Teen Conflict (was: "Lapdog" and "snivel")

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 115727


-Valky wrote:
<snip>
>   
> I tend to compound the nature of the issue with the fact that "Dark 
> Magic" and "Lord Voldemort" were the bane of the very society that 
> these boys existed in, making James and Sirius view of what was and 
> wasn't decent quite the highground of the two. And is probably why 
> Snape was unpopular and James/Sirius the opposite. <snip>

Carol responds:
Does taking the moral high ground make kids popular? It may just be
that three-quarters of the students (Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and
Hufflepuff) shared James's and Sirius's views that blood didn't matter
and one-quarter (the Slytherins) shared Severus's views. No doubt
there were exceptions in both cases, but I'm generalizing here.

As for popularity, we don't really know that Severus was unpopular.
That's Harry's perception. Some of the students (we don't know how
many) were apprehensive; others (again, we don't know how many) were
amused. It may be that the majority, like Lupin, just sat there, not
making their feelings known. And we've already established that
Snape's Slytherin friends were mostly older and had left Hogwarts. Any
others who remained may have been the save-your-own-skin variety (say,
Walden Macnair). Their behavior might not relate in any way to shared
beliefs about blood purity. Nor is there any reason to believe that
Severus at this time was loyal to Voldemort. He was only fifteen (or
barely sixteen) and most likely had not yet been recruited to join the
DEs. (Why would they want a kid not yet at the peak of his powers who
couldn't even apparate?)

As for James and Sirius, their popularity, as I understand it, was
based in James's case on athletic ability (rather like the popularity
of Viktor Krum), as well as a desire to be on the good side of a kid
who's likely to hex people in the corridors "because they exist."
Sirius's popularity, such as it was (girls ogling him) appears to be
based solely on looks. He certainly was not popular because of his
personality, which is arrogant in the extreme. He is rude not only to
Severus but to his friends Remus and Peter. Whether he has rejected
the family philosophy or not, he behaves like a Black, as if he were
royalty, not deigning to speak politely to anyone and expecting James
to entertain him when he's bored.

The majority of the students at Hogwarts, especially the muggleborns
and halfbloods, probably shared the idea that pureblood superiority
was bunk. They knew from their own experience that muggleborns could
be as magically powerful as anyone else. James and Sirius would not be
popular for believing what most other students believed. They were
popular for the same reason particular kids are popular in Muggle
schools: athletic ability on the one hand and good looks on the other.
And if Severus really was as unpopular as Harry perceives him to be,
it would have been for similar reasons: he was a skinny,
stringy-haired kid with his nose in a book. Clearly not the sort for
James or Sirius to hang around with even if he hadn't been a Slytherin
enamored of the Dark Arts (or so Sirius says).

If it had been a matter of the high moral ground, James and Sirius as
the aggressors would have been frowned down and Severus as the victim
would have been supported by his peers. But morality seldom comes into
play in schoolboy battles, regardless of the political or cultural
philosophy the boys have been indoctrinated with at home.

Carol