Generational parallels (was: Re: Maraurders/he exists)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 168282

> wynnleaf
> I would not be so quick to lay out the comparison as James to 
Snape =
> Harry to Draco.   It's interesting that whenever in the past few 
posts
> anyone has used this comparison, they've had Harry to Draco 
equating
> with James to Snape.  Why that particular order?  Why not Harry to
> Draco equating with  Snape to James?  Well, obviously I think 
because
> posters assume that the correlation is that Harry responds to Draco
> the way James responded to Snape, and Draco responds to Harry the 
way
> Snape did to James.  
> 
> But guess what?  That's not the way Dumbledore arranged the order 
of
> the comparison.  Harry said, "he [Snape] hated my father." and
> Dumbledore said, "not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy."  If you were
> simply going by the order of the comparison, it would be Snape-
James
> compared to Harry-Draco, or more specifically, Snape hating James 
is
> like Harry hating Draco.  So if anyone wants to use Dumbledore's 
words
> to prove a point, you should not *assume* that Dumbledore means 
that
> James was to Snape as Harry is to Draco.  He could easily have 
meant
> that Snape responded to James much like Harry did to Draco.  
Indeed,
> that is the order that is set up in the comments.
>

Magpie:
I'm snipping other good stuff to just bring this up, because this is 
something I love JKR does in the books--I think she loves to 
misdirect us with generational parallels. There are enough 
likenesses to always make us look for more where they aren't there. 
I remember when Harry first sees his father in the Pensieve and he 
describes looking at James like "looking at himself with deliberate 
mistakes." 

Deliberate mistakes--JKR isn't ever just rewriting the Marauders 
generation. Dumbledore is, imo, speaking the truth when he says what 
he says about Snape hating James using Harry and Draco for 
comparison, but as you point out, he doesn't specifically keep the 
order the way we might expect it. Nor does he tell Harry that he was 
like James and Snape was like Draco. I remember it seemed like 
everybody used to assume it was Harry to Draco as James to Snape, 
but after the Pensieve many people suddenly thought the "surprise" 
was that James was Draco and Snape was Harry.

But in reality, imo, none of these kids is the other, though they 
mirror different aspects of each other in different ways. We get 
into trouble, imo, when we try to make them the same to fit the 
pattern. ITA that Snape has never been shown to be helpless or 
innocent (particularly not in the eyes of Harry, who counts the 
most). He can't both be the last generation's Neville and the last 
generation's Draco. Nor can Draco be both James and Snape. Nor was 
Neville this generation's Peter just because of certain similarities 
of type.

The Harry/Draco hatred had a specific beginning and we have an idea 
why both boys hate each other that comes from their specific 
personalities--and I don't think it could directly translate to 
Snape and James, who were two totally different people. I wouldn't 
be surprised if Snape and James had their own very specific basis 
for hatred, even if nobody immediately would remember it after years 
of battling. (Even if there wasn't a specific incident both boys 
would speak specifically about what they hated about the other 
person, why he was so worthy of hatred, just as Harry could say 
about Malfoy and vice versa.)

Nor has the Harry/Draco hatred developed in the same way, due to 
different personalities, different circumstances--and even the 
influence of the past, because Snape himself has an effect on it by 
playing his own role with both boys. At this point Harry and Draco 
both seem to have actually progressed a little in ways James and 
Snape never did. There especially doesn't seem to be that same level 
of frustration on either of their parts that still appears to drive 
Snape. By HBP we're clearly dealing with a totally different dynamic 
that said to me that I shouldn't just imagine Harry/Draco twenty 
years earlier.

So while I do think sometimes it's helpful to make comparisons, it's 
also easy to go too far with them, filling in one relationships with 
bits pulled from the other when there's no basis for it. (Not only 
do we have no evidence of dust-ups of the type Harry and Draco have 
had a few in canon, we have no evidence of the kind of thing 
described for Snape and James with Harry and Draco.) Iow, the 
mistakes are deliberate--because they're not mistakes. We 
shouldn't "fix" the parts that aren't the same. That leads to 
distorting the characters.

-m