[HPforGrownups] Re: OOP: James( was:Two-way Mirror and other frustrations)

[Diana Williams]

No: HPFGUIDX 64030

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "M.Clifford"
> <valkyrievixen at y...> wrote:
> >
> > No decent person would respect James for being a cruel bully.
> Agreed.
> > But, imagine the charismatic rebuttal he would give comments
> > on "mudblood filth" throughout his school life.
> > Snape wasn't an *innocent* victim. On the day of his memory he was
> > already guilty of a cruelty and bullying of his own more insidious
> > kind. Hating people for something they cannot change regardless of
> > their innermost character.
> > James earned a degree of repect for this: his spite was directed
> at
> > someones choice to hate, not merely someones inability to defend
> > themself, as was Snapes attack on Lily. For what defense has a
> > muggleborn witch against such comments, but a charismatic
> pureblood
> > displaying such characters for the fools that they are.


I'm not quite following your argument here.  It sounds like you're saying
that James is justified in his attack because Snape is a bigot and that he's
defending Lily from Snape's bigoted comment.  That doesn't wash.  Snape
didn't call Lily a mudblood until *after* James had attacked Snape.  At this
point, he had taken away Snape's wand, bound him, washed out his mouth with
soap, and hung him upside down.  Before the attack, he didn't say to Sirius
"there's that bigoted creep who insulted X yesterday - let's make him pay."
He said that he had a cure for Sirius' boredom.  PLUS, when Lily asked why
he was attacking Snape, he didn't say "because he's a bigoted jerk" he said
"because he exists".  The fact that Snape (who I agree is *not* an innocent
lamb) comes out with a bigoted remark *after* James attacks him does not
then justify James' actions.  It would be like my saying that I was
justified in burning down my neighbor's house now because I think he might
be a redneck and might say something sexist in the future.  In addition, I
doubt that Lily needed to be defended against Snape's comments by a white
knight riding to her rescue - she seemed to be doing just fine defending
herself.  (Plus she heartily disliked James and appears to have continued to
dislike him for at least another year.)

Diana Williams
"I was raised to be charming, not sincere," Prince Charming, "Into the
Woods"
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