'I'm a Harry Potter fan - I welcome Paapa Essiedu's Severus Snape casting with open arms'

When it comes to , many fans, like myself, were curious about who would play some of our favourite characters in the new HBO series. The much-anticipated from Warner Bros. Discovery is set to kick off filming this summer.

On Monday, announced that John Lithgow would play headteacher Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu would be Severus Snape, Janet McTeer would be Minerva McGonagall, and Nick Frost would take on the role of Rubeus Hagrid. To me, the original cast — which included the late, great Dame as Professor McGonagall, Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, and as the caring gameskeeper Hagrid — will always hold a special place.

But upon seeing the new cast, Essiedu stood out to me. "We have a Black main character," I thought to myself. "And most notably, a Black Severus Snape." Seeing Essiedu cast as part of a series that I grew up loving made me feel a sense of pride. Black characters are scarcely represented in TV shows and movies, so this was landmark moment as a fan of the timeless classic.

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It's still not a normal formality to see Black characters take up spaces that were traditionally made for white actors. But, it's slowly becoming more common with the likes of actors such as playing , and playing Juliet in the theatre adaption of Romeo and Juliet.

But, it didn’t take long before I encountered trolls on X, outraged by Essiedu's casting and declaring that it had "ruined the franchise" before even seeing a single trailer.

Many Harry Potter fans are trying to claim that their outrage isn’t about race, but about how Essiedu doesn't match the physical description in the books. One user wrote on : “I'm sorry, but there is only one man who can be Professor Snape. Shame on HBO for going near this. It’s just going to ruin something that should be left well alone.” A second chimed in: "Paapa Essiedu shouldn’t take this role for his own benefit. He could be the best actor in the , but he doesn’t fit the characteristics of Snape from the book."

Severus Snape is described in the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, as "a thin man with sallow skin, a large hooked nose, and greasy, shoulder-length black hair, often wearing long black robes that make him appear like 'an overgrown bat.’”

But here’s the thing — all of J.K. Rowling’s main characters were described as white people. I loved the franchise so much as a child that the lack of Black characters didn’t bother me at the time. But as I grew older, it became unfortunate to realise just how little diversity there really was.

Lavender Brown, Ronald Weasley’s ex-girlfriend, was portrayed by a young Black girl in the earlier films. But when she became a central character in the sixth movie, she was recast as white. Her race wasn’t important to the plot, so the decision to change it still feels like a mystery to me.

To my point: these characters’ races aren’t central to the story. It’s their personalities — whether vile, funny, or caring — that make them memorable. Sure, no one will ever completely live up to the actors who embodied these iconic roles for a decade, but that shouldn't fall on Essiedu’s shoulders.

In a fictional world filled with ogres, dwarves, and dragons, why shouldn’t there be a main Black character? It doesn’t take away from the magic of the . Harry Potter is a product of its time — a time when representation was rarely a consideration in the media or Hollywood. But 28 years after the first book was published in 1997, and with a much more diverse audience, studios like HBO are finally recognising what was once ignored.

is an executive producer of the TV series and was believed to be very involved in the process of selecting a writer and the director. If it's good enough for the person who created the whole world for us to indulge in, it should be good enough for us.

I’ll be tuning in to this new series to see what the studio can bring to iconic settings like Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, nearly two decades after the final film premiered. It’ll be exciting to see how these new actors add heart, their own twists, and a bit of magical spark to the roles we all know and love. And as for Paapa Essiedu — I’ll be rooting for him.