A James Rant - Who was This Guy?

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 181359

> Mike:
 
> I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my 
favorite 
> character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and their Map. I 
> thought people were being fuddy-duddies for decrying the Marauders 
> fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. I thought that qualified as 
> good wizarding fun, teenage ingenuity in the hijinks department. But 
> without something decent on the other side of the ledger to balance 
> the less sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders 
> backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;(

Magpie:
Sometimes I wonder if James isn't a case of JKR assuming we'll feel 
things about James or get things about him without her having to 
explain it. For me, I actually started liking James in OotP because he 
was such an idiot in the Pensieve scene, but in a way that made me 
laugh. (I like Draco after all.) I'd already pictured the Marauders as 
a gang insulting Snape--I used to hate them for a lot a lot more 
before OotP where they proved themselves the bullies I imagined, but 
obviously idiot teenager bullies who were full of themselves and were 
headed for a fall because they were all kind of small people.

But it's funny that ultimately JKR didn't seem to realize that we all 
thought there was an actual change in James after the Prank and that 
it was *important* to many of us. Frankly, it seems like James 
probably spent the rest of his life as the same bully, only "growing 
out of it" because he wasn't bored so had other ways to have fun 
rather than picking on nerds. 

The fact that James becomes Head Boy seems like it honestly should 
have been retconned, like it was something she threw in early on to 
show that James was a winner without thinking it through. I do agree 
with Pippin that sometimes giving somebody like James official power 
is supposed to help him--that's always been my interpretation of Draco 
being a Prefect and I don't have a problem with that. But I think 
that's very different than taking a kid who's physically tormented and 
bullied kids the way James did to Snape and rewarding him by making 
him Head Boy without even trying him out as Prefect to make sure he 
won't abuse his power. 

If I were Snape--or any student--that would read to me like flat-out 
favoritism, that James was popular because he was handsome and a 
Quidditch star and the staff approved of him picking on people like 
Snape. (::sigh:: Once again I mourn the Snape storyline I imagined pre-
DH.) That's kind of a betrayal of the students imo to make that kid 
Head Boy, but I again I wonder if JKR didn't really see the kid she'd 
put on the page and assumed we all saw the good in him that she only 
implied. When she has him speak Draco's lines in DH, for instance, it 
falls completely flat to me, because the only impression I get from it 
is that it's fine to be a bully--as long as you're cool (and you can't 
be cool and like Voldemort). Like once again being on the right side 
is all that matters, and that's weird.

I actually don't agree that we're supposed to see Draco and James as 
really the same. That's just too hard for me to believe, because I 
don't think JKR sees Draco as brave and being brave (and being on the 
anti-Voldemort side) seems to make all the difference. I don't read 
Draco trying to save Goyle as making a point about Draco's bravery but 
Harry's. If it were supposed to be I think she'd have highlighted 
Draco's actions and have Harry think about Draco saving somebody 
instead of making it seem like as usual Draco's saving grace isn't 
that he's *good* but just that he's not as bad as he could be. In fact 
she might as well have just gone for the parallel construction of 
having Ron be the one unconscious or something if she wanted to make 
that point rather than leaving Draco as an amoeba compared to Harry 
again.

So basically I'm left with the idea that JKR is fond of James, but 
also assumes that James' good points are obvious in ways they aren't. 
He's supposed to be a fun guy who's brave and has impulses to stomp 
Death Eaters, and if the dark side of that is that he bullies some 
kids, that's just to be expected. Harry hexed people randomly in the 
halls in HBP, including a Squib, and JKR didn't seem to see that as a 
bad thing. I don't think she really minded Harry inheriting that 
quality of his father's since she was always assured he was a saint 
like his mother as well. Lily herself seemed to find the tormenting of 
Snape objectively funny in OotP, so I wouldn't assume the author 
really found him that bad.

As for his final fight with Voldemort, it does seem like Voldemort 
basically just says about that night whatever he thinks Harry will 
like the most. In the end it seems like he never really thought about 
James at all. The guy would have fought him if he had his wand, but 
PoA is the book where we kind of learn James died with his pants down, 
isn't it? (There was a good paper about PoA as a Gothic novel, and one 
of the themes of the Gothic is the male line being inadequate.)

-m