good and bad Slytherins/Disappointment and Responsibility

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 175194

> Prep0strus:
> 
> Unfortunately, other than DH, my Harry Potter books are in storage at
> the moment.  So I'm unable to respond with canon.  I am glad to be
> reminded of James hexing people who annoyed him and the like – he
> really was a bully.  But who was the student? A slytherin?  And,
> looking deeper into it, I have to wonder, coming from Lily? Could she
> just be talking about Snape here?  Surely, he would hex Snape for no
> reason at all.  I'm not saying it isn't likely he was a bit of a bully
> all around, just that what we're hearing isn't the whole story.

Montavilla47:
We don't get anyone's full story, except perhaps for Harry.  So, with
any character, we have to make do with what we get.  But it's not 
just what Lily says about James being a bully.

This is the quote from the detention slips that Harry is required
to recopy:

"James Potter and Sirius Black.  Apprehended using an illegal hex 
upon Betram Aubrey.  Aubrey's head twice normal size.  Double
detention."
HBP US. Ed. p. 532.

As Harry continues to copy the old slips, he gets "regular jolts"
as he recognizes James and Sirius's names for various "petty
misdeeds."  I find it interesting (maybe it's just me), that Harry
never seems to read Snape's name on the cards, either as a 
victim or a perpetrator.

Given how angry he is at Snape during this, you'd think he'd 
notice if a) Snape was going around hexing people, too, or b)
Snape was the only or one of the main victims.

It seems like both Snape and the Marauders were careful to
keep their feud away from the eyes of the authorities.


> Prep0strus:

> So, from Snape, we learn that James is a bully in school.  He is
> arrogant.  He is prejudiced against Slytherins, and likes to harass
> Snape.  We also learn he knows when too far is too far.  We know there
> was a time when Lily thought he was a bullying toe-rag.
> 
> We know also that he did not use discriminatory slurs.  He did not use
> dark magic.  

Montavilla47:
Not that I think James was a bad person at all, but not using 
discriminatory slurs doesn't necessarily make him a great 
person.  Zacharias Smith doesn't use discriminatory slurs, either.

As for not using Dark magic, that's a distinction that doesn't
tell me much, since "Dark magic" is never defined more than
something bad.  I mean, does it matter that whether Scourify
is light or dark magic when it's causing someone to choke?

Water isn't poison, but if you hold someone's head under
water, it's still malicious.

> Prep0strus:
> He was a great athlete, and a talented wizard.  He's from a rich
> (comfortable?) wizarding family, a griffindor family.
> 
> Of the characters we have met:
> He is well thought of by Hagrid, a half-giant, societal outcast. 
> Hagrid also tells us how well liked both he and lily were by the ww.
> He is well thought of by Sirius, his arrogant best friend from a
> Slytherin family.
> He is well thought of by Dumbledore, flawed champion against evil.
> He is well thought of by Lupin, a werewolf societal outcast.
> Lily, who thought he was once a toe-rag, whose best friend he
> tortured, who thinks he's arrogant, and a bully
. She MARRIES him. 
> This has got to mean something regarding the amount of growing up he did.

Montavilla47:
Hagrid also likes giant spiders that eat people.  Sirius rejected his 
Slytherin family, so I don't think that his liking James is any more 
significant than, say, Seamus liking Dean.  

Dumbledore also likes a lot of people, including the unpleasant 
Professor Snape.  As for Lily, well, I'm hard put to see what she
saw in James (after seeing Snape's memories).  Perhaps James
changed.  Perhaps she did as well.

> Prep0strus:
> He joins the Order of the Phoenix out of school.  Whatever bullying
> arrogance toe rag berkiness we may have been shown repeatedly in the
> memories of snape
 this is not all he was.  He was brave, and fought
> against evil.  I don't' know why people seem so gleeful or superior in
> learning he didn't actually fight Voldemorte.  It's not like he holds
> Harry up and hides behind him!  He tries to give his wife and son time
> to escape from the most evil powerful wizard in the world.  That he
> wasn't successful doesn't say anything worse of him than the thousands
> of others voldy killed.

Montavilla47:
I agree with you.  Snape's memories and the detention slips do not 
present the full James Potter.  Frankly, I think that bullying is 
something that even "good" people do to various degrees.  

