MTV's 'Harry Potter' World Cup Vote Easily Favors Professor Snape

The Harry Potter World Cup bracket on MTV's website decided the fan favorite character. But after the top 64 characters dueled, Harry Potter himself actually didn't make the finals. Instead, the final pitted Harry's best friend, Ron Weasley, against someone Harry hated for most of the series: Severus Snape. However, although it took a while for the boy wizard to come around to Snape, fans never had that problem, which is why Snape easily prevailed in the voting.

MTV News presented Snape himself, Alan Rickman, with the World Cup trophy Monday at the New York premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The ambiguous professor took the win by defeating Vincent Crabbe, Professor Flitwick, Dobby the Elf, Harry himself, Hermione Granger, and finally Ron Weasley in the fan voting.

Rickman declared the results a "win for ambiguity," according to MTV News, although fans are the only ones who haven't felt ambiguous about Snape. In spite of all his iciness toward Harry and seemingly indefensible murder of Dumbledore, pretty much every book and movie fan has loved him or loved to hate him -- or loved to wonder whether they should hate him.

That love will reach a crescendo when the movie version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes out, according to reviews. Virtually every critic has cited the final revelations about Snape, and Rickman's performance, as the highlight of the movie -- and perhaps the entire series as a whole. In fact, Daniel Radcliffe told the Telegraph that Rickman should be Oscar-nominated; the New York Post's Lou Lumenick argued the same in his four-star review.

Yet Potter fans have already given Rickman their version of the Oscar with their World Cup votes on MTV. It recognizes Snape's special place between the Harrys and Voldemorts of the magical world, J.K. Rowling's ability to make everyone guess his true place in the books, and Rickman doing the same in the movies.

Although everyone is focused on saying goodbye to Harry this week, there are dozens of other favorites getting a big sendoff as well in Part 2. The likes of Voldemort, Neville Longbottom, Professor McGonagall, Molly Weasley and many others go out with a bang in the finale, and have been cited as standouts in the rave reviews so far.

Yet most agree that the biggest final act of all is Snape's, which needed to be the case after years of unanswered questions about him. As such, these final days before the last movie are as much of a victory lap for him as it is for Harry Potter, which the MTV World Cup victory only cements.

Sources

MTV.com- "Harry Potter Star Alan Rickman Thanks Fans For Snape's World Cup Win"

The Telegraph- "Daniel Radcliffe: Alan Rickman deserves Oscar nomination for Severus Snape"

New York Post- "Wizard of awe!"