[HPforGrownups] Re: OOP: James, Snape,

[pjuel13 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 64088

Jens says: 
>Well, according to Lupin and Black, "he never lost an opportunity to curse 
>James", this is true. However, there is absolutely _no_ evidence that he did 

>_anything_ to James as horrible as what James did to him in the pensieve 
>scene. Lily outright asked James "What's he done to you?", and James has no 
>better reason aside from Snape's very existence.

There's no evidence he -didn't- either, other than streching "What's he done 
to you?" into "What's he -ever- done to you?". The two are not the same thing. 
"What's he done to you" can and is routinely read as a statement pertaining 
to that moment. And in that moment Snape hadn't done anything, Lily was quite 
right to ask the question. You may believe that Lily wouldn't have done 
anything to help Snape had he a history of overt nastiness, I like to think that she 
would have and did because 2 on 1 is never fair and neither is going after an 
opponent after you've imobilized them, regardless of who they are or what 
they've done.
In previous posts you've made suppositions based on an absence of 
information, if you play by those rules you've got to allow others to play by them as 
well. 

There's a vast great amount of information we don't know so making sweeping 
speculations and generalizations about a characters is a dangerous thing to do. 
And seems almost contrary to the character complexity and honesty that JKR is 
trying to show in her work. Prior to book 5 we didn't know that the pensive 
incident happened. Until that point James Potter was St. James and we'd seen 
virtually nothing, apart from the scene at the end of GoF, sympathetic to Snape. 
Though it was tempting to make broad generalizations about James' goodness 
and Snapes badness, it turns out it wasn't quite that simple. And despite now 
having the pensive scene it still isn't quite as simple as the new and 
fashionable WhollyInnocent!Snape and WhollyEvil!James. Who's to say what else, 
including Snape doing something equally as nasty to James or another fellow student, 
possibly a "mudblood" won't be seen in book 6 or 7? 

And as I said in an earlier post the "because he exists" line is open to 
broad interpretation in the abscence of any information concerning the 5 years 
leading up to that point. If Snape and James had been carrying on a 5 year long 
war with each other then, by that point, it's likely that both would use that 
excuse to justy their actions against the other. 
James went after Snape in the pensive scene because he could and there's no 
excusing that, but that does not mean that there was not an ongoing war between 
the two, nor does it mean that Snape was always the victim, even before the 
events of the pensive.

>Second, Lupin and Black did not say "he _and his friends_ never lost an 
>opportunity...". This indicates that Snape was consistently outnumbered by 
>the Marauders.

Yes, Lupin and Black do say that "He never lost an opportunity to curse 
James" but note the way that statement mirrors itself. Lupin and Black don't say 
"he never lost an opportunity to curse -us-" they say only that he never lost an 
opportunity to curse -James- and we know that James had at least 3 close 
friends and probably a pretty good sized group of followers. So to assume that the 
absence of "he and his friends" means that Snape was consistently outnumbered 
requires the same assumption for James and that falls flat. 
To -me- that line indicates the the feud between Severus and James was a very 
deeply personal affair that was conducted largely, though not wholly, between 
the two of them. 

>True, Sirius did say that Snape hung with a group of Slytherins that nearly 
>all became Death Eaters, however, in this book, we get a bit of info 
>(Lucius' age) that indicates that at least one, if not all, of these friends 

>had left Hogwarts by the time Snape was in fifth year.

Actually if I recall correctly Lucius' age is revealed in an interview not in 
the book (I could be wrong on that and I'd love to have a cite for either the 
book passage or the article), we know nothing about the others so there's not 
alot you can assume about them one way or the other. One could just as easily 
infer that the bulk of the gang of Slytherins were only year or two older and 
younger than Snape or that most of them were in the same year but didn't go 
outside as Snape did and that this was one of the instances where Snape was 
caught alone. 
I will say that I'm developing strong suspicions, based on the 5 year age 
gap, Sirius' comments about Snape being Lucius' lapdog, and the nickname 
"Snivellus" (to me it smacks of someone percived as a snivelly follower, not unlike 
Peter really, though Snape is not the sort to stay Peter-esque any longer than 
he had to), that Lucius was a protector of sorts for Snape and when he was gone 
things escalated.

>I'm still not sure I understand what you were talking about before... Were 
>you saying you thought that Sirius didn't want to try and excuse he and 
>James' actions towards Snape and deliberately left out any mention of 
>whatever Snape did to deserve everything that happened to him in that scene? 

>Why on earth would he do that, especially to Harry who was obviously very 
>upset and looking for way to put James back on his pedestal? And why would 
>James do that, since he came up with an even less acceptable reason, and he 
>was talking to a girl he apparently liked?

