A James Rant - Who was This Guy?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181419

Tom wrote:
> > 
> > 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. <snip>

Carol responds:
You're right that it's third-person limited, but we still see the
Pensieve memories from *Harry's* point of view, not Snape's. IOW, the
Pensieve memory is an objective record of what happened, not Snape's
subjective memory. through the Pensieve, Harry witnesses what really
happened, but the depiction is filtered through his perceptions and
emotions just as the events in which he participates are filtered
through him. We get *his* emotional reactions, not Severus's, to the
SWM, for example (twice, in fact).  

We do see James from a point of view other than Harry's in Voldemort's
memory of Godric's Hollow, it's not much to go on. The words and
actions, such as they are, in that scene, are pretty much all we get
of the adult James. He's not presented in any of the few chapters that
use objective narration (the scene with DD and McGonagall waiting for
Hagrid in SS/PS, the first half of the first chapter of GoF (backstory
on the Riddles), "Spinner's End," "The Dark Lord Ascending").

We don't, of course, get James's point of view, but we never get
Snape's, either. What we do get is his expressed opinion of James, and
the Pensieve memories pretty much confirm that. True, the dying snape
selected the memories, but I doubt that he had any that would have
shown James in a good light. we'd have needed Lily's memories for
that, and all we get is a letter and a photograph.

I do think that JKR is fond of James and thinks that he deserved to
walk with Harry in "The Forest Again," but we pretty much have to take
heroic Order member James on fiath because we never see him. I feel
that JKR set us up, through Voldemort's remarks, for a brave and
"straight-backed" James. Instead, we get him dying unprepared, with
just time to call out to Lily to take Harry and run. Not heroic, not
tragic in the sense of dying as the result of his own flaws, just a
touch of pathos--he died because he trusted Wormtail.

Carol, not as fond as JKR of school troublemakers, apparently