James' essence WAS: Re: Choice and Essentialism

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 153980

Magpie:


> I should say that I think there are places where Sirius 
> is closer to lying because of his bias.  I took everything 
> he said about his family with a big grain of salt.  Again, 
> not that I thought he was lying--his mother, at least, seemed 
> to live down to everything he said about her.But the way he 
> so quickly had a bad take on every person he was related to 
> made me think there was more to their stories.  And of course 
> I think that was leading up to Regulus.

houyhnhnm:

It's hard to discuss whether or not James and Sirius truly 
hated the Dark Arts when we don't know for sure what makes 
an Art Dark.  There has been much argument and little 
consensus over what constitutes Dark Arts.

What we see of Dark Creatures studied in DADA (grindylows, 
hunkypunks, red caps, and, yes, werewolves) indicates that 
they are dangerous to humans, but so are some of the Magical 
Creatures studied in CoMC.

What we see of Dark Magic shows that it is also injurious 
to humans, but so is a lot of the magic considered acceptable 
by convention.  So maybe part of what makes magic be considered 
Dark is the fact that it is outside of the norms of what is 
considered conventionally acceptable (and that is something that can 
change over time like the punishments at Hogwarts and the legalisation 
of Unforgiveables for Aurors during VWI).  Another common element of 
those who follow the Dark Arts is the insistance on blood purity.

So James' hatred of the Dark Arts could have been for one of these 
elements, or a combination, but not necessarily all of them.  I have 
no trouble believing that James despised the cult of blood purity.  I 
have a little more trouble believing that he had a fundamental 
aversion to hurting people.  Maybe it was the outsider aspect of the 
Dark Arts that offended him.

With Sirius it is also easy to believe that he truly hated the 
pureblood cult.  (Although I wonder why I get the tiniest whiff of 
offensive condescension from these two rich purebloods.  Maybe it is a 
little of my own baggage intruding. :-) But was his extrangement from 
his family due altogether to their Dark traditions or did a lot of it 
have to do with the fact that, unlike them, he was romantic rather 
than ambitious?  I mean if all of the Blacks loved strawberry ice 
cream, would Sirius have hated that too?