James the Berk?

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 106172


Valky :
> You KNOW I went from Snape stands accused, by an as yet not proven 
> to be unreliable source (Sirius), of preferring Dark Arts spells to 
> other kind at this time, to hence he used his preferred style.

Del replies :
If I refer to what Sirius told Harry in OoP when Harry contacted him
to talk about the Pensieve scene, here's what I get :
"Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark
Arts"
"Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to
curse James"
But we also have :
"Once James had deflated his head a bit," said Sirius.
"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it," said Lupin.

So. Snape was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts and he never lost an
opportunity to curse James, and James hated the Dark Arts but hexed
people just for fun.
Once again, we get stalled by the meaning of words. Is "curse" a
darker word than "hex" ? And even more important, does "curse"
necessarily denote Dark Magic ? If it doesn't, then nothing Sirius
says tells us that Snape used the Dark Arts on other people : he
*studied* them, but Sirius never clearly says that he *used* them on
other people. We can *infer* that, but it's not necessarily true.

Valky wrote :
> The Expelliarmus and the Impedimenta are *by nature* Defensive 
> spells,

Del replies :
I strongly disagree.
Expelliarmus is a spell aimed at disarming your opponent. In other
words, and as Snape so brilliantly demonstrated in CoS, it's the first
spell any wizard *attacking* another should think of using. I agree
that it can be used in defensive situations of course, like Harry did
in GoF against LV, but it is nonetheless an *aggressive* spell aimed
at stripping someone of all ability to do any magic (except for
wandless magic, which few wizards seem to master).
Impedimenta is even more obviously an aggressive spell. Its aim is to
make someone lose all control of their body. Once again, it's a spell
that can be used defensively, of course, but that doesn't change its
nature.
Now, a spell like Protego, the shielding charm, for example, is very
obviously a defensive spell *only*. If I were told that someone used
Protego, I would have to conclude that they were being attacked. But
if I was told that someone used Expelliarmus or Impedimenta, I
couldn't decide if they were attacking or defending. I would need more
information.

I Do see your point, though. Expelliarmus and Impedimenta both aim at
preventing someone from doing something. They don't *harm* the person
that receives them (though they can be used to allow harm to be done
to that person). A cutting spell, on the other hand, will always harm
the person it's aimed at.

But as I said in an earlier post, Snape was the victim in this case,
and he was allowed to use pretty much any means (within the limits of
the law) to stop his attackers. He *could* have used a nicer spell,
like Expelliarmus and Impedimenta, but he didn't *have* to. Moreover,
as I said before too, Snape knew this was most probably going to be
his *only* chance : Sirius had seen him move, he was going to hex him
before Snape had any chance to hex Sirius after hexing James (Am I
making sense here ?) So we could take Snape's choice of a cutting
spell as a statement from Snape : you're going to win because I have
no chance against the two of you, but you're going to pay for it. Or
maybe he was hoping that the cutting spell was going to create enough
damage that James would have to be taken to the hospital wing
immediately, which would most likely have ended the duel. Or maybe
quite simply, the cutting spell was the only one that translated
appropriately the hate Snape was feeling at that time towards James,
so he didn't think of using any other.

Now, if you really want to know, I think Snape acted stupidly, and
completely wasted his opportunity. He could have used the Impedimenta
spell, which would have taken James out of the fight for a while, and
then immediately used the Protego spell to protect himself against
Sirius. It would then have been just Snape vs Sirius, in which case
Snape would have had a big chance of winning.
I think someone like Harry, who usually keeps his head cool during a
battle, would have acted like that : take one opponent out of the
battle so that you can deal more easily with the other one. But Snape
was not Harry : he let his anger take over, and thought only of
translating it in a spell, hence the cutting spell I guess.


Del