Hating Dark Arts (was re James' essence...)
Marion Ros
mros at xs4all.nl
Mon Jun 19 09:04:58 UTC 2006
No: HPFGUIDX 154047
Julie:
>>>This is possible, but I have to wonder if Dark Arts are directly
analogous with evil and with Voldemort. After all, you can kill
with plenty of non-Dark spells if that's your desire, and I'd think
certain Dark Arts might be useful outside of their potential
danger. So it does seem strange that James *hated* Dark
Arts as a concept the way Sirius implies, rather than hating,
say, Death Eaters (whose direct tie to Voldemort is irrevokable),
or other particular persons he believes wronged him or his in
some way using Dark Arts.
Julie:
>>>It's still strange to me that James hated Snape so passionately
for performing nasty curses (Dark Arts curses, presumably), while
he was fine with hexing anyone who annoyed him. Does he really
think it's fine to humiliate and hurt others as long as it's not an
official "Dark" spell or hex? Does the label truly make the difference?
(Yes, I know this is contradictory to my what I said above!)
>>>Now I wonder if James has a very specific reason for hating the
Dark Arts, as Alla suggests. Something that happened during his
childhood, perhaps, that made him hate Snape and perhaps most
Slytherins (or any other kids from "Dark Arts" families) from the
moment he came to Hogwarts as an eleven year old. I think it is
entirely possible. That hate between James and Snape--and between
Sirius and Snape--that apparently existed from that moment they
all started school (and didn't yet even *know* each other, to the best
of our knowledge) seems entirely too personal to be engendered
by a learned and generalized distaste for a particular brand of magic.
Marion
I agree.
Personally, I'm with Red Hen on this (see her website for her essays at www.redhen-publications/Potterverse.html)
I think that the whole James-and-Sirius against Snape thing began with Sirius and his hatred of his family. Not particularly because his family was so heinous (although they don't sound like a fun bunch) but because Sirius is one of nature's natural contrary children. It's a great way to garner attention and he *liked* attention (Gryffindors do :-) So anything his parents said was automatically wrong, anything they wanted was automatically bad. Regulus became the 'good kid' of the family as a sheer reaction and this in turn fueled Sirius desire to be contrary.
This volatile homesituation was of course not helped by the fact that the family did have some very iffy characters. Enter cousin Bellatrix. Now she *was* nasty. And according to the Black familytree she was six years older. So when Sirius (and Snape) entered Hogwarts Bellatrix was a seventhyear.
Remember that Sirius told Harry in the Shrieking Shack that Snape was part of a group that included the 'Lestranges' (Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black he means, but clearly disassociates from his cousin) but adult Snape and Bellatrix are fire and water. No buddies, that's for sure. Besides, what firstie was ever part of a social group of seventh years?
Sirius also claims that Snape knew, upon entering Hogwarts, "more Dark curses than any seventh year". Well, I doubt that. But Snape *is* an inventive little sod. Not to say 'genius'. He invented his own hexes.
I think it's safe to say that he impressed (and annoyed) a certain group of seventh years which included Bellatrix.
So, Sirius enters Hogwarts. He doesn't want to be in Slytherin, because that's what the family wants for him, that's the house his cousin Bellatrix is in. He wants none of it. Not because it's an 'evil' House (nonsense!), but because he wants to be different from his family. Because he is a contrary troublemaker. "Not Slytherin, not Slytherin" he thinks at the Hat.
Once in Gryffindor, he befriends James Potter. Of *course* he befriends James Potter: the Potters are probably the sort of family that his mother and father rant against. They are pureblood, but are 'against the Dark Arts'.
Now, we don't know what makes the Dark Arts 'dark'. I don't think JKR's wizarding world is in a constant fight of good versus evil, Light against Dark. I think that the Dark Arts are not so much 'evil' as 'dangerous'. Dangerous to work with. Not something for a newfangled wizard to dabble in. Therefore it's mainly the Old Families that still work with the Dark Arts. They have been doing that for centuries. But put the Dark Arts in the hands of, say, a muggleborn young wizard like Tom Riddle, and it might take him to places he (and the rest of the WW) had never dreamt about.
The Dark Arts are dangerous to the *wielder* as well as his surroundings. Therefor they are *regulated* by the Ministry. Which will make a pureblood family like the Blacks sniff. Who does a *ministry worker* think he is to tell a *Black* what to do?! The Blacks consider themselves 'practically royalty' and above little paperpusher rules and regulations.
So Sirius befriends James, whose parents might have told him that the Dark Arts were 'bad', or 'better to be avoided' or whatever. And Sirius hates his family in general and his cousin Bellatrix in particular and therefor he hates Slytherin House. And he has no problem talking James into the same mindset. James has heard at home that the Dark Arts were no good, and he has heard from Sirius what dreadful people those 'Dark Arts families' and Slytherins are.
*Harry* decided that he did *not* want to be sorted into Slytherin because Hagrid told him that 'there wasn't a bad wizard that didn't come from Slytherin', and that was enough for him to chant 'not Slytherin, not Slytherin' to the Hat. Why should James be less impressionable?
Besides that, the Marauders (and the Golden Trio) have this nasty habit of being selfreferential in there moral code. "We are Good, therefore what we do is Good. They are Bad, therefor what they do is Bad. If they use the same hex as I do, there hex is Dark, but mine is Light. Because they are Dark Wizards and I am a Light Wizard".
Marion
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