The Huge overreactions from a five minute time span.

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 150165

Maybe what we are seeing in James as an adult verses the 
insensitive, selfish, bigshot, jerk he was at 15 is the influence of 
Lily in his life.  Maybe one of the lessons for us is that even 
someone like James, who came from a good family and should have know 
better, but didn't, can change.  (I don't want to say that all he 
needed was the love of a good woman, because that is not enough as 
many good women have discovered.  So we will not go there.)

It is one thing to look at a DE like Snape and say "I am not like 
that, never was, never will be, so this doesn't speak to me".  But 
if someone actually identifies with James, maybe there is hope for 
them too.

Personally I could never treat someone like that when I was a child 
and I simply can not understand someone who could unless they were 
even more evil that LV.  That is just how I feel about mean people 
who are so arrogant and uncaring that no one matters but them. There 
are people who enjoy torturing others.  In this scene James has a 
lot in common with Bella.   James had no empathy for anyone else; or 
at least that is how I feel about him when I see Snape upside down 
in the air.  I know that James cared for Lupin. But in the scene 
with Snape, James seems like a clueless baboon.  

It doesn't matter how bad Snape was.  This scene is not about Snape, 
it is about James.  It is about someone who has no understanding or 
caring about how his actions affect someone else.  Even if Snape was 
mean to James, that is no reason for James to behave as he has.  The 
lesson here is that we must control our own behaviors and do what is 
right because it is right.  James did was easy over what was right.  
Even if he hates Snape, that is no reason to act like an ass.  It is 
not Snape's fault that James is behaving in this manner, it is 
James' choice. And James actions do not tell us anything about 
Snape, but they speak volumes about the type of person young James 
was. 

If somehow James was able to develop empathy for others and 
understand that what we do to ANYONE, even our enemy, we do to 
ourselves, then James did some serious growing up between this scene 
and the time Lily married him.  I like to think that maybe he had a 
little chat with DD somewhere along the line.

Tonks_op