bullies? twins, padfoot and prongs

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 118807


Carol:
> Surely this is not the same James we hear
> calling to Lily that he'll hold off Voldemort while she takes Harry
> and runs? The James who died trying to fight for his family is
> admirable and courageous. The James who bullied Severus for the
> entertainment of his bored friend is arrogant and egotistical. James
> did a lot of growing up, IMO, in the years between the Pensieve
> incident and Godric's Hollow.

Alla:
> > Untill Sirius is PROVEN to be a liar, I will take his testimony 
> > seriously, I see no reason not to.
> > 
> > I even take his testimony about Snape to be true, but I 
> > understand why others may not want to, but not to take his words 
> > about James as truthful? I see absolutely no reason why.
 
Carol responds:
> For the record, I wasn't calling Sirius a liar. We all interpret
> events and other people's motives from our own perspective and see 
> the past through the filter of the present. So I think Sirius is 
> dating James's opposition to the Dark Arts to an earlier period 
> than is likely, in part because James was later a strong opponent 
> of Voldemort and in part because Sirius himself hated the Dark Arts 
> from an early age because of his family. I think he believes that 
> his feelings and James's feelings were more similar than they 
> really were. 


SSSusan:
I've stayed out of this thread on purpose, but I just have to ask 
this.  WHY should we look at it this way?  That is, WHY should be 
assume that Sirius is dating James' opposition to the Dark Arts to an 
earlier point than it really existed?  I think it actually makes MORE 
sense, given what you're pointing to in the first paragraph above 
about the strength of James's actions in the GH scene, for his 
aversion to the DA to have been LONG-held.  


Carol:
> 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:
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.

Siriusly Snapey Susan