bullies? twins, padfoot and prongs

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 119020


Carol earlier:
>>> And there's no indication that anything terrible has yet happened
in his [James'] young life to stir him up and start him thinking 
about serious issues like VW1. <<<
 
SSSusan responded:
>> This is true--we've no backstory for James' early life yet.  OTOH,
we do know that Sirius wanted to escape his pureblood, DA-leaning 
family, and where did he choose to go?  To James' family.  *Maybe* 
that was because James was his best buddy by then.  Or *maybe* it
was that James and his family were *known* to Sirius to offer up a
home  where the Dark Arts were detested.  
 
Because we can't know this one way or the other, I just don't see 
any reason to believe that Sirius was misremembering.  Yeah, James 
was an ass here.  But maybe he was just an ass.  A truly DA-hating 
ass.  I don't see any compelling reason to not read the scene this 
way.<<
 

Carol responds:
> And I don't see any compelling reason to view the fun-loving,
> thoughtless, egotistical James as holding any serious convictions 
> at this point. No doubt he took his parents' teachings for 
> granted, and no doubt Severus did the same, but I can see no 
> evidence that their running conflict is anything but 
> personal. "Because he exists" is not an indication that James 
> opposes the Dark Arts or anything else about Severus's philosophy. 


SSSusan:
But why do you assume that Snape has a *philosophy* but James has no 
serious convictions?  I don't see where that comes from.  It's just 
all conjecture at this point, and it seems that you've decided to 
conjecture James a certain way and Snape another, while I'm trying 
to point out that there is no compelling reason to have to introduce 
Sirius' misremembering something just so that James can be painted 
as having not yet thought about something when we have people who've 
told us that James hated the Dark Arts.  


Carol:
> It's Severus as a *person* that he seems to dislike.
<snip> So again I think that Sirius may be projecting *his*
> values onto James or at least exaggerating the extent of James's
> opposition to the Dark Arts, etc., in the Pensieve scene.
> 
> Surely you don't think he's bullying Severus *on principle*?


SSSusan:
I guess I'd answer, why NOT believe that at least some of the 
bullying was based on principle?  I'm not arguing that James didn't 
have a personal dislike of Snape -- the "because he exists" remark 
does show that -- but I don't see how/why we should assume that some 
of that dislike didn't have something to do w/ Snape's interest in 
the Dark Arts.  It's what James' friends believed to be true; why 
doubt that it was at least a component of it?; why assume Sirius was 
projecting?  I just don't see that as necessary to a belief that 
James hated Snape *and* hated the Dark Arts.

Siriusly Snapey Susan