"Moody"/Draco vs. James/Severus (Was:Scene with likable James)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 156330

> Brothergib wrote:

> I am not stating in any way that Harry's instinctive 
> reaction is wrong. I am trying to make the point that we seem to 
> think badly of James because of how he treats Snape, but we do not 
> think badly of Moody for how he treats Draco. I would even suggest 
> that we still don't think that badly of Mad Eye Crouch in this 
> particular scene even now we know exactly what he is! <snip>
> We know how Draco has treated Harry prior to this scene.
> We do not know how Snape treated James prior to the pensieve scene.
> If we had seen Snape treating James badly prior to this scene -
would we still feel sympathy for Snape?
>
Carol responds:
I think you're correct regarding JKR's *intentions* in depicting the
two scenes (though perhaps she's assuming a child reader sympathetic
to Harry and not to Draco). Even many adult readers react as you did
to the ferret scene, but the reaction is not universal. (For me, it
was the second clue that "Moody" was a bad guy, the first being that
he deduced a bit too much about what had happened with the Goblet of
Fire. And when he Crucio'd the spider in front of Neville, I thought
he was unfeeling if not sadistic. At any rate, you and I didn't react
in the same way to the scene on either the first reading or a
rereading, nor do I think that JKR intends the reader to see it the
same way once we know who and what Crouch!Moody is.)

But we are, I think, supposed to think badly of James (and Sirius) and
to sympathize with Severus in "snape's worst Memory"--as Harry does
until the adult Lupin and Black help him to rationalize his feelings
away and the adult Snape's continued antagonism toward Harry snuffs
out Harry's flicker of pity and empathy (which is a shame, IMO,
because Harry returns to his idealized view of James, as we see in
HBP, not to mention his willingness or even eagerness to think the
worst of Snape, with his hatred and mistrust growing like a cancer
throughout HBP and turned to a full-grown malignancy by the events on
the tower).

At any rate, I think that JKR's intentions with the two scenes are
different. One scene is intended to mislead the reader into thinking
that "Moody" is a good guy, with JKR expecting antagonism toward Draco
to blind the reader, as it blinds Harry, to the sadism behind
"Moody's" punishment of Draco (who should have lost some House points
or at most received a detention, not be turned into an animal and
painfully bounced against the paving stones). The other scene is
intended to revise the reader's understanding of and feelings about
both James and Snape and to show that Snape was actually right about
James's arrogance, however wrong he may be about Harry. If Severus had
provoked James in any way, or if it had been a fair fight, the scene
would have had no such effect.

IMO, the scene helps to show why the adult Snape hates James so
much--not jealousy of James's abilities, which are roughly equal to
his, but resentment of the recognition that the "arrogant berks"
(especially James) received--being made Head Boy despite all his
pranks and bullying, for example. It's interesting that while the
adult Snape continues his mutually antagonist relationship with Sirius
Black in OoP (not helped by Black's discovery that Snape was once a DE
or by Snape's disappointment that Black wasn't the traitor after all),
it seems to be James whom Snape really hates (How dare he die and
leave me owing him a life debt?). Even in the Pensieve scene, Severus
focuses on James, as if Sirius doesn't exist, even though Sirius sets
up the confrontation ("Look who it is!") and casts two of the hexes.
It's almost as if Severus sees something likeable or admirable in
James that he doesn't see in Sirius and would have liked to be his
friend, if only the anti-Slytherin prejudice didn't prevent it. I'm
not saying that's the case, but it seems to me as if Sirius hates
Severus; Severus hates James; and James is merely bullying Severus
(with no better excuse than that he exists), to humor Sirius. It's
like a distorted variation on a love triangle but with hatred in the
place of love. (I don't see any actual hatred on James's part even
after Severus calls Lily a "mudblood," which he thinks makes *his*
behavior look a bit better. It's only when Lily says that James makes
her sick and walks away that James turns really ugly and threatens to
remove Severus's pants, using him as a scapegoat because he's angry at
Lily.)

I don't know the answers, but I do know that "we" don't all react in
the same way to these two scenes, and I suspect that JKR's intention
was much simpler and more easily deducible in the first than in the
second. One scene is primarily intended to fool the reader, the other
to surprise him or her (and raise additional questions). The Pensieve
scene may play a part later as Harry re-examines his history with
Snape and/or learns more about his parents. the Crouch!Mood/Draco
scene has pretty much played its part (except to show how Harry's
feelings color his perception and, perhaps, for some readers, to
conjure a bit of sympathy for Draco).

Carol, who *does* think badly of Crouch!Moody in the ferret scene and
the one where he Imperios the students, especially his sadistic
pleasure in the prolonged Crucio of the spider in front of Neville,
and thinks that "we" are meant to view the scene differently on a
second reading of the book