What I am saying is that Sirius was at least adult enough to acknowledge that 
in that instance and he and James were little jackasses and further that he 
and James had been at times when 15 and thereabouts "arrogant little berks." 
That's what an adult acting as a guardian ought to do. When confronted with 
evidence of mistakes made in the past, and that pensive scene is a horrible 
mistake regardless of the ongoing conflict between James and Snape, they ought to 
say "yup, you're right, I was wrong, that was a terrible way to be and a good 
person isn't proud of that sort of thing" and so by extension "you shouldn't be 
the way I was, don't make my mistakes". Sirius may have been a poor parental 
figure in a few ways but he got this one right. If Harry had come asking them 
questions about the pensive scene at the age of 11 or 12 then perhpas they 
ought to have softened things a bit in order to let him hold on to his image of 
his father a little longer but at the age of 15  Harry is definetly old enough 
to know that his father and his father's friends weren't always nice people and 
that he's expected to do better and be better. And largely he has, even 
before finding out that his dad and his friends weren't perfect. Harry may not have 
needed them to tell him not to act that way, but I think he did need to get a 
fuller, more honest picture of his father and his friends. That's part of the 
process in developing empathy, knowing that even those we love best have 
failed and fallen short, that they've done things to be ashamed of, things that 
are vain or cruel or foolish or unfair or idiotic, though they may remain good 
people. When we see and accept that it's not so easy to judge others quite so 
harshly. Harry hasn't yet applied that knowledge, at least where Snape is 
concerned or in a way beyond the comperably trivial, he's only 15 after all, but 
the seed is there. We can even see it in that scene where Ron is going on about 
his quidditch triumph and rumpling his hair to make it look like he's just got 
off his broom, just like James did. He looks at Ron and that silly hair 
rumpling and sees how a 15 year old could be idiotic in that way. Should be 
interesting to see what his realtionship with Dudley is like over the summer.
Strangely enough Sirius was harder on himself and James that Remus was. Remus 
kept trying to mitigate things, Sirius flat out says they were idiots. 
Would it have been better for them to have lied to Harry or expound upon a 
list of grivances justifying what happened? I don't think so and I can't see why 
anyone would think it would be. If you believe an act is wrong, even in the 
context of the history surrounding it, the you should say so. Otherwise you 
just end up perpetuating an unending cycle of action and reacton, with each side 
scrambling to justify it's latest action in light of what was last done to 
them. It's a breeder reactor feeding on itself.  Frankly, I think Sirius and 
Remus should have been even more emphatic about having been wrong in that instead 
of getting caught up in the happy reminicences of a dear and dead friend. They 
let themselves get distracted by that and they shouldn't have. But still, as 
adults they had the choice between doing the right thing and owning up (though 
not as strongly as they might have) and trying to lie it away or turn it into 
a tit for tat thing. They did the right thing. 

Once more though, the fact that Sirius and Remus don't launch into a detailed 
recounting of everything Snape ever did doesn't mean that there wasn't an 
ongoing conflict. We already have a fair bit of text in the books to more than 
support that. "Thay hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each 
other." It sounds like it was mutual from the start of their days at Hogwarts (we 
don't know if they'd known each other before). It's noteable that they begin by 
saying that James and Snape hated each from first sight and near conclude 
with "Snape never lost an opportunity to curse James" which to me indicates a 7 
year long, intense conflict waged actively on both sides. Curses, as we've 
seen, aren't benign, curse is generally used in the books to descibe things that 
cause physical damage. 
>From what I can see you write about that pensive scene as if it happened in a 
void, where neither James nor Snape had ever interacted before and James just 
picked innocent and helpless Snape out of the blue to show off and impress 
Sirius and Lily, and then tormented him ever after thereby turning him to the 
dark side. Or that James and only James ever did anything and Snape was ever and 
always the undeserving victim. And we know that's not true, both boys had a 
history and a hate with each other of at least 5 years duration prior to the 
event. 
In the instance of the pensive scene James and Sirius were the aggressors and 
they were wrong. Sirius and Remus admit as much and are embarassed by it. I 
don't excuse it at all. But to then extrapolate from that that Snape was 
-always- the victim, poor and oppressed and harried and hounded, or that he himself 
might not also have done some pretty nasty things, or that James (and Sirius 
too) remained a horrible man with no redeeeming qualities, and as some have 
even speculated, forced, bullied, or trapped Lily into marrying him, and who 
fooled everyone around him including Moody, Dumbledore, and McGonnigall, before he 
was killed, I'm not sure can be done or should be done. 

It's really easy to over-personalize the pernsive scene. As someone who was 
physically or verbally assaulted nearly every day through my teen years it hit 
some nerves with me that's for sure. But I'm not Snape, and James and Sirius 
aren't the people who made my life during that time so difficult. And my story 
isn't their story. In the pensive I read a moment out of 7 years. That moment 
looks awfully bad but I'm not seeing the whole picture and I know that, even 
with Sirius and Remus both saying they'd been idiots at that age. I know what 
happened that day after the DADA OWL (though what the pensive records, how, and 
if it's impacted by personal bias remains unclear, I dearly hope some kid 
asks about that tomorrow during the webcast), I know that Sirius and James were 
idiots at 15, and I know that Snape and James had a long-standing history of 
antipathy towards each other, something confirmed by more than one person. And 
that's really -all- I know for certain. Empathy tells me to be careful how 
harshly I judge them or idealise them as boys: Snape, James, Sirius, Remus and 
even Peter, until I see a fuller picture. 

It's so easy to pare the pensive scene down to the the most simplistic level, 
but I honestly do think that one of the big reasons why JKR wrote it in the 
first place was to continue to emphasise the importance of not making the easy 
assumption about a person. People are far more complex that that. It reminds 
us that we've all done bad and have the capacity to do much better and that you 
should be careful to judge based on only part of the story. So shouldn't we 
get her lesson along with Harry? 

-Stripedog 





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