A James Rant - Who was This Guy?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 181414

 
> Magpie:
> Oh, I'm not so sure at all she's telling me that even "good" kids can 
> be bullies. I get exactly the opposite impression. Good kids can't be 
> bullies. They're just protectors of others who sometimes let off a 
> little steam. Harry doesn't need a healthy outlet for aggression, his 
> aggression is the fault of those bullies that he beats down. 

Pippin:
But Harry is sickened by James's bullying when he first sees it, and
again in DH.  How you can take that for JKR's approval is beyond me.

Of course Harry still loves James. He loves Sirius even when he
understands how Sirius mistreated Kreacher. And readers
still love Snape despite their sympathy for Harry<g>. I just don't see 
much support for the view that people don't fall in love with bullies 
if they really care about the victim, either in canon or real life.

Harry doesn't in the end see either Snape or Kreacher as people who 
needed to be beaten down. That didn't mean he had to stop loving 
Sirius and James. He didn't make excuses for them, he just accepted 
that they weren't perfect. JKR asks us to accept that Harry isn't
perfect either. Though he is horrified when anyone else
does a cruciatus curse, he isn't horrified by his own. He
can't see the beam in his own eye.  What does that make him,
except human?

Who in canon ever says that James was a protector of others who 
was just letting off a little steam? It's Snape who says of Mulciber
and Avery that it's just a bit of fun.

The only explanation offered for James is that he was fifteen and 
didn't have anything better to do. When he got older and had more 
important things to do than bully, he stopped doing it. 

There is a difference in canon, IMO, between people who are bullying to
get attention from others and people are who doing it in response to
some other drive. For James it's all about the audience, for Voldemort,
and maybe for Snape, the audience is incidental -- I can't see Voldemort 
asking,  "Who wants to see me torture Potter?" It's still bullying. But
one kind of bully is going to be a lot more responsive to social pressure
than the other kind. 

Pippin