bullies? twins, padfoot and prongs

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 118668


Nora wrote:
> 
> <snip> Perhaps because I tend to take them seriously, I can envision an 
> (idiotically going about it, in part because of deep fears) 
> Vigilante!James, in school.  The Dark Arts seem to be what divides 
> pureblood families like the Potters, who don't seem to have the 
> blood ideas held up high, from families like the Malfoys and Blacks, 
> who do.  Given our scanty evidence, there's still a fairly strong 
> association between the Dark Arts, pureblood ideology, and becoming 
> a DE.  I can see James' behavior towards a young Severus he suspects 
> of being into the Dark Arts as a boneheaded vigilante response, 
> because I think those currents were probably strong back then, the 
> conflicts between those who were supporters of ideology Voldemort 
> promulgated and those who weren't--the time just before everything 
> really exploded into the open.  Unless it was already exploding and 
> we just don't quite know about that either.
> 
> Mind you, that's no excuse for such nasty behavior on James' part.  
> But fear does unpleasant things to human beings, and I think there 
> is fear involved: "Those people into the Dark Arts, look what 
> they're doing/going to do to the rest of us--teach them a lesson 
> now!".  "Fear is the matrix of vice", says one of my favorite 
> authors.  It's worth thinking about it as a motivation. <snip>

Carol responds:
I don't see any evidence of fear, or of loathing of the Dark Arts, in
James at fifteen (echoes of an old TV series in my mind here). He
seems to be in this poor excuse for a duel solely for its supposed
entertainment value. Sirius is bored; James sees Severus, whom they
both dislike, and decides to show off. 

To me it seems clear that this is a different James from the one who
later joins the Order. He is not yet taking the Dark Arts and
Voldemort seriously. He doesn't have Sirius's exposure to the Dark
Arts and doesn't *yet* have a personal reason for opposing them. His
parents are still alive; Sirius has not yet moved in with the Potters.
(That happened when he was sixteen, probably during the summer
following the Pensieve incident, but just possibly the summer after
that, depending when his birthday falls.) I don't think that James
would have acted as he did in this incident if his parents had already
been murdered by Voldemort, which they must have been to disappear
together between James's last years at Hogwarts and Godric's Hollow.
He would have been much more sanctimonious, much more serious, openly
acting as the champion of the Light against the supposed practitioner
of the Dark Arts, Severus Snape. I see nothing of that pseudoheroic
savior-of-the-world attitude in this incident. James has been laughing
and joking and playing with a snitch. He remains in show-off mode
throughout the incident. 

Moreover, I'm not sure that he would have rescued Severus from the
werewolf the following year if he had seen him as a real and dangerous
disciple of evil. Unless, of course, it was really Remus and Sirius
whom he was saving.

At any rate, I think the James that Lily falls in love with had a good
reason to change, more than her disapproveal of his hexing people who
annoyed him. He may, at that point, have begun to act on principle, ro
realize the danger that Voldemort posed because he had personally
experienced the pain of loss. And he *may* have transferred that new
feeling onto his ongoing feud with Severus, perhaps unwittingly
pushing Severus toward the Dark Side in doing so.

But to see the Pensieve incident as a principled battle of Light
against Dark is to distort arrogance into rectitude. I'll grant that
*Sirius* at this point opposed the Dark Arts, but his motive was
personal and his attitude toward Severus can only be called
vindictive. There is, as far as I can see, nothing noble in the
motivation of either boy at this point. If you can present evidence of
fear and loathing of the Dark Arts on James's part at this point,
other than Sirius's after the fact attribution of that hatred to him,
I will reconsider this position. But even if James did hate the Dark
Arts, his treatment of Severus in this scene is inexcusable bullying.

Carol, who hopes she's not beating the same horse to death and will
try to avoid this thread for awhile just in case