This is kinda random (ill try not to make it too long), im a marauders fan, but i dont hate snape. I think they're really complex characters (talking about both categories), because they both evolved and joined the "good" side eventually. The whole book is quite morally grey, now that i think about it, cause as a kid, i used to separate everything in the good guys and bad guys. Also quick point on Regulus, he was a complex character as well, i enjoy reading headcanon/fanon versions of him, and jegulus is a pretty nice ship, i like their dynamic. Again, sorry for a long ask, just wanted to put this out there, maybe get your opinion?
What gets called a "complex character" often seems absurdly broad to me, especially in a children's and young adult series where most of the cast isn't particularly complex to begin with. Not when you compare them to characters from adult literature, characters who do genuinely morally questionable things, whose good actions require them to commit terrible ones to achieve worthwhile outcomes, or whose ethical decisions are genuinely difficult and messy.
In Harry Potter, Snape is considered one of the most complex characters in the series. But if you took Severus out of that universe and dropped him into almost any adult piece of fiction, the man would practically be a hero. He wouldn't even fit the archetype of an antihero. Hell, even if you put him into a complete meme of a universe like Euphoria, he'd still be a better person than 80% of the cast, and we're talking about a very mainstream series here.
So where exactly is this supposed complexity? That he made terrible decisions as an abused teenager and later regretted them? His "sins" don't even come close to what supposedly morally good characters in universes like A Song of Ice and Fire have done. Arya Stark alone has committed acts that are far more ethically and morally questionable than anything Snape ever did. It's like the standard people use to measure complexity and moral ambiguity is unbelievably childish. If people consider Snape a bad guy imagine if they read, idk, the fucking Fahrenheit 451 and they have to face the fucking main character that is Montag, who basically is AN ACTIVE PART OF THE FASCIST POLICE in his world and his fucking whole arc is understand why he's a bad guy and basically becoming a part of the resistance. It genuinely feels as though the most "adult" thing many people in this fandom have ever consumed is Stranger Things, and beyond cartoons aimed at seven-year-olds and Disney movies, they've never engaged with anything else.
That said, I think every character can become interesting if you actually stick to the canon.
If you portray James Potter as the cynical, classist hypocrite he was —a boy who performed progressivism while harbouring deeply reactionary attitudes and enormous class-based cognitive dissonance— then he's interesting, because contradiction is interesting. But if you try to sell me the idea that James was simply a hero, sunshine incarnate, a fun-loving boy with a heart of gold, then what a load of rubbish. Not just because it's demonstrably false, but because what is even interesting about a character like that? It's unbearably dull.
Sirius is fascinating precisely because he is the king of cognitive dissonance. He's riddled with contradictions. The ideology he claims to believe in isn't reflected in his actions whatsoever, and his rejection of his family is ultimately a rejection of himself, because he ends up reproducing many of their attitudes while simply placing them on the "right" side of the conflict. He's still prejudiced, still violent, still lacking in empathy in many of the same ways as his relatives, and that's incredibly compelling.
Now, if your version of Sirius is a sad little twink whose entire problem is that his mother hates him because he's gay, and instead of giving him a genuinely complex relationship with her —one rooted in power dynamics, rebellion against authority, mutual attempts at control— you reduce everything to "his mother was evil and he cried in his room because she wouldn't let him wear makeup," then what an utterly dreadful character. Not only because that version bears no resemblance whatsoever to the actual Sirius, but because it's painfully boring. The Twink Sirius™ whose main source of angst is wanting to sleep with a werewolf while his homophobic mother disapproves isn't just an overused cliché; it's devoid of depth. There's no real conflict there, only a stereotype that's been recycled to death.
The same goes for the version of Remus who gets turned into some hyper-confident ladies' man alpha male who's secretly misunderstood by everyone. Not only does it make no sense, but it's infinitely less interesting than the actual Remus: a man who knew perfectly well what was right and wrong, yet lacked the courage to confront his friends because he was terrified of rejection. He chose complicity in violence and injustice because preserving his own place within the group mattered more than doing the right thing. That's what makes him interesting. Not the possibility that he might have been gay. Being gay isn't a personality trait. Sorry, but it simply isn't.
And Regulus? Love, I genuinely don't understand what people find so complex about Regulus.
Regulus is essentially a mirror image of Draco. He was always aligned with his family's values; nobody forced him to be the way he was. He took pride in who he was and what he represented. His motivations for joining the Death Eaters stemmed from the importance he placed on family and blood purity. Then one day he discovered that his idol didn't actually care about blood purity at all, only about immortality and power, and worse still, believed himself entitled to take what belonged to Regulus. So Regulus rebelled, exactly as an aristocrat would.
But instead of exploring that, people seem obsessed with headcanons about him being another helpless twink—because apparently both Black brothers have collectively been reduced to fragile little sad boys—who needs to be rescued by some tanned, bespectacled stud straight out of a Televisa telenovela. What can I say? I find it incredibly tedious.
The truth is that this fandom often feels painfully unimaginative. There's such a limited understanding of complexity, nuance, literary taste, character construction, competent writing—because, frankly, the quality of most fanfiction is abysmal—dialogue, all of it. Everything gets flattened until a character's entire personality revolves around being gay and having parents who don't understand them.
These were teenagers growing up in the 1970s on the brink of a literal war. I think they probably had bigger things occupying their minds. More importantly, I think that if characters are going to be interesting, their personalities and struggles need to emerge from multiple intersecting influences. Human beings are complicated. Their conflicts don't exist in a vacuum.
And yet this fandom grants these characters absolutely none of that complexity. A cactus has more personality than some of these headcanons. A rock is more interesting than reading yet another "Sirius crying because his mother won't let him wear eyeliner" scenario.
At a certain point, it genuinely feels as though people are writing for an audience that either has no interest in complexity whatsoever or simply lacks the ability to engage with anything beyond the most basic, surface-level characterisation imaginable.
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