A James Rant - Who was This Guy?

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 181404

> >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. ;(
> 
> 
> Tom:
> 
> The back story isn't there because JKR is writing everything 
> first person, so you are seeing things only from each persons 
> point of view. Since it was irrelevant to the story as a whole 
> to see James from any other point of view other than Snapes, 
> to show why he felt the way he did towards Harry. 

Magpie:
You mean third person, limited. We're not seeing anything from 
anyone's pov, we're seeing the story from the pov of the narrator 
who's telling us about what's happening through Harry except for a 
few chapters with a more objective narrator. Harry *does* see James 
in a couple of scenes, in the flashback in DH before James is killed, 
the shades of James in DH and GoF and the SWM Pensieve scene. We hear 
a lot about James filtered through different characters' words, wihch 
is even more removed because they're speaking in certain contexts to 
make a specific impression on Harry usually.

You're perhaps right JKR just didn't see much reason to show tihngs 
that much counteracted Snape's view. I'm not bothered by it myself. 
But I think she might think James comes across a bit more positive 
than he does to some readers.

Tom:
Even if James was 
> a bit of a hellion it's not to say that he didn't mature by 
> the time he reached his sixth and seventh year. I highly doubt 
> that Dumbledore would have named him head boy if he had not.

Magpie:
Knowing Dumbledore, I wouldn't assume that. It seems like Dumbledore 
thought he was fine even while being a "hellion", and even if he'd 
somewhat changed (I think his friends say he only tormented Snape 
when Lily wasn't looking in that last year) personally I wouldn't 
consider that a good enough reason to make him Head Boy. I wouldn't 
think other students had any reason to trust him after the way he 
behaved as far as we know. 

I think that's why people find it so odd that DH seemed to take away 
the one thing we thought solved the problem--the Prank seemed like a 
believable change for James. It's imo a bad idea to show that even 
that couldn't change the guy, but then I'm supposed to assume he held 
out through the Prank but then randomly changed for no reason later 
on. Grew up, yeah, but that sounds like he just got bored with the 
hexing people because he could, not that he ever had any realization 
about his behavior and other people. (Which imo mirrors Harry's 
journey too.)

-m