Hello angels, it's your bitch Vii who becomes an admin of things and then never does any admin work.
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The whole Snape debate has been going on for literally over a decade, and people are probably still just as stubborn and divided in their opinions as they were in 2007. But now, I'm going to actually analyse his character in regard to ethics and moral philosophy so that we can finally reach a conclusion, emotions and personal opinions aside, on whether Snape is a good person or not.
I will be assessing his various actions, both the good and the bad ones, to see if he would be considered moral or immoral by philosophers.
WHAT DID SNAPE ACTUALLY DO FOR HARRY?
⇰ Pleaded Voldemort to save Lily's life. This is what enabled her to protect Harry and die for him, and for him to get the protection from her love.
⇰ Stopped Quirrell from jinxing his broom. People often go ahead and say that Snape saved Harry's life, but let's not kid ourselves, even if Harry had fallen off his broom, he would not have died, as is proved by him falling off his broom two books later.
⇰ Defended Harry, albeit not very passionately, when Mrs Norris was petrified. He said that the trio was most likely just at the wrong place at the wrong time and had nothing do with the cat.
⇰ Ensured that Harry would know about Remus's lycanthropy and whilst I would say this is a bad thing, I could understand that maybe in some way, he was genuinely trying to protect students. We have no way of knowing if he hated Remus out of pure spite, or if, due to almost being killed my Remus's wolf form (thanks to Sirius) and actually having some form of trauma from that attack.
⇰ Protected Harry from Remus's wolf form literally (or was that just the movies?)
⇰ Gave Umbridge fake Veritaserum when she wanted to question Harry. Though Harry was smart enough to not drink the tea anyway, it is an honourable act anyway.
⇰ He contacted the Order after Harry said/thought that Voldemort had abducted Sirius.
⇰ Spied Death Eaters in behalf of the Order/Dumbledore, providing important information about Voldemort and his plans. He did this at risk of his own life.
⇰ Stopped Bellatrix from hurting Harry by reminding her that he belonged to the Dark Lord. This is pure Slytherin cleverness because he knew that the only reason Bellatrix would listen to was one about Voldemort.
⇰ Took part in the chase of the seven Potters and attempted to keep Death Eaters away from Harry.
⇰ Helped Harry find the real sword of Gryffindor and also sent a fake one to the Lestranges' vault, which, had he been discovered, could potentially have been lethal.
⇰ He died for his cause ... arguably. This is a bit of a grey area, but let's just assume that he did.
⇰ Not for Harry, but killing Dumbledore saved Draco and (if we're going to believe in moral absolutism) his soul from turning dark. He also could have thrown Draco under the bus by telling Voldemort that he was the true master of the elder wand to save his own life (if he knew about it, which we have no confirmation of).
There might be more examples, but these are the ones that I will be taking into consideration because they're the only ones that I can remember right now.
I'm going to go through deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics, each in a separate chapter to give the illusion that I didn't spend two hours writing a 4000+ word essay on Severus Snape and ethics. Rights-based ethics will be ignored because it isn't relevant here and would contribute nothing. Also, obviously I won't go into all the sub-theories and nuances because we don't have time for that, so these are just the general main theories and their principles.
Without further ado: Snape, hero or not? (Spoiler: not).
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