James and Intent

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 186952

> jkoney:
> Sorry, poor phrasing on my part. 
> 
> We only see James from scenes that Snape has picked. They are not a fair presentation of the James that actually lived. As someone who hated James he is not going to show anything that shows James in a positive light. So we have to take anything that Snape shows as not being a fair representation of the James that actually lived. 

Alla:

Well, true that. Snape certainly is not going to go out of his way to show anything good about James. He went out of his way to badmouth James to Harry for years. We however are talking about possible failures of the author and author has the absolute power to counter the bad scenes with the good scenes.

She could have shown James doing many good things, like being nice to other people, like fighting against DE, participating in the Order. She did not have to show many scenes, mind you, she chose to tell instead of showing. Show rather then tell is usually much more effective technique.

She for example told us about many crimes that Gellert committed, however what she SHOWED us was old man suffering in prison standing up against Voldemort. I know that this old man is just as much a criminal as Voldemort, however author in this instance manipulated my emotions extremely effectively, because this scene makes me feel sorry for Gellert and that counteracts him being a criminal to a degree. IMO anyway.

Mind you, I am just attempting to explain to you why people may feel that she failed with James. I do not feel the same way at all. That does not mean that other people interpretation is somehow wrong.
 
> jkoney:
> We aren't shown this because it isn't relevant to the story of Harry's journey. We are told it more than once so the author doesn't have to write several scenes (meaningless to the plot) about it. 

Alla:

Showing something good about the hero's father is not relevant to his journey? Father whom Harry resembles and from whom he supposedly got a lot of personality traits? In what hero's journey story his father figures are irrelevant? Could you give some examples please? Because in every story about hero's journey that I read what happened to hero's father and what kind of person he was is **extremely** relevant to the hero's journey. I mean, the most obvious is Star Wars of course, then we have my recent favorite, Percy Jackson and Olympians, again father figure is relevant. Fallen by Thomas Sniegoski also father turns out to be of great significance. It is one of the requirements of this genre.


Jkoney:
> Doesn't this seem like she is telling us one thing in text and people aren't believing it? She seems to make the point quite clear that James grew up and was a good/great guy. So wouldn't this be the readers subjective view overriding what is actually written down? 

Alla:

It will be readers' subjective view getting from the text what was shown there rather than told IMO.

jkoney:
> I can't blame JKR for not stating her intentions clearly on this issue because she wrote it down.

Alla:


I can't either in my case, but I can totally see how people may think that she is not clear enough.

Pippin:

> We'll learn from Lily's letter that he was frustrated
> about being shut up in the house, and yet (unlike Sirius)
> we don't see him take it out on other people.


zanooda:

If Sirius had a wife and a child in the house with him, maybe he wouldn't have
taken it out on them, either :-).

Alla:

Maybe. To me where I agree with Pippin is that this scene shows that James who was taking it on other people, not just Snape grew up, you know?

I totally agree with you that we are not shown that James changed in regard to SNAPE, not that I care one way or another. But I think that James whom Lily is talking about hexing people left and right is shown as not to exist in that scene quite effectively for exact reason Pippin described.

I do agree with you Zanooda though that if we were simply talking about James' love for his family, Malfoys love each other too.

But to me it just enough to hear from all the people how much they loved James and how good he was, etc and then we have this scene. I buy that he grew up, even if he kept hating Snape.

JMO,

Alla