i know james is disliked throughout the fandom but i have several reasons why i prefer james over snape.
lily initially hated james, theres no use denying it. but eventually she did fall in love with him, which hints that he grew out of his arrogance and more negative characteristics. snape retained a constant hatred against anything to do with james.
he had virtually no lines in the books and the few we do get are from his childhood. probably no adult wants to be judged by the things they said or did in their teenage years. plus we have evidence he changed and grew up. you know, like for any normal person, adolescence ends. you grow up. you make better decisions. (yeah, i know this could be used as evidence for snape too, but some of snape's decisions when he was fully into adulthood were not exactly something to be proud of. we'll never know for james, fine, but based on his actions when he was 21 years old, the honorable actions for which he gave his life, we can have a pretty good idea.
he accepted lupin as a werewolf when many others would have excluded him
most people who like snape say his actions were forgivable bc he acted out of love for lily... but james did too. james loved lily too. so why can you forgive snape but not james?
he frickin put himself in front of voldemort, unarmed, to save lily and harry. without a second thought.
james joined the order... snape joined the death eaters. and yeah, okay, snape became a double agent and ended up "good". but that can't excuse snape's completely unnecessary bullying of the gryffindors. namely, neville, hermione, and harry. its already bad enough for an adult to bully a child, but to do that while in a position of power? while you're supposed to be impartial as a teacher? pathetic.
ok and before anybody comes and bashes me in the comments i know snape did good things, i know he was essential in the war, i know he came close to actually caring for harry (for selfish reasons, but it counts i guess)... its just that i think its unfair how people think of james vs how they think of snape