bullies? twins, padfoot and prongs

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 119201


Siriusly Snapey Susan wrote:

> <snip> 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.
> 
> 
Carol responds:
You could be right. However, I see a huge difference between Pensieve
James and Godric's Hollow James, and I think something very important
happened to get him to stop being an arrogant show-off and turn into a
brave and principled Order member. Maybe the so-called Prank shaped
him up a bit; maybe Lily's influence helped as well aand being a
father helped as well, but I don't think they're sufficient to explain
the transformation. He clearly isn't taking life or exams or the
threat of the Dark Arts seriously in the Pensieve scene, as witnessed
by his joking remarks about the werewolf question. He isn't even
taking the duel with Severus seriously, at least until Severus insults
Lily and he apparently wants to pay him back. But he's still an
arrogant little berk at the end of the scene. He doesn't understand
why Lily objects to his conduct. I still think something terrible,
quite possibly the murder of his parents, completed the transformation
from irresponsible boy to responsible adult.

As for Sirius projecting his own hatred of the Dark Arts onto James,
he, unlike James at this point, has reasons for hating Dark Wizards.
He lives with them in that horrible house. He knows, as James probably
does not, exactly what the Dark Arts involve. James seems to dislike
Severus, for reasons that aren't fully clear even to him (or he'd have
come up with a better answer than "because he exists"). Sirius, in
contrast, clearly *hates* Severus, who seems to be the kind of boy his
own parents would have wished *him* to be. The only way I can explain
that difference in attitude is by speculating that Sirius thought
James's rather automatic dislike of the Dark Arts (presumably picked
up from his parents) was as intense and bitter as his own *hatred* of
the Dark Arts.

I'm not criticizing either of them (though I don't think their conduct
in the Pensieve scene can be justified). I'm trying to account for
what seem to be clear differences in the *intensity* of their feelings
toward Severus (and to the Dark Arts, if that indeed is what Severus
represents in their adolescent view). I don't think that James, for
all his faults, is *vicious* in the Pensieve scene, but Sirius clearly
*is*. and it's for *his* amusement that James baits Severus in the
first place.

Carol