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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 123478


>>Betsy:
>And yet her depiction of the Crouch family tragedy suggests that she 
*does* place a strong importance on means.<

>>Nora: 
>I agree that she does--hence the presentation-cum-condemnation of 
the Slytherin "any means to achieve their ends".  (It is decidedly 
not a good thing to be Slytherin in that way--it's a short step 
to "...only power".)  But I'm not sure that she's going so far to 
endorse the "means ARE ends" position which is one way of 
interpreting a strict Kantian approach.  Strict Kantian readings 
condemn breaking rules for a greater good, for example (the famous 
example of it being immoral to lie to someone who has come to kill 
your friend, because you must treat every action of means as a 
perfect end-in-itself)--and I get the feeling that Rowling 
wholeheartedly endorses Harry et al's breaking of rules in pursuit of 
what is actually right.<

Betsy:
Rowling definitely feels that some rules are not to be followed, but 
she places rather high importance on the rules she *does* think 
should be followed, loyalty, courage of conviction, etc.  Harry 
breaks rules that get in the *way* of his ideological code (the 
Norbert incident in PS/SS for example) but James broke the rules *of* 
his ideological code with the excuse that since Snape did not follow 
the code he was not protected by said code.  In other words, James 
broke the rules to do something wrong with the excuse that Snape 
broke them first. Not good behavior as per the books.
 
>>Betsy:
>I disagree with your reading here. The attack on Snape is vicious 
before Lily gets involved (Snape chokes on the soap James conjures 
into his mouth - there is already a laughing crowd).  James hangs 
Snape upside down before "Mudblood" is thrown out.  And it seems to 
me that James gets really upset when Lily tells James that he's as 
bad as Snape is.  There's nothing in the text that suggests to me 
that James is *furious* about the word, or even of its affect on 
Lily.  He's furious that she turned him down and compared him to 
someone he despises. James is not primarily motivated by Snape's 
vocabulary - I think he's perfectly honest when he states that his 
prime motivation is Snape's existence.  Which, again, does not fit 
well with his stated ideology.<

>>Nora: 
>"Apologize to Evans!" James roared at Snape, his wand pointed 
threateningly at him.<
> ...
>"What?" yelped James.  "I'd NEVER call you a --- you-know-what!"<
<snip>

Betsy:
James is a performer.  I read the roaring disapproval as his acting 
out the role of righteous rage - but it is acting.  When he yelps 
(distinctly unmanly reaction) James is reacting honestly to a spoken 
truth.  His behavior is not righteous, no matter how neatly he 
dresses it up, no matter how Snape behaves under his wand.

>>Nora:
>On the existence, though...if your ideology is "Dark Arts suck" and 
not a more nuanced/Dumbledorean approach to it, you have every reason 
to be offended by the existence-and-therefore-presence of a partisan 
of said Dark Arts.  That's what I keep harping on with the blah blah 
ontology blah blah--it can be read as not a small thing at all.  [I 
also think the Dark Arts thing is important--that's the thing that 
Sirius and Remus harp upon, when Harry confronts them.  Why? Possibly 
because for they who lived through it, that was one of the most 
important things; less important to Harry who hasn't had to confront 
it as directly in daily life through school.  That is to say, my 
hypothesis is that issues like blood purity and the Dark Arts were 
*more* publicly aired when MWPP were in school, with the rise of 
Voldemort being something that had public support.  In the present, 
you can't say it anymore; it's present, but less public.]<

Betsy:
I fully agree that the Dark Arts thing is the motive.  I just 
question the idea that it's a *good enough* motive for such sadistic 
behavior.  As I believe Alex pointed out in a related post, James 
treats Snape exactly as the Death Eaters treated the Muggles in the 
beginning of GoF.  Rowling did not choose this parallel lightly.  
This is not the first time JKR has suggested that merely being on the 
correct side of a war is not enough - behavior counts.  (I think of 
how the French treated those they suspected of collaborating with the 
Nazies, becoming as tainted as those they fought.)

>>Betsy:
>I don't discount James hating the Dark Arts.  I perfectly agree that 
James sets Snape up in his mind as the epitome of the Dark Arts and 
therefore feels perfectly justified in torturing him.  This does 
nothing to excuse his behavior, however.  Especially in an unprovoked 
attack in which numbers and surprise are on his side.<

>>Nora:
>Excuse, no.  I'm looking for explanations that tap into the cultural 
circumstances of the time and go deeper than just bullying.  That's 
part of it, but hints suggest it might not be the whole.<

Betsy:
But I think readers *are* aware of the cultural circumstances. JKR 
doesn't hide the ball on that.  Snape uses dark magic, he calls Lily 
a mudblood.  And as you pointed out earlier, Sirius and Lupin keep to 
the same theme.  But it isn't enough.  That James had it in him to 
act in such a manner is what brings the realization that he isn't a 
paragon of virtue (to cleverly bring in the title of the thread :)).  
And that's what shocks and dismays Harry.
 
>>Nora:
>There's the 'lapdog' comment, which suggests something that happened 
in the past--a charge designed to sting.  There's the mention of the 
gang as being at least partially contemporaneous.  And Lucius is 
easily the most overrated character in the fandom--smoove he is not, 
per the evidence.  He's the kind of person that everyone *knows* what 
he is, except those who choose not to (Fudge).<

Betsy:
If Snape was indeed Lucius's fag (thanks, Alex!) I can see Sirius 
making the "labdog" dig.  And I'm sure that the older Slytherins 
would provide a protection of sorts to Snape.  I haven't seen 
anything in the books, though, that suggests that James and Sirius 
were targeted by the Slytherins.

