More Elaborate Musings on Lily and MWPP

[ftah3]

No: HPFGUIDX 33848

(All quotes are of Susanna/pigwidgeon.)


> About the Marauders' tight-knit group 

I completely agree that the Mauraders were close, and that aspects of 
their interaction ~ mainly secret knowledge, and risks taken together 
~ makes them a somewhat specialized group.  

On the other hand:

>Therefore, I daresay MWPP are not simply a group of High School 
buddies hanging out together and playing Quidditch, there's much more 
to that friendship.

Er, not necessarily.  I'm keying in, first, on the word "friendship," 
and I have to disagree.  At least, I don't know what I think about 
Pettigrew's place in the friendship.  He seems more of a hanger-on, a 
part by virtue of clinging, rather than by virtue of fast 
friendship.  

I've no firm basis for this; it's off-the-cuff, based on observations 
by others that Pettigrew was a tagalong; based on the fact that his 
death stunned, but didn't seem to cause quite the mourning that the 
Potter's did (even Lupin seems angry at Black firstly for seeming to 
have betrayed the Potters, and then as in afterthought for killing 
Peter.  Peter was the Brave Little Toaster who got in mad Sirius's 
way, poor guy; James & Lily were Friends).

It's also based on cliques of that sort I'm familiar with in 
reality.  All of a clique aren't necessarily best of friends; while 
included, one of them may simply be tolerated.  And it turned out 
that Pettigrew was handy in Operation Werewolf On The Loose, in his 
rat form, so yay for letting hangers-on stay.

On another point, imho Lupin wasn't totally 'in' either.  He was 
eventually number one on the list of suspected Voldy spies, at least 
in Sirius's mind, remember?  They accepted Lupin as a friend, weren't 
repelled by his condition, and enjoyed his company; yet something, 
possibly prejudice, existed enough in the minds of Potter and Black 
that later on Black suspected Lupin straight out as spy, and Potter 
let Black convince him that danger was great enough that a change in 
secret keeper was necessary.  So why would they go to such great risk 
to become animagi and to run with a werewolf?  Well, why do *any* 
teenage boys engage in really dangerous and interesting adventures?  
Because it's cool and exciting, and not necessarily for any more 
noble reasons.

My point is, you say that it seems obvious that there's more to the 
Mauraders' friendship than simply a bunch of friends hangin' out. In 
activities, I agree ~ the werewolf gig, the animagus stuff, etc. are 
all out of the ordinary.  

As far as depth, I disagree.  I'd say that the friendship between 
Potter & Black may have been tight, but that Lupin and Pettigrew were 
less close to different degrees; and this is like any high school 
clique in depth.

> To share this kind of secret not only strengthened the bond between 
the four friends, IMO it practically prevented other friendships or 
relationships with one or all of them from intensifying beyond a 
certain degree.

Natch.  In a romantic world this would be true, and while Rowling's 
world is romantic to an extent, certain dirty realities of friendship 
are given their due.  Fights happen, loyalites shift, individuals are 
quite aware that others exist outside of their little clique.  And as 
we're beginning to see with Ron, Harry & Hermione, kids growing up in 
a co-ed school won't forever disregard the existence and lure of the 
opposite sex throughout their school career, big secrets or no 
(though we've yet to see how significantly said regard will affect 
their friendship in particular).

Also, based on the overall drawing of the characters, there is little 
to suggest that any of the Marauders but Pettigrew would be jealous 
with their friendship.  They evince a disdain for uptight, nasty 
Nosey Parkers like Snape, but there's no indication that they were 
awful to everyone one.  They were not the Dudley Dursley gang.  They 
had their inner circle, but if they refused friendly interaction with 
anyone *not* in their inner circle, it's doubtful that James, at 
least, would have the apparently excellent reputation (as a good 
person) that existed while they lived (if the discussion about their 
deaths between Dumby and McGonnagall at the beginning of PS/SS is any 
indication) and after they died.

As for Sirius, you say:
>I have doubts about Sirius (apologies to all Sirius fans out there): 
A person who considers it to be good fun to "scare" a fellow student, 
however slimy and Slytherin, with a werewolf, may not be a "natural 
born killer", but he is certainly irresponsible, which is a trait of 
character that doesn't show on only one occasion and is otherwise 
inexistent, it's a character trait, period. (Even if by now, he might 
have outgrown it- this to avoid howlers from his rabid fans) The 
irresponsible 17 YO average male doesn't look at serious romantic 
relationships with a benign eye, which is my reason for thinking that 
at least he and maybe also Peter ("Siding with the biggest bully in 
the playground") might have objected to James and Lily's budding love 
story. 

