Point of Order: "The Marauders"

[psychic_serpent]

No: HPFGUIDX 53405

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:
> What I'm talking about is collectively calling James Potter, 
> Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin "The Marauders", and 
> I am seriously, honestly, curious why anyone would want to call 
> them that. I get a bit of a nervous twitch every time I see the 
> term and I'd like to explain why.
> 
> OK, the reason I can imagine most people would want to do so is 
> because of the name of "The Marauder's Map".  

[snipped stuff about apostrophes] 

> What's so important about that little apostrophe? Well, at various 
> points in my life I've worked in the tourism industry and have 
> become acquainted with the term "Visitor's Map/Plan", as I assume 
> have most people, as visitors if not authors or distributors. Were 
> these maps written by visitors (or even one visitor)? No, of 
> course not. They were written by people who knew what they were 
> talking about *for the benefit* of Visitors (or a single Visitor 
> for each map).

Yes, those maps are for the benefit of Visitors (plural--I doubt any 
of those were for the benefit of a single Visitor).  The title of 
the map clearly indicates that it is for the benefit of Marauders 
(plural).  And who benefited from the existence of the map?  Sirius, 
James et al.  If the map had been labeled, "For the use of the 
skilled Marauder," (singular) one could also assume that this meant 
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs--all four of them.   This 
construction and the apostrophe is not, as you noted in your 
citation of "Visitor's," indicative of there being only one 
Marauder.  

The four of them created the map for their own use.  They titled 
it "The Marauder's Map."  This seems to be a blatant bit of self-
labeling, IMHO.  I don't see how one can look at this and NOT assume 
that that is a good moniker for the group.  I can see how it might 
have been thought up, as well.

Wolves have been traditionally labeled "marauders."  On this web 
page:

http://www.tbbw.com/legends.html

one may find the following passage:

Myth of the Marauder

Throughout the ages, even in the prehistoric world, whilst his 
howling athwart the stillness of nature and night struck fear into 
the heart of primaeval man crouching far back in the dark retreat of 
some cold rough cave; further sown the centuries when he was known 
as the marauder of the shepherd's grazing flocks...

And in Chapter two of Jack London's novel "White Fang," for 
instance, this passage appears:

"...being a sheep-dog, her instinctive fear of the Wild, and 
especially of the wolf, was unusually keen. White Fang was to her a 
wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyed upon her flocks from 
the time sheep were first herded and guarded by some dim ancestor of 
hers." 

I found dozens and dozens of places on the web where "marauder" 
and "wolf" appear on the same page, in similar contexts (although 
many pages are military in nature, evidently).  Clearly, then, Remus 
would have been considered the chief candidate to be considered 
a "marauder," but it is no leap of logic to conclude that his 
furtive full-moon companions, breaking all kinds of school rules and 
wizarding laws along the way, could also have considered themselves 
to be "honorary" marauders at these times.
 
> I take the name of the Marauder's Map in an analogous sense. 
> Besides, I can't imagine the authors calling 
> themselves "Marauders", which has zero positive connotations (at 
> least in my mind, as a native speaker of British English). 

This is where you need to think like a teenage boy.  I believe they 
used it on the map PRECISELY because it has negative connotations.  
I believe they wanted to think of themselves as "bad."  Dangerous.  
(Lord knows, they were both, technically--after all, Snape almost 
died.)  They used codenames, but one could also think of these 
as "gang" names.  Their use of the word "marauder" on the map shows 
their youthful bravado; I believe it was a way for them to strut 
(even if it was only amongst themselves) and appear to be big and 
bad.  They were probably impressive to themselves, anyway. <g>

> Furthermore, I don't see "a plunderer; one who pillages" (my 
> dictionary's definition) fits the foursome. They were in search of 
> adventure rather than thievery. The definition fits Gred & Forge 
> pretty well, though (they use the Map to get food from the 
> kitchens and party supplies from Honeydukes).

I think it would be safe to assume that James used his Invisibility 
Cloak and the map for this as well.  (I can't recall right now 
whether a reference to that is in canon, so I'll just say that this 
is my impression.)  The twins didn't have a cloak, so they didn't 
have that advantage.  Harry, like his dad, has both of these tools, 
and who frequently treats him as though he's a criminal because of 
it?  Snape, the almost-victim of Lupin.  Is it any wonder he seems 
to think Harry is a chip off the old block in the worst possible way?

> I don't remember whether it was here or in some other forum, but 
> someone once said "well, they had to call themselves *something*". 
> As it happens, 1) well, no they didn't. Harry, Ron and Hermione, 
> who appear just as closely allied to each other in their 
> adventures, don't have a "gang name".
> 2) they *do* call themselves something: in what I consider a 
> typical dig at pomposity (and the names of British law firms), 
> they call themselves Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.
> 
> The thing is, the two members of the foursome who've talked about 
> those days, Remus and Sirius, have never, ever, referred to 
> themselves as "The Marauders", but they both use their aliases 
> when referring to their schooldays.

Yes, but it's clear from the title on the map that they THOUGHT of 
themselves as rough-and-tough "marauders" when they were young, 
whether they ever used that term for themselves aloud.  And even if 
they did, I would never dream that they'd want to say that in front 
of Harry, Ron and Hermione.  It's embarrassing to admit to the next 
generation the silly games and strutting in which you engaged in 
your own youth.

I don't see where Remus and Sirius not using this title for 
themselves is relevant, anyway.  When discussing the books, we 
frequently refer to Harry, Ron and Hermione not as HRH, usually, but 
as "the Trio."  It is an externally-applied label used for 
convenience.  Nowhere in the books are they called this.  Snape does 
once call them "the dream team" (very snidely) and some folks refer 
to them that way instead.  Frankly, given the creators and original 
users of the map, there's a lot more support in canon for referring 
to Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs (in a litarary analysis) by 
the collective external label of "the Marauders" than there is 
support for calling Harry, Ron and Hermione "the Trio," numerically 
accurate though it is.

--Barb

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