And again, we pull different things from the books.  The Lucius who 
managed to talk his way out of Azkaban while Crouch was still in 
power strikes me as at least a tiny bit politically astute.  We know 
who Lucius is because Dumbledore and the Weasleys know who he is.  
The WW does not (or did not - the MoM battle changes things of 
course).  Lucius is probably not the Pimpdaddy!Lucius of the movies, 
nor the seducer of innocents of fanfic, but he is a political 
player.  He would not have challenged Dumbledore while still a 
student at Hogwarts - certainly not openly by attacking young 
Gryffindors.  (Bellatrix is a different story of course.)

>>Betsy:
>I agree it's a profound choice, I just wonder if Sirius had a full 
understanding of the repercussions of such a choice. <snip>

>>Nora:
>Repercussions, maybe not...but in this essentialist cosmology, it 
indicates something deep and lasting about him.  And given that JKR 
is a big fan of Jessica Mitford, she seems wholly approving of the 
tosing over of your family if they're a bunch of fascists. :)<

Betsy:
Again, I don't think this one memory throws James and Sirius out with 
the bathwater.  But it does show that both boys did not fully grasp 
the ideology they claimed to follow and therefore still had some 
growing to do.

>>Nora: 
>What I'm objecting to is the caveat that it *must* be the improval 
that has everyone remebering him so fondly.  Instead of a pure 
diachronic model (James the berk becomes James the great guy), I'm 
suggesting something more synchronic--that James the great guy was 
present at the same time as James the berk.<

Betsy:
Present maybe, but kept hidden in a corner. :) I'm sure James was a 
good guy to those he labeled as part of his group.  His acceptence of 
Lupin despite the general beliefs of the WW does show that James 
wasn't completely awful.  But he did have something awful in him - 
something that Voldemort would have recognized and encouraged. 
Something that enabled him to accept the rather disturbing 
enthrallment Peter displayed as his due.

>>Nora:
>She's promised an explication of the so-called Prank.  It'd be nice 
to get an accounting of the above-mentioned gang.  Oh, no, there's 
lots of new information to add...<

Betsy:
There is more information desired, yes, but I don't think JKR will 
spend too much time in the past.  I think she'll hit the big stuff 
(the Prank, Snape leaving the Death Eaters, reason he's not DADA 
prof.) and then move on.  Unless the Slytherin gang is involved in 
any of those events, I doubt we'll see much of them.  Could be wrong 
of course!
 
>>Betsy:
>But James has been so white for so long that to negate the black 
that was added in the memory scene would have the effect of yanking 
his character back into flat purity.  Full out contradiction would 
not serve the process.  No, this black needs to stay.  However, we 
know James changes, and I think by showing us that change, Harry will 
get his father back, and we will have a larger understanding of the 
full character of James.<

>>Nora:
>But throwing some white paint on him wouldn't negate that--you can't 
negate it.  You can't get rid of that scene, but you can qualify it. 
He's never going to be pure again in the reader's mind, but the 
balance can shift.  I'm not proposing full-out contradiction.  The 
essence of dialectic is that these things co-exist, and together form 
a synthesis.  Decidedly grey.<

Betsy:
I imagine the way this might be accomplished will be to show Snape as 
a Death Eater.  Perhaps an understanding of his dark side will shed 
some understanding on why James et al were so disgusted by him. 
(Though it's hard to think of a fifteen year old boy as deserving of 
such treatment.)  I doubt we're going to see anything predating this 
particular memory though.  JMO, of course.

>>Nora: 
<snip> 
>I'd also like to note that the interview comments where she 
describes Snape asking for DADA and Dumbledore turning him down don't 
include a great deal of interpretation, but are rather more like the 
recounting of an event, giving a plain description of Dumbledore's 
reasoning. She's telling us WHAT happened and a bit of why from DD's 
perspective.  Close enough to fall into the 'just plain fact 
category?'  Good enough to say that postulating a scenario that 
cannot account for that is likely to end in 'oops'.<

Betsy:
If it's the interview I'm thinking of, we don't really learn anything 
new.  As per the books, Snape has wanted the DADA position for years, 
and for years Dumbledore has turned him down (Snape made this clear 
while being questioned by Umbridge in OotP).  I don't think she's 
told us *why* Dumbledore's made this decision.  And I would hope she 
wouldn't tell us about it in an interview.  So no - not a plain fact, 
more of a familiar tap-dance where she appears to say more than she 
does.

>>Nora: 
>Her answer left the mystery of "What the heck has Snape done to make 
Dumbledore think that way?"  But she's always been pretty explicit in 
interview that Snape has a skeezy past, which is something that comes 
out of the books as well.  [Side note: perhaps, methinks, we are 
sometimes quick to go "Well, he changed sides--that makes up for it 
all, right?"  We discount the true horror of what having been a DE 
likely entailed because it's Snape, and he's interesting, and on the 
side of the angels now.  I think this tendency confuses her, hence 
the "You forget that Snape was a DE..." etc. things that pop up oh so 
frequently.]<

Betsy:
Again, she's not saying anything we don't already know.  We do know 
that Snape was DE.  I myself doubt that he was merely responsible for 
keeping Voldemort in shampoo.  Fanon likes to have Snape as one of 
Voldemort's most trusted lieutenants, but I'm not sure if the books 
will bare that out.  He's a popular character - which makes sense, 
because he is one of the main characters - but in my flitting about 
the fan blogs, most of his supporters are fully aware that he 
probably participated in some horrors.  What I take issue with is the 
idea that he's broken somehow and can only achieve pleasure by 
causing pain in others.  If Snape was *that* twisted, Dumbledore 
wouldn't let him teach *anything*.

Betsy