I'm willing to take it on faith that James matured and became a 
better person than we see.  It was easier, however, when we 
thought the Prank took place before SWM, simply because that
was an event that could plausibly cause someone to re-think 
their actions and attitudes.

Now, we're presented two different images of James.  We're
told he was a great guy and we're shown memories that 
reveal an arrogant, bullying, privileged kid.  It's very hard
to put those two things together into a coherent picture
of an individual.  For me, what I'm *shown* is more vivid
and convincing than what I'm told.

As for Voldemort's memory of James, it really didn't seem
a change from what we knew before.  The new thing is that
we get to see James playing with his baby.  But I never
doubted that James was a loving father or a good husband.

> Prep0strus:
> Sirius comes with a different background than James. 
<snip>
> But, again, what I choose to see in him is his bravery, his loyalty,
> his bucking of tradition to fight for his friends and what he believes
> is right.  

Montavilla47:
I think it's fine to want to see the best in people.  What I find a bit
hypocritical, though (and I'm not directing this at you, but at the 
general trend) is for either side to ignore the faults of their favorite
characters, or to insist that these faults are meaningless, while
insisting that the faults of the characters they disliked define
their characters.

Of course, I'm as guilty of that as anybody.  If I insist that Snape
is commendable because he is brave, while ignoring that he 
treats young children badly, I'm being just as bad as someone 
who insists that James was a hero because he died to protect
his family while ignoring that he also cruelly bullied a boy merely
because the kid "existed.'


> Prep0strus:

> And snape.  What can be said of Severus that hasn't been said?  I
> don't need canon to show that he was mean.  That he was petty.  That
> he was cruel to children without provocation.  And as an adult.  I've
> said before how frustrated I am that we can jump on James for his
> actions as a child.  Actions against Snape.  The only views we have of
> James as an adult show him as a model citizen – one of his biggest
> detractors becomes the love of his life.  But we see Snape all too
> clearly as an adult.  He made adult choices to become a Death Eater. 
> And when he turned away from voldemorte, he still made adult choices
> to treat children the way he did.  Compare how he would take points
> from the houses vs. how McGonnegal did.  Sure, she wanted her team to
> win the cup, and bent a few rules.  But Snape day after day took many
> points from Griffindor for little reason and pretended not to see what
> Slytherins did.  He preyed on the weak, and mocked them for things
> they had no control over (Neville, and Hermione's teeth).

Montavilla47:
Okay, I'm not going to dispute that adult Snape bullied children, but 
I am going to dispute the points thing.  Because we're taking that 
solely on Harry's word.  We don't have any basis to compare how
Snape and McGonagall took or gave house points.  On occasion
we see Snape deduct points from Harry and his friends.  The only
time it's uncalled-for is in first year when Snape deducts 1 point 
from Harry because Neville melted a cauldron.

Unless you want to count Snape deducting points from Harry for
being out of uniform at the beginning of HBP.

> Prep0strus:
> It's hard, because while JKR wants us to believe characters make
> choices, much more often I see characters turning out exactly how we
> think they're going to.  

Montavilla47:
That's pretty funny when you think about it.  We are told that it's
choice that's important.  But most of the characters are pretty
much the same at 11 as they'll be for the rest of their lives.

Maybe that's why I like Snape so much.  He really did make 
choices--all the way.  He *wanted* to be in Slytherin, he wasn't
just sort of put into his house, the way that Lily was with her
apologetic half-smile.  He chose to be a Death Eater, and then
he chose to do "anything" to protect his friend--even after she
had cut him out of her life.  

And then he chose to protect her son, even when he found out
he couldn't stand the brat.  He *chose* to go back to Voldemort,
knowing that he was facing death and torture.  He chose to 
kill Dumbledore, even though he hated it.  He chose to spend the 
the last year of his life trying to protect people who hated him.

In his last moments of life, he chose to release his most private
memories to that brat he couldn't stand to honor the promise
he'd given Dumbledore.

I guess what I really don't understand in all this discussion is
why we insist on following the Marauder/Snape feud.  Why can't
we like Snape AND James and Sirius?  I know I like them all.

Montavill47