A James Rant - Who was This Guy?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 181458

 
> > 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.
> 
> Magpie:
> Harry says after the scene, that he would be perfectly okay doing 
> that to somebody who "deserved it" like Draco. He didn't have all the 
> information about Snape.
> 
> Obviously she's using that scene with James to say James isn't doing 
> good here and Harry--awesome as he is--naturally knows it. But the 
> never applies anything about that scene to himself so I don't see how 
> it's making much of a point about that. 

Pippin:
First of all, I think the canon is a bit different than you remember:
--
Harry could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside
down for the fun of it...not unless they really loathed them...Perhaps
Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it... (OOP ch 29)
--
"Except perhaps  to Draco, or somebody who deserved it " implies that 
Draco deserving it is not a given, which hardly translates to perfectly
okay. 

Secondly, he does apply it to himself. "For nearly five years the thought
of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever
someone had told him he was like James he had glowed with pride
inside. And now...he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him."

Harry found comfort and inspiration in the thought of his parents before
he knew very much about them. In OOP he's unable to reconcile what
he saw with the idealized versions his imagination presented to him in
the Mirror of Erised and the collective memory of the WW, in which
their martyrdom has overshadowed what they were like as people.
Harry and his family *are* plaster saints, or perhaps marble ones,
as far as the WW is concerned -- they have a statue in Godric's Hollow,
after all. 

After speaking to Sirius and Lupin, Harry has to accept that the flawed 
representation of his father is the true one, just as he'll later have
to accept the flawed Sirius and Dumbledore -- and the reader can
choose to realize that  Harry doesn't, even by the standards of his own
world, always do the right thing, or even seem aware that he's done
the wrong one. 

In DH, Harry learns that legends and reality have only a nodding 
acquaintance, and that he can draw inspiration and and comfort
from people who aren't perfectly okay -- and a good thing too, IMO, 
since that's the only kind of people most of us will ever meet
> 
 
> Magpie:
> Lily is fighting to hide a smile at James' antics with Snape. She's 
> not turned off by his cruelty. This type of cruelty, when turned 
> against bad guys, is generally enjoyed by good guys in canon, or at 
> least they're not all that bothered by it. The author has been known 
> to smile about it in retrospect, and readers can enjoy it. 

Pippin:
She has mixed feelings about his cruelty.  "[T]he memory of the look 
on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much 
as anything else. She had clearly loathed James" - OOP ch 29.

Yeah, that smile slipped out, just like the unforgiveable word. But the 
difference is that Lily rejected  the people who brought out her darker 
side, despite that they amused her. If only Snape and Lupin had been
that strong.

> 
> Magpie:
> Yes, I know. The constant refrain about how this makes them so 
> wonderfully not perfect and human. It's not a flaw, it's a plus. Who 
> wants them to be plaster saints? How brave of Rowling allowing not to 
> force any self-reflection about this sort of stuff.
> 
Pippin:
Harry doesn't improve by self-reflection. He improves by screwing up.

He responds to Sirius's death, and to Dumbledore's, by trying to cruciate
the guilty party. He doesn't understand what Bella tries to tell him about
the difference between righteous anger and sadism -- not until he 
successfully performs the curse. 

But after Fred's death,  even though he's  filled with the desire for "the 
satisfaction of revenge, he, too, wanted to fight, to punish them, the 
people who had killed Fred" -- he is able to channel his energy towards 
better ends: restraining Ron and finding Voldemort.

Rowling shows -- not tells-- that Harry understands something he didn't 
understand before. 

Magpie:
. That scene  didn't end Lily's relationship with James, she wasn't sickened by it, 
> it ended her relationship with Snape because he called her a 
> Mudblood. He was the guy who needed to change his behavior because he 
> was on the wrong path. James, obviously, would just grow up and no 
> longer be in an environment where this sort of thing was fun.

Pippin:
It couldn't end her relationship with James because she didn't have one
yet. And she didn't have one, according to canon, until James had stopped
hexing people for the fun of it. Snape could have changed his behavior
too, as he did later. 

> 
> Pippin: 
> > 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.
> 
> 
> Magpie:
> Uh, yeah. He could just grow out of it so what's the problem? No need 
> to think about what he's done or see anything bad in it. Bullying 
> really wasn't a problem for him or for Harry. He could just be let 
> alone and grow up like good people do.

Pippin:
But canon shows that it's not that simple. James didn't need any 
intervention to grow out of it, he never, as far as we know, thought
of it as anything more than a bit of fun, but it still did permanent damage
to Snape. Snape's efforts to end the bullying nearly cost him his
own life and Lupin's future. Pettigrew's search for a bully to protect 
him led to mass murder. Sirius's bullying of Kreacher got him killed.

Harry didn't do permanent damage to anyone only because
of Snape's timely intervention.  I think canon makes it clear that 
bullying is harmful in unpredictable ways and so, a bad thing, even
when it doesn't feel wrong.

Pippin