James and Intent

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186973

Pippin wrote:
> What's cool got to do with being a good person? Did the snippet make you think that was JKR's idea of treating Muggles with kindness and respect? 
> 
> Everything was so simple back in GoF. It looked like all  Harry had to do over the next three books was kill the monsters and straighten out a few misguided people, himself no doubt among them.  And hey presto!, the wizarding world would once again be just as wonderful as it appeared to be when Harry first discovered it.
> 
> Only it turns out that there is no magic for straightening out misguided people. There's only kindness and respect, and they're so slow.  You can hardly blame people for thinking there's got to be another way, especially when telling people what jerks they are makes you feel better, and making people look and feel like the idiots they are  makes you look cool,  and is a lot easier anyway. 
> 
> Treating the monsters kindly gets you nowhere, and while canon shows that most  people do have it in them to be more decent than they are,  they aren't likely to get over the effects of years or centuries of abuse and neglect and misguidance and be instantly transformed. 
> 
> They'll probably be nearly as obnoxious and dangerous tomorrow as they were the day before. It could take years to see any result, they may never recover completely, and who wants to put up with them that long? 
> 
> But which does canon make you think is worth fighting for...the  world that James fought for, where people are at least trying to treat each other with kindness and respect, or the one where everybody wants to be the biggest bully on the playground?
> 
> Pippin
>
Carol responds:
No one is arguing that James didn't choose the right side. Some of us just see nothing in canon (except playing with his baby) that makes him look like a good man--no indication that he ever stopped being an "arrogant berk." And that little scene with the Muggle cops (which I wish I'd never read) shows that even after Hogwarts, when he was presumably already a married "man," shows that he still hadn't grown up, and certainly hadn't acquired any respect for Muggles, whom he and Sirius seem to regard as comic buffoons. (Did he and Sirius still run with a werewolf on full moon nights? I certainly hope not.)

The main purpose that James serves--for me only--is to contrast with Harry, who, for whatever reason (perhaps that he was taught humility at an early age, as James never was?) is a far better person. Sure, Harry also breaks school rules, but it's usually for what he considers to be a good reason. He's not concerned with having fun at other people's expense and seeing how much he can get away with. the fact that James chose to be in the Order is almost irrelevant. Even arrogant little berks and toerags can choose the right side, apparently, especially if they've (apparently) been indoctrinated by their family to think that Gryffindor is "good" and Slytherin is "bad." (Under the circumstances, choosing Dumbledore's side over Voldemort's doesn't even require a conscious decision.) And, conversely, as we learn in HBP and DH, even Death Eaters can love their families. For all we know, Lucius Malfoy and Theo Nott's father played with their babies, too.

As for trying to tame monsters, that sounds more like Hagrid than James. The best we can say for James with regard to nonhuman creatures is that he probably didn't own a House Elf. Sure, he was friends with a werewolf (who became a nonhuman creature once a month), but that was cool, man. Where do we see him treating anyone outside his very limited circle with kindness and respect? I'm not saying that he didn't do so, only that JKR chose not to show it. The James she chose to depict in detail is an egotistical young bully. The James that McGonagall mourned isn't shown. (Wonder if she would have liked him as well if she'd known that he was an illegal Animagus who roamed the grounds and Hogsmeade with a werewolf once a month, the same werewolf that Dumbledore had confined to the Shrieking Shack to keep the students and villagers safe?)

Carol, for whom knowing that James is on the right side (and a good daddy) is not sufficient reason to find him admirable in other respects (and, yes, I know that's subjective)