: Regulus Black died in a cave, drowned by reanimated corpses to bring about the downfall of Voldemort, and yet Snivellus is still the hero of Slytherin.
Can’t agree more.
Just for an instant: Regulus was left unappreciated.
First of all, he was born into the Black family. Since he was a kid without his opinion, he was told that it’s an honour to be a Death Eater, that muggles and mugglebornes should be killed. He believed it to be true. He became a Death Eater at 16! All his family, except for the older brother and cousin, were loyal to pure-blood ideas. And he saw how those, who went against it, were despised, hated, dishonoured and trown out of the family. As Snape, he wanted to be appreciated and loved. His parents also didn’t give him the childhood a kid dreams about.
Second, he wasn’t in love with a person on the other side of barricades. His family almost completely was on Voldemort’s side and those, who were not, didn’t really pay him a lot of attention, his relationship with Sirius was completely shattered. He understood the wrongness, the horror of pure-blood priorities by himself, being previously brought up in a pure-blood family and then in the Slytherin house. He changed his mind on his own, due to the light in his heart and soul. Snape was always lead by his love to Lily, that was his cause, no horror of the war scared him. For God’s sake, he was willing to sacrifice James Potter and Harry, the new-born child, just to save Lily! Hell, I’m sure she would have been really happy to be saved on such terms!
Third, he had nobody to help him. Snape had Dumbledore, later he had even Members of The Order of Phoenix helping him! Regulus had nobody at all. He was just lucky Kreacher was so loyal to him due to his obidience to parents.He found out about Horcruxes, he found the way to destroy them, he carried out the plan and all this by himself, under grave danger, with no one watching his back and knowing beforehand he was doomed to die, without any loop-holes. And he still did it.
I think the most Slytheriny Slytherin there ever was was Slughorn. He was so freaking ambitious, but he wasn’t a particularly great wizard himself. So he cultivated a little following of great wizards to do all the work for him. He was never evil or mean or cruel like a dark wizard though. He got all this sway in powerful places because he was nice to, encouraged, and manipulated powerful wizards when they were young. And then he literally never had to do anything for the rest of his life. All these great wizards just gave him free stuff and listened to his opinions on politics and business because he had been their mentor. If anyone was being a Slytherin the right way, it was this guy.