Well, if James and Lily had, by the timeline, to be dating in school 
and to have possibly married right out of school, the fact that 
Sirius looks so comfortable and pleased in the picture of himself as 
best man at their wedding ~ he either had a conversion experience or 
is a very good actor.

Anyway, being irresponsible when it comes to an overbearingly nosey 
slimeball does not an arrogant James Dean knock-off make.  Hagrid, an 
outcast type, arrives on Privet Drive with Harry on the motorbike he 
borrowed from 'that nice young Sirius Black' [sic ~ not an exact 
quote and possibly not from that section, but Hagrid does, in the 
past, refer to Sirius that way].  So obviously Sirius isn't a 
completely crass kid with an historical penchant for picking on 
*every*body.  He picked on Snape, who hates him; there is *no* text 
anywhere that tells of him picking on anybody else; there *is* text 
indicating that Hagrid liked him.  So we've one black mark against, 
and one positive statement for, and a whole lotta nothing much else 
to describe how Sirius treated the populace in general.

At any rate, I also don't think that James would have chosen him best 
man at his wedding if Sirius had spent a great deal of effort in 
putting down his [James's] relationship with Lily.  

And as far as Pettigrew being against allowing girlfriends into the 
group, I suspect he either would have been overridden, or he would 
have gone with the flow of the others' opinions, being the tagalong 
he seemed to have been.

Now, as to Lily, I found these remarks interesting:
> Moreover, I was trying to think along the lines of canon and its 
characterisation: from the way JKR depicts Petunia, we can guess her- 
and thus also Lily's- middle class background, we're talking about 
the 70s, and Hogwarts seems to be quite immune to outside influence 
(no Muggle literature, films etc., for Muggle-borns only during 
holidays), so the idea of "boys' talk" and "girls' talk" is strongly 
suggested by the books themselves which are situated in the 90s. 
Therefore I suppose it's legitimate to assume that gender roles and 
all that comes with them might have been even stronger back in the 
Marauders' times.

Do you really suppose that the wizarding world, and Lily, were 
*completely* out of sync with the muggle world?  The western world 
(including Britain) during the 60's and 70's saw a great wave of 
usurpation of all kinds of traditions ~ musical, sexual, gender- & 
race-related, to begin with.  Lily herself came from a muggle family. 
She spent her formative, pre-Hogwarts years probably fawning on the 
Beatles, or falling in love with The Doors, or at least being exposed 
to the peace-love-and-understanding nuttiness going on.

When she got the letter from Hogwarts she was heartily encouraged by 
her parents to exercise talents which fly in the face of good old 
fashioned sensible norms.  Petunia loves the traditional kinds of 
roles, and lives them; but she hated Lily and her 'abnormalities' and 
disdained her parents' encouragement of such freakishness; and she 
seems to always have felt bitter toward her 'perfect' sister who was 
so favored by their parents.  

Now, if Lily and her parents had been deeply imbued with the social 
norms which were uprooted in the 60's and 70's, among them 
traditional gender roles, I somehow doubt the witch gig would have 
gone over so enthusiastically, and I especially doubt that Petunia 
would have loathed Lily so much.

I somehow suspect that Lily would have brought her 'forward-thinking' 
mentality to Hogwarts with her, and that the influx of other muggle-
borns and half-bloods would have imported aspects of the muggle's 
wild 60's & 70's as well.

Lastly, is there any indication that Lily was *not* intelligent, 
outgoing, clever, good-humored?  Meaning, is there any indication 
that she was *not* the kind of person, regardless of her being a 
girl, that the Marauders would have considered to be their kinda 
person?

So, let's say that as times and hormones change so will the 
priorities of boys, and that the Marauders weren't obsessively 
exclusionist. And let's say that Lily could potentially have been a 
likeable person.  While your scenario is likely, I think it's at 
least equally likely that Lily grew to be an important part of 
James's life without too incredibly much upheaval amongst the 
Marauders ~ no more than occurs with any group of people who mature 
from kids to adults, at least.

Out of breath,
Mahoney