[user104658]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I haven't read the books, still don't imagine it's a huge deal though, was it very relevant to the storyline?

Snape being black is problemnatic for the storyline IMO - Snape's storyline revolved heavily around his unrequited love for Harry's mum and being marginalised/oppressed by the James Potter group. The optics of that are EXTREMELY skewed if it's four young white lads attacking a black classmate because he fancies a white girl. It is honestly a bit of a mess. There's no way to avoid the racist overtones when, obviously, "The Half Blood Prince" was not written as a story about race. I think it's going to be extremely tricky for them to get this right. Pretty much any other character could have been race-swapped without issues, Snape is the ONLY one where it becomes an issue.

At one point they chase him down and magically hang him upside down in the air to humiliate him. I mean obviously they don't have to include that specifically as a scenebut yeah... TERRIBLE optics if the James Potter gang are all white and Snape is black .