[HPforGrownups] Re: Predictions for Harry Potter Ending

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 171988

From: stanner91 <stanner91 at yahoo.com>
>As far as JK Rowling has shown him, James Potter was an 
>arrogant show-off due his natural magical talent. Frankly, 
>he sounds like a jerk. 

Bart:
(Showing where I'm going in advance: I'm going to point out factors in the real world, and then relate it to James' canon behavior). 

When he was 15. Now, in RW society, 15 is kind of a weird age. Evolutionarily speaking, the 15 year old is ready to leave his or her parents, and strike out on his or her own. However, the increasing complexity of society prohibits this. This has created the relatively modern phenomenon called the "teenager" (a word that didn't really come into use before the mid-20th century). We have evolution pushing in one direction, society pushing in another, and the 14-18 year old stuck in the middle. Also, note that new studies have shown something we knew all along; teenagers are lousy multitaskers. They tend to be highly focused on one thing at a time, and tend not to look at the long-term consequences of their actions. 

Now, developmentally, here's what's goes on. At about age 2, the human realizes that they are a person apart from the rest of the world (in particular, his or her mother). That is the idea of the so-called "terrible two's"; the two year old starts to assert him or herself as an individual.

The ages 10-14 are the time from when a child first generally realizes that it's possible to break the rules that have been set for him or her, but has yet to realize that the rules may be there for a reason. During this time, they start breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules. A common question answer between parents and children during this period: Q: "What were you thinking?" A:"I dunno..." For example the kids who went past people waiting to buy OOP yelling, "Snape kills Dumbledore!"; they gain NOTHING from that, but it proves to them that they have power, even if it's just the power to destroy (OT: to avoid that, I'm getting my copy mail order; unfortunately, I'm photographing a celebrity birthday party on Saturday night, so I still don't have high hopes). 

Generally, by the time the kid is 15, they begin to have a handle on cost/benefit, although sometimes the cost looks a lot smaller until they have to pay it. 

Now, Snape and Sirius seem to be at least partially stuck in their adolescence, especially when you put them in the same room together. But Lupin has clearly grown out of it (although that does not mean that he has not turned ESE), and, as James and Lily got married, had a kid, and were very highly thought of (and based on what we have heard from Hagrid, Lupin, Sirius, etc., not to mention meeting the guy briefly at the end of GOF), he grew out of it. 

Bart