 Root bracket and the opposite-root exception

For root spaces ${\mathfrak{g}}_{\alpha },{\mathfrak{g}}_{\beta }$, the Jacobi identity gives $[{\mathfrak{g}}_{\alpha },{\mathfrak{g}}_{\beta }]\subset {\mathfrak{g}}_{\alpha +\beta }$ when $\alpha +\beta \ne 0$. If the bracket is nonzero, that nonzero weight must be a root. When $\beta =-\alpha$, the bracket instead lies in the Cartan subalgebra and can be nonzero; zero is not a root. Thus the common nonzero-bracket implication requires the opposite-root exception.