Snapedom

This is brilliant! You've spotted a pattern which had escaped me, but which is absolutely, consistently, there in the books. And it's very creepy. In a way, the moral double standard is even worse than I'd thought. I had thought Gryffindors could get away with anything, but no - it isn't who does the dastardly deed, or even what they do, but whom they do it to. Ugh.

I do wonder if Rowling actually meant this?

(The one thing I think she did mean is that Snape was no hero because he raised his wand to defend himself. As MaryH 1000 said all those months ago, these books are most likely "Christian" in Rowling's view because "He who would save his life will lose it." And Voldemort, with his quest for continued existence, is the epitome of the one who wants to save his own life - therefore, trying to save one's own life is by definition evil. But what does it mean that Severus never wand to defend himself? That, as my co-panelist said at Terminus, he definitely made a choice to give Harry essential information rather than trying to stop his own bleeding? How, then, is he not a hero even by Rowling's strange definition?)