OOP: James, Lily and Pride and Prejudice

[Eleanor]

No: HPFGUIDX 67794

I haven't seen this idea being talked about recently, but if it has 
been, sorry for repeating anything!

Comparisons have been made in the past between Pride and Prejudice 
and Harry Potter to show how relationships which are at first 
mutually antagonistic can turn into love.  Usually it's used in 
reference to something like Draco/Hermione, but after OoP it seems to 
apply much better to what we see of James/Lily.

>From the short interaction between them in the Pensieve scene, Harry 
(and the reader) comes away wondering how they could have fallen in 
love just a few years later.  Harry should read more Jane Austen.  
Elizabeth hates Darcy (for a mixture of good and mistaken reasons) as 
soon as she meets him, but within two years they are happily 
married.  Harry witnessing the scene where James tries to blackmail 
Lily into going out with him and she replies "I wouldn't go out with 
you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid" is equivalent 
to a teenage Darcy Jr. going back in time to hear Lizzy tell his 
father "I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the 
last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry" – 
in both cases, it might be reasonable to wonder how Lizzy/Lily could 
have voluntarily changed their minds so drastically.  

But Lizzy certainly does, and it's not because she suddenly discovers 
Darcy is a nice person or because he forces her into it.  It's 
because he changes, and (in the words of Sirius about 
James) "deflates his ego a bit".  In the process, Lizzy also changes, 
and comes to realise that her first impression of Darcy was too 
harsh – although he is conceited and arrogant, her own behaviour was 
hardly above reproach (think of Lily, "whose furious expression 
twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile" at Snape 
hanging upside-down).               

It is admittedly difficult to imagine Darcy as a teenage bully, but 
like James, he considers himself to be superior to almost everyone he 
meets, and behaves rudely "just because he can".  15-year-old James, 
arrogant, conceited and vain, isn't a million miles from the Mr Darcy 
who says:

"I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in 
principle.  As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not 
taught to correct my temper.  I was given good principles, but left 
to follow them in pride and conceit
 I was spoiled by my parents, who 
though good themselves (my father particularly, all that was good and 
amiable) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and 
overbearing."

James' situation is similar: from what Sirius tells us about them, it 
seems James' parents were loving and kind and clearly had plenty of 
money.  Darcy stops being arrogant when he falls in love with Lizzy 
and is forced to swallow his pride to help her sister.  I would 
suggest that we're going to find out that James did something 
equivalent because of his love for Lily, which finally made him see 
the error of his ways and let her fall in love with him.  Harry can't 
keep feeling "cold and miserable" at the thought of his father.  
Redeemed!James, anyone?

Elanor, 
Who has a crush on James but strangely, not on 
Darcy