James and Sirius - "Coolness"

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182695

Carol earlier:
> > > What does JKR think is "cool"? Lupin, IIRC, says that [Sirius]
and James were "the height of cool." I don't want to second-guess JKR,
but if Lupin is right, if most of the students (except, probably, the
Slytherins) regarded a pair of "arrogant little berks" as "cool,"
their judgment is (IMO) sadly lacking. (I know that Mike disagrees
with me; possibly JKR does as well.) <snip>
> 
> Potioncat:
> Oh, I hate the way the posts line up! I'd like to read the entire 
> post from the snipped section, but I don't have time to read evey 
> post Carol wrote to find it. GRRRRR.

Carol responds:
Me, too. and I hate the way snipping tends to focus on some side issue
or parenthetical comment and the main point gets lost. And if you try
to go back to find the main point and can't because of "the way the
posts line up," the stupid search engine is busy.

I did, however, manage to find the post in question, which related to
Harry's scar and JKR's remark that the shape was "cool." The original
poster commented that the meaning of the comment depended on what JKR
thought was cool. And, while I think there's a lot more to the scar
than the "cool" shape, I wanted to go in a new direction, posing the
other poster's remark as a question, "What does JKR mean by 'cool'?"

Mike chose to focus on my side remark to him and in consequence
snipped my discussion of the way Harry's view of "coolness" seems to
change in the books, away from those "arrogant little berks" and their
bullying, and even the Marauder's map and their ability to become
Animagi, neither of which had anything to do with their fellow
students' view of them as "the height of cool" (assuming that the
judgment is accurate, and judging from the apprehensive expressions of
some of the spectators in the SWM, I think it was probably mostly
Gryffindors who held that opinion). Anyway, Harry's opinion shifts so
that by HBP, he starts to understand that loony Luna and nerdy Neville
are a lot cooler, in terms of having admirable qualities and being
worth knowing, than the likes of teenage Sirius and James.

Here's a quote from my original post if you're still interested:

"I think she defines the slang term ["cool"] pretty much as anyone
would, meaning something like "admirable" or "fashionable": the "cool"
kids are the popular kids that everyone wants to be seen with; a
"cool" broomstick is the one that everyone wants to buy. <snip> of
course, JKR is referring to the shape of the scar, not the scar
itself, as "cool," so I think she means that a lightning bolt is more
exciting, maybe more manly (even though he's a kid) than a circle or a
smudge or a flower or a heart. <snip> 

"Anyway, to get back to your remark. What does JKR think is "cool"?
Lupin, IIRC, says that Harry and James were "the height of cool." I
don't want to second-guess JKR, but if Lupin is right, if most of the
students (except, probably, the Slytherins) regarded a pair of
"arrogant little berks" as "cool," their judgment is (IMO) sadly
lacking. (I know that Mike disagrees with me; possibly JKR does as
well.) Harry, sitting with Luna and Neville and Ginny on the train, is
embarrassed when Cho walks in and finds them all covered in stinksap.
Harry wishes that he were with a group of "cool" kids, all of them
laughing at something that he said, rather than a "loony" girl who
wears spectrespecs and butterbeer-cap necklaces, a forgetful boy who's
always losing his toad or carrying around odd plants, and Ron's little
sister. I think it's significant that he revises his view of them when
he gets to know them better. (Ginny, perhaps, doesn't count, because
she's popular and "cheeky" and pretty and so would count as "cool" in
the opinion of most of her classmates, but Harry learns that Luna and
Neville are much "cooler" than they appear to be, brave and loyal and
valuable in themselves, however "dotty" and eccentric or forgetful and
chubby they may be."

You can find the whole post at 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182658

if you're interested, but the part following the aside to Mike is
probably the most important section.

Potioncat:
> 
> I agree with Carol's opinion of James and Sirius. But I don't think
 most of the students thought James and Sirius were cool. The coolness
comment comes from Lupin, who goes out of his way to be nice, who
praises easily and doesn't like to rock the boat.

Carol:
Right. It may have been his own opinion, but as I said above, I'm not
sure that it was as widespread as Lupin thinks. Of course, the
Gryffindors would love him as long as he was scoring goals and helping
them to win games (Harry's popularity fluctuates as much according to
his Quidditch wins as according to what the Daily Prophet is saying),
and I'm pretty sure that his habit of hexing people who annoyed him in
the hallways kept a lot of people who didn't want their heads blown up
to twice normal size from expressing their real view of him (an
"arrogant little toerag" if I recall Lily's words correctly. And
Sirius was handsome, causing some of the girls to look at him
longingly, perhaps hoping that he'd ask them out, but he regards them
with haughty disdain, pretending that they don't exist. Genuinely
popular people don't hang out with only three other people, one of
whom is "cool" because he's a werewolf (though he's an extremely
ineffectual Prefect who doesn't want to stand up to his friends for
fear that they'll stop liking him) and the other of whom is a drooling
sycophant.

Potioncat: 
> From the expressions in crowd in SWM, quite a few onlookers weren't
 thinking "Gee, these guys are cool." They were thinking, "I hope I'm
 not next." <snip>

Carol:
I agree. And I think it explains why no one but Lily, a Gryffindor
Prefect, had the courage to stand up to them. Of course, there were
people in the crowd who disliked Severus and found the incident
amusing, but I don't think they were in the majority.

I agree with the rest of your post, but I'm snipping it because you've
already effectively answered Mike and because I don't think any of us
are likely to change our minds about whether the Marauders are "cool."

My point was that Harry is at first embarrassed to be seen by people
like Cho (who was pretty and popular and therefore "cool" without
hexing anybody in the hallways) with people like Neville (who was
chubby and forgetful and carried around an "uncool" toad and ugly,
sap-spitting plants), and Luna (who said and believed crazy things and 
wore things like radish earrings, bottlecap necklaces, and
spectrespecs). Later, he learns not to judge Neville and Luna by
appearances. They may not be "cool" on a superficial level, but takes
reckless bravery to great heights and Luna is just, well,
extraordinary. She helps Harry to understand death, she's unfazed by
captivity in the Malfoys' secret room, she helps Harry to cast his
Patronus when he's feeling only despair.

What does JKR think is "cool"? I don't know. Maybe she genuinely feels
that way about MWPP. She's fond of them, certainly (well, not Peter),
and not without reason. But Harry, I think, comes to realize that
"coolness," in the sense that the Marauders were "cool," isn't nearly
as important as loyalty, friendship, and dedication to a cause. his
sympathetic understanding of Luna in OoP is a defining moment.

It would be interesting to locate all the references to "cool" in the
HP books and find out when the last one occurs. I can't recall any
uses of the word in the slang sense we're discussing after the battle
against the DEs in the MoM.

Carol, likewise wishing that the posts weren't so hard to track