bullies? twins, padfoot and prongs

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 118711


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214"
<dumbledore11214 at y...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Carol:
> I think *Sirius* hates Severus because he associates him (and
> Slytherin in general) with the Dark Arts. But James didn't come 
> from a family of Dark Wizards (AFAWK) an his parents are still alive 
> at that point. He would have no personal motive for hating the Dark 
> Arts or Slytherin or anyone else, including Severus Snape, whom he 
> admits has  done nothing to him at that point. James doesn't seem to 
> be taking  much of anything seriously, except the Transfiguration 
> that he learned earlier to transfigure himself into an Animagus.
> 
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> We don't know whether James had personal motive for hating Dark Arts 
> or not. All we know that he always hated them. I can very easily 
> come up with personal motive for James - let's say his family were 
> Aurors and someone WAS killed by DE.
> 
> We also don't know how seriously James took things when he was 
> fifteen.


Carol responds:

The statement that James always hated the Dark Arts comes from Sirius,
twenty years after the Pensieve incident. As I've said before, he may
be *orojecting* his own feelings, or James's *later* feelings, onto
James at this time. We don't hear James himself speaking on the
subject. And we *do* know that he didn't take the DADA exam
seriously--look at his remarks about the werewolf question (in
careless disregard about Remus's feelings) and the traced and retraced
initials LE. That's where James's mind appears to be--on Lily and the
midnight adventures with a werewolf. While Remus is trying to study,
James is entertaining himself (and the sycophantic Wormtail) by
tossing a snitch. If you see any indication in that scene that James
took *anything* seriously, please quote it. He doesn't strike me as a
gurilla in the war against Voldemort or any kind of hero at this
point. It took, IMO, something drastic--perhaps the murder of his
parents by DEs--to transform Pensieve James into the James of Godric's
Hollow.

It appears that you're taking Sirius's statement about James's hatred
of the Dark Arts at face value. I think that Sirius is not a reliable
source of information on the subject. He's too close to James, after
twelve years in Azkaban brooding on his wrongs and only two years to
partially recover in the horrible Black mansion, to be an objective
witness. IMO, we need confirmation from a more reliable source in
order to regard that statement as a canonical description of James's
views when he was fifteen.

Carol, ironing her hands for being unable to stop responding to this
thread