#Nobody is gonna make me like you Jsmes Potter

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Honestly, I don’t give credit for the bare minimum. James Potter didn’t die a hero; he died an idiot who forgot to grab his wand. Even if he had fought heroically, that wouldn’t make him a hero—it would make him an average husband and father. Like, why do people try to make the most basic things seem extraordinary when it comes to cishet white dudes? What James did is literally what you’d expect from any average husband or father when their family is in danger. It’s the bare minimum: you protect your child. It’s not some incredible feat—it’s just the baseline. It’s like saying you’ve met a guy and he’s amazing because he doesn’t treat you like crap.

I don’t know if the problem is that many of you had terrible father figures or dads who “went out for milk” and never came back, but if someone even tried to lay a hand on me, my dad would break their jaw. And not because he’s the bravest, most incredible, or most heroic person in the world, but because he’s my dad, and that’s what dads do for their kids.

On another note, I love how this post conveniently ignores the fact that Severus was deeply traumatized by James because of the systematic bullying and abuse James inflicted on him. You call James a hero, but a hero doesn’t use their position of power to abuse others. In fact, you hate Severus for doing the same thing James did to him: exploiting his power over someone to dominate and mistreat them. The only difference is that James wasn’t a traumatized person, didn’t have deep psychological scars, wasn’t raised in a violent environment, and wasn’t incapable of handling his emotions.

James Potter was a rich kid from a near-aristocratic family who grew up with the love of his parents and a solid support system his entire life, yet he chose to be a piece of trash. He didn’t just hex random people in the halls for fun; he chose as his main victim a working-class kid with no family name, no resources—social, economic, or familial—to defend himself. That’s not heroic; that’s pathetic. Especially when we’re talking about someone who, because his best friend was bored, cornered a kid who was all alone, outnumbered him, stripped him against his will in front of half the school, and asphyxiated him. That’s the hero you’re defending, and you should be ashamed of yourself for being so cynical and hypocritical to conveniently skip over all of these facts to defend a completely sanitized version of the character.

Yes, Severus was a jerk and had a terrible personality. But Severus wasn’t a functional adult. You’re expecting a deeply traumatized person with an unresolved history of abuse to handle his emotions like someone who has had the chance to heal, go to therapy, and receive treatment—and that wasn’t the case. Severus never had the time to heal from anything. He was abused by his father, bullied by rich kids at school, and then forced back into that same school by Dumbledore—the place where he experienced his worst traumas—and you expect him to be functional? No, he wasn’t functional.

And yes, he didn’t have the right to take out James’s sins on Harry, but you know what else he did? He saved Harry’s ass, along with his friends, from the very first year. Without Severus, they would’ve died twenty times over before the seventh book. But you conveniently skipped over that too because you’re not interested in acknowledging it.

Severus wasn’t a pleasant guy or the best friend to children, but he always made sure those kids made it to the end of the year alive. He took on the role of a double agent, risking his life multiple times to confront the most dangerous wizard of all, deceiving him, and working for the greater good. He stuck to Dumbledore’s plan, even if it meant becoming a monster in the eyes of everyone else and carrying all the blame and hatred of the people he was fighting for. He fought for the good side even when the good side had always despised, underestimated, and hated him. And he gave his life for the cause when it was necessary.

And what did James do? Be a bully, get pregnant his teenage girlfriend, get married at 19, spend most of his 20s hiding at home, and die in his pajamas because he forgot his wand? Incredible contribution to society. At least he donated sperm—what a feat.

I cannot believe people let Snape get the high ground.

How do people casually overlook the fact that Snape spent six entire years of his life telling a kid—who never even got the chance to know his father—that said father was an arrogant douchebag? Like, how do people think that behavior is normal?

Snape, a grown man, spent years trying to convince a grieving, orphaned child that his dead father—who literally died protecting his family—was a terrible person. No compassion for a man who gave his life for his wife and son. No sympathy for a kid who grew up abused, unloved, and completely alone, only learning about his parents through stories told by others.

Instead, Snape chose to rehash his teenage rivalry with James Potter by bullying his son. Imagine being so petty that you can’t move past your high school grudges, even when the other person has been dead for over a decade.

Even the coldest, most detached person would muster some respect for a man who died fighting for good. But Snape? No. He chose to sit on his high horse—ignoring the fact that he was once a Death Eater who only changed sides when his own personal interests were threatened—and still had the audacity to act morally superior to James.

James Potter died a hero. Snape, on the other hand, spent his life tormenting the child of the woman he claimed to love—while refusing to let go of a teenage rivalry and weaponizing it against a traumatized, grieving boy.

I cannot get over how utterly selfish and cruel that is. Snape had no empathy for the dead and no sympathy for the living. And people still try to defend him? Seriously?