Well, it’s official. British actor Paapa Essiedu has officially been cast as Severus Snape in the upcoming HBO Harry Potter TV series. There have been rumors of his casting circulating for the past couple of months, but now that it’s official, everyone has even stronger opinions about it. 

I think the coolest thing about his casting is that he’s 34, which is, give or take, how old Snape actually was in the book. I love Alan Rickman, but he was about 55 during the first movie, and he was supposed to have graduated from Hogwarts 13 years before. 

It seems like everyone and their mother is upset about a black actor being cast as Snape. On one end, people are complaining about forced diversity and Snape being described as «pale» in the book, which contradicts the series’ goal of being more book-accurate (or was that just the goal that fans projected onto the series?).