved TOP grades. She was the most powerful student of her entire year- arguably the entire
school, and she showed a particular affinity for transfiguration which is a particularly
complex form of magic.
When she had finally finished her studies, her future certainly looked bright, as her
impressive performance at school meant that a job offer at the ministry of magic was sitting
and waiting for her. After returning home for a brief period, McGonagall accepted the
job at the ministry in the department of magical law enforcement, and, similar to the time
that she was in school, impressed everyone. Even though her job was going really well,
McGonagall eventually decided that she wanted to be closer to home, which lead to her application
at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Almost instantly, McGonagall was offered a
posting in the transfiguration department. McGonagall later becomes head of the transfiguration
department, but at this time she was working under the existing department head- Albus
Dumbledore. Given that Dumbledore is arguably one of the most powerful wizards to have ever
lived, and that HE HIMSELF is particularly skilled at transfiguration, it must have really
been a valuable experience for her to work underneath him, and I’m certain that it
sharpened and harnessed her transfiguration capabilities- bringing them to a new level
altogether.
Severus Snape, like McGonagall, grew up with one muggle and one wizarding parent. On January
9th 1960 Severus was born to witch Eileen Prince, and muggle Tobias Snape in the small
muggle town of ‘Spinner’s End’. Spinner’s End was very close to the nearby town of Cokeworth,
where Snape would later meet Lily Evans- a girl that he would become deeply infatuated
with. In their youth, the pair were inseparable, and they spent a considerable amount of time
together before embarking on their journey to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
1971 was the year that they left for Hogwarts, and it was supposed to be the time of their
lives. However, in reality this was the year that marked the beginning of Snape’s tragedy,
as in that same year, him and Lily were sorted in to different houses. Snape was sorted in
to Slytherin, and Lily to Gryffindor- this immediately placed a divide between them.
To add insult to injury, Lily’s later husband, James Potter, was also sorted in to Gryffindor-
and it just so happened that he was Severus Snape’s main bully at school. But Snape
didn’t have just one bully, he had four- The Marauders- Sirius Black, Remus Lupin,
Peter Pettigrew and James - and they made his life miserable. Snape’s incessant bullying
during school inevitably sent him down a very dark path, and Snape was really not the guy
that they should have done that to, because in reality he was the most innately powerful
wizard of his entire year. Before even attending Hogwarts, Snape was passionate about performing
magic and learning new spells, he didn’t even have a formal education, but probably
knew more than most Hogwarts graduates. The following quote from Sirius supports this:
"Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year”
So, what should the Marauders NOT have done with a powerful wizard like Snape? The answer
is of course NOT bully him until he turned to the dark arts.
Snape’s introduction to the dark arts was never good for anyone, particularly because
he was so talented. He excelled in all of his classes at school, aced tests easily,
and devoted all of his spare time to studying independently after hours. His future was
extremely promising, and while learning his primary course material at Hogwarts, would
even scribble in his notebook and invent his own curses, charms, and potions. Snape even
produced his own version of the potions class textbook under the alias ‘The Half Blood
Prince’- and the spells that he created were leaps and bounds ahead of what any of
his peers would have been able to do. Snapes natural talent, paired with his incessant
thirst for knowledge, and willingness to pursue even the darkest forms of magic, meant that
Snape graduated Hogwarts a VERY powerful man, perhaps one of the most powerful people that
the school had ever produced.
If we look at the upbringings and history of both Snape and McGonagall, we can see that
they were both incredibly impressive students with some of the highest levels of innate
magical ability around. On top of that, they were both studious, and took magic very seriously.
In a lot of ways, particularly as students, they were very similar, but the primary difference
between them was of course the path that they took after finishing school. McGonagall left
school and pursued a respected job at the ministry with predictable hours and a great
starting salary, Snape on the other hand, left school still fuelled with immense rage
and a strong desire to enact his revenge on those who had wronged him. So they’re both
massively talented, but WHO is the more powerful between them? In Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows, we actually get to see Snape and McGonagall face off. The movie depicts it
like a stalemate, it basically looks like neither of them are winning. Snape eventually
retreats, which sort of gives the viewer the impression that he was losing, but, in reality,
he really wasn’t. Snape was still acting as a double agent at this point in time, and
barely anyone, including McGonagall, knew that Snape was actually one of the good guys.
When McGonagall began attacking Snape, he fought back because if he didn’t it would
have been very unusual, and he probably would have blown his cover. When she started attacking
him, Snape fought back, however, he did so with only the exact amount of effort necessary,
and not a touch more, because he never had any intention of defeating McGonagall, he
just wanted to hold her off. A lot of people interpreted this as McGonagall beating Snape,
but that just isn’t the case. If we look at the fact that McGonagall was actively trying
to defeat Snape, while Snape was just putting in the minimum amount of effort, it tells
me that Snape is certainly the more powerful wizard. How much Snape is actually holding
back is unclear, but if he had wanted to destroy her, I think he really could have.
McGonagall was an accomplished witch with an extremely impressive knowledge of magic
and many different skills under her belt. She was a powerful duellist, impressive potion
maker, charms expert, transfiguration MASTER, and even dabbled in the dark arts. HOWEVER,
I think that the only area of magic that McGonagall truly surpassed Snape in was transfiguration.
It’s not that McGonagall was weak, she was amazing, but Snape had a point to prove to
the world. He was bullied and bullied, and this instilled a never-stop attitude in him
which meant that he was continually pushing the limits of his magical abilities. He was
never content, and he constantly pushed the boundaries on order to become more and more
powerful. Not only that, but Snape explored an entire other side of the magical spectrum
that McGonagall only scratched the surface of. I truly think that, in terms of the power
of MODERN DAY witches and wizards, Snape would only be ranked after perhaps Dumbledore, Voldemort
and Grindelwald. He died at the tender age of 38, and if he had lived for another 77
years, matching the age of Dumbledore at his death, there’s no telling what Severus Snape
would have been able to achieve.
And that’s it for this video! What do you guys think? Who do YOU think is more powerful?
Do you agree with me? Do you not? Who should I do this for next? Let me know down in the
comment section below.
Until next time
YER A WIZARD ARRY