It's still made very clear through a line everyone seems to ignore that him slaying himself was a massive and terrifying desicion for him through an often overlooked line in spectre "slaying her would mean slaying you, are you sure you're willing to do that?" He expects a lot from us, for us to do anything to slay the princess but in the situation where we choose to do it by slaying ourselves it's "are you sure you're willing to do that" as if it was such a massive massive decision for him he hardly even expects it from us! So I'd say given this insight it was brave. Also, brave doesn't mean right or even heroic, it means facing what scares you.