John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

Although I can easily argue both sides to this argument, I would say that I would have to judge John Proctor as a stooge by the end of The Crucible. When Proctor was testifying to the court at the end of Act 4, he was "confessing" that he had worked with the Devil before, even though that was a complete lie. Even as Danforth, the judge of the court, continuously interrogates Proctor to name the others in Salem who he has seen with the Devil, John Proctor refuses to call out any names because he doesn't want to wrongly persecute any more innocent people. He wants to end the witch hunt once and for all, using only his life without having to drag anyone else into the terrible situation based on vengeance that had been spreading around town. At this point in the play, I saw him as acting very noble and honorable and being a character that could be respected, unlike the many others in Salem. A few dialogue lines later, Danforth asked Proctor to sign a document admitting his confession that he was guilty of using witchcraft alongside the Devil, but he refused. John Proctor would not sign the document because his reasoning was that he had already confessed his sins out loud and God had already taken record of his confession, meaning there was no use for him to write it down on paper. When I was reading this part of the play, I saw this as a sort of meaningless argument because the result of this conflict was him and Rebecca Nurse getting hung. If Proctor wanted to "sacrifice" himself to end the witch hunt, signing the document would be exactly what he should be wanting to do. I understand not giving up the names of any other people in Salem because that would be lying and accusing others for practicing witchcraft, who honestly didn't, so John Proctor did the right thing in that case. On the other hand, if John Proctor had just admitted from the very beginning the truth about his affair with Abigail being the reason for her vengeance on Elizabeth and thus, much of the town, then the entire witch hunt situation wouldn't have gotten as out of hand as it did. If he confessed his lechery initially, he would have still been giving himself up, which is what he ended up doing anyways, except revealing the truth from the start would've saved countless other innocent lives. Even though John Proctor's intentions may have been to try to do the right deed, I would consider his choice of actions to result in him being more of a stooge than a hero.