James and Intent

[jkoney65]

No: HPFGUIDX 186980

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
>> > jkoney:
> > A scene Harry saw in a pensieve that seems like a set up to a large portion of fans. Why that memory? There is nothing in it to suggest that Snape and Lilly were friends. Hiding his abusive father or his time on DE raids would make sense, but not something that Harry couldn't make any connection with. That scene was chosen because he knew Harry had invaded a pensieve before. It was chosen to show his father in the worst light.
> 
> Carol:
> Why would he need to show James in the worst light when Harry had already seen that memory? The scenes in "The Prince's Tale," whether they're about watching Lily on the swings with Petunia, losing Lily, begging Dumbledore to save Lily, or casting the doe Patronus, which symbolizes Lily, are all about--Lily. 

jkoney:
The first time harry saw the scene was the set up to show James in the worst possible light.


> > 
> > jkoney:
> > We aren't shown but we are specifically told that he did change. Any other reading becomes completely subjective and is how a reader might feel, not what they actually know to be true.
> 
> Carol:
> But that's the point. We're *told.* As an editor, I'm constantly telling my clients that they need to *show,* not tell. And JKR has quite beautifully shown us James being a bully in SWM.
> 
> jkoney: 
> > James may have been a bully but he was also being a bully back to another bully. Snape we see in cannon, attack Petunia with a limb, read her personal mail, and hang around with future DE's whose entire existance is based on bullying people. 
> 
> Carol:
> Reading another kid's mail may not be very nice, but it's not being a bully. James tripping Severus and ridiculing him for the House he wants to be in is being a bully. "Attacking" Petunia with a limb appears to be accidental magic comparable to Harry's "blowing up" aunt Marge. Hanging out with bullies is not being a bully yourself, though, granted, it's condoning bullying. Attacking a kid who's studying, two on one, is being a bully. We never actually see Teen!Severus being a bully. And that can't be because Snape, who selected the scenes, doesn't want to show himself in a bad light, because some of the scenes certainly do just that. You're not looking at the canon here; you're speculating about what Teen!Severus and DE!Snape may have done. (Sure, he was undoubtedly a bully as a DE, but SWM happens *before* that, and James can't have known that he intended to become a DE because Sirius Black never knew that he had become one. All they knew was what Lily knew, that Severus's friends Avery and Mulciber were DE wannabes.

jkoney:
But we start to see a pattern with Snape at a young age. He's aggressive toward Petunia because she is a muggle.

We see that it is Snape in SWM who draws his wand first, not James. Sirius doesn't cast a spell. So it is one on one. Not two on one. While James is apparently more skilled with a wand (drawing faster the first time and flipping Snape upside down after he's been attacked from behind while Snape had his wand out). 

We are meant to see in this scene not only James but the animosity that exists between Snape and the others. She wants us to realize that this isn't a one time incident but has been going both ways for years.

If Snape hadn't been a bully himself, he would have left while Lilly had James distracted. But he didn't go, he attacked from behind. 


> 
> jkoney:
> The HBP invented the toe nail growing spell and many others. 
> 
> Carol: 
> 
> A spell that Harry thought was cool and used on Crabbe much as his father had used a head-sweling spell on a kid whose name I can't remember. And Harry uses another cool HBP spell, Langlock, on the helpless and unsuspecting Filch. Harry isn't much different from the Prince here, except that he's incapable of inventing his own spells. <snip>
 the spells in the HBP's Potions book are clever schoolboy hexes little different from the spells that the kids cast on each other in the corridors all the time. 

jkoney:
Right. So either they are all toe-rags or none of them are. It was Snape who sat around inventing spells for this reason. So if they are toe-rags than Snape is the biggest because he went and invented knew ones. Personally I think they are funny.


> jkoney:
> 
> > We see Snape sneaking around after curfew trