Foil

Character Role Analysis

Harry/Snape

Harry is a pretty typical hero's hero: he's nice, brave, goes out of his way to help others, resists evil forces and people…you get the picture.

As we learn in this film, though, there's another big time hero in the HP universe: Snape. His heroics are super on the down low, though, since he has to pretend to be evil to achieve his twin goals of protecting Harry and defeating Voldemort.

Sure, Snape isn't as warm and fuzzy (or kind) as Harry, and he seems to enjoy humiliating and tormenting students. Oh, and unlike Harry, he definitely was attracted to the Dark Side, which is part of why he feels the need to go above and beyond now with his heroics—he's in major atonement mode.

So, these two guys seem pretty different on the outside, but they're both super, super brave. You might even argue that Snape is even braver than Harry, since unlike our teen dream hero, Snape is working against some of his own darker instincts to pull off his heroics. That shows some serious strength.

But anyway, the point is that these two dudes together show us very different ways to be heroes.