James, a paragon of virtue? Was: Why Do You Like Sirius?

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 123285


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:

> Betsy:

> But then JKR throws us a curve.  First, when Snape hits back he 
> actually draws blood rather than hexing away James' and Sirius' 
> wands.  It's a telling choice.  And then JKR adds in the "mudblood" 
> word.  And, as you point out, Nora, having Snape use that 
> particular word says something about his background and ideology, 
> just as James' dislike of that word says something about his.

Ideology is something you're brought up with, but it is a choice as 
well, especially by that age--see below, methinks.
 
> But is JKR really saying, "Don't worry about it folks.  Snape's 
> still a baddie, James is still good.  Please ignore everything 
> leading up to this point!" ?  It doesn't make sense.  Not when 
> she's worked so hard to turn the readers *away* from James and 
> Sirius in the scene setup.  There must be more to it than can 
> simply be judged by who will say "mudblood" and who won't.  And I 
> wonder if JKR is suggesting that perhaps there is more to a person 
> than their family background.

Umm, I note you snipped the part of my post where I made noises in 
that direction--the complication of the White Hats, yet the dangers 
pointed out of exonerating any character based on a perceived victim 
status.

There is more to a person than family background--it is also a matter 
of personal choice what you choose to follow.  [And choices show what 
we really are, in the Potterverse.  Essentialist, but unavoidable.]  
Sirius is the grand example of not following in the family footsteps, 
and I think that's one of the Big Thematic Issues he's meant to 
represent.  It's an important one, as we've seen fairly little 
deviation from the family line...and his situation and Percy's are 
pretty incommensurate, so I won't make that comparison.

> So I think she's telling us more here - maybe about the possiblity 
> of change, maybe about the ability of folks to raise above their 
> upbringing, maybe something about motive being as or more important 
> than method.  I don't know what exactly, but I do think there's 
> more to this scene than simply who used what word. 

Motive more important than method...I'm not sure about that, being as 
we've been highly critical of Slytherin philosophy, and their "any 
means to achieve their ends".  Not that I want to completely equate 
ends and motive--n'est pas la meme chose, exactly.  In fact, I'd say 
that this scene might point towards the opposite: James generally has 
fairly good motives, but his methods suck rocks.  I think the problem 
of doing things that are not only right, but doing them the right WAY 
is a big one through the series.

There is more to this scene than who used what word, and we DO get 
character insights that are decidedly gray on all sides.  My main 
contention is that it's methodologically sloppy and discriminatory to 
not leave open the possibility that more things were feeding into 
this than we think, or know.  That's the point of pulling seriation 
into the discussion as well--you can't have a pattern from one 
instant.

> Betsy:
> Yes, but how does JKR show us Sirius' confidence in his 
> Transfiguration?  By having Sirius refuse to help Remus study!  
> Sweet Remus, whose painful werewolf transformations Sirius sees as 
> a wonderful lark. Again, not very friendly to Sirius is this 
> scene.  And JKR uses every trick she can to make that clear.

Shh, or you'll attract Pippin with words like those.  A true charge, 
but for me at least, a personally understandable one; it's the noble 
thing yet the mind-numbingly boring to help those who are not as 
quick as you at something, particularly in the midst of a barrage of 
exams.  But again, I'm loathe to extrapolate that into "The Model of 
Sirius and Remus' Relationships At School".  It tells us something, 
but the other rule of seriation is that when you have new 
information, you have to alter the pattern to accomodate it.

> (Frankly, I think the "let's feed Snape to the werewolf" scene will 
> be a big turning point for James, and I *really* hope JKR will 
> flesh that scene out.)

Personally, I'm betting with sick amusement that that scene is 
actually a lot less important to anything than we think it is.  
That's my personal perversity, however.

> We also know that Snape becomes a Death Eater.  And I think JKR was 
> careful to make Snape sympathetic but not pathetic.

*pets the bunny again*  Snape is currently at least somewhat 
sympathetic--which means he could become more sympathetic, but we 
could just as easily be set up for a reversal in his disfavor.  That 
is to say, we got the dirt on James this book--it's time to air all 
of Snape's bloody laundry next book (and oh do those interviews hint 
that it's there).  That's a prediction that's testable, of course, 
and will be abandoned happily if proven wrong.

> I believe that JKR has shown us some nobility in Presentday!Snape - 
> some good qualities like courage and loyalty (though I know that's 
> contested) that at least hint that Snape is now on the side of the 
> angels.  But there was something that started him down the wrong 
> path, and this scene certainly shows us a desperate, angry boy who 
> could very easily be led astray and might have already started 
> wandering.

I don't believe in ESE!Snape by any means, although I think his 
function in the series is presently deliberately ambiguous.  That 
means, by the way, that I'm professionally agnostic.  I would *like* 
to be able to like Snape (to pull in more subjective criteria) more 
than I do at present.

However, I'm also going to put my money firmly in the 'personal 
choice' basket, which means (paradoxically) I'm esteeming Snape 
higher than you might think.  I surmise that it was his own actions 
that got him into DEdom, but consequently that it was his own actions 
that got him out.  What makes me wonder is that there is such strong 
textual and interview evidence that he retains a good number of 
decidedly negative qualities (Dumbledore won't let him have DADA for 
a good reason, as we've mentioned in the past), which makes one 
wonder about his sincerity.  I think it would, from my view, lessen 
the impact of his character arc if we end up with poor Snape, nowhere 
to turn but the DEs, rather than a willed choice--but that is also 
just speculation, and I adapt with no qualms to new canon.
 
> I personally think that JKR gave us and Harry this scene to 
> reinforce the premise that there is no perfect good or perfect evil 
> when it comes to people.  And maybe to forshadow that those who 
> seem hopelessly bad may have a chance at redemption.  And perhaps 
> to suggest that there's more to person than good upbringing?

Sirius has that thematic aspect; maybe Snape is another side of it, 
but I'm not sure.  Maybe he's the failure of the will to make the 
proper choices, paying for it until he can, but always in a struggle 
with what he really *wants* to do and what he knows that he should?  
That does explain some of the tendencies to a mild sadism (the 
enjoyment of the emotional pain of others--and yes, I stick by my 
interview guns there; really, if she says it in an interview, there's 
not much reason to expect contradictory information and all the 
reason in the world to expect confirmation, right?) and the complex 
of behaviors that can be summed up as "Dude, do you HAVE to?".  Talk 
about possibly good motives and generally poor methods...

-Nora notes that folding a hakama properly is a real pain in the 
&*^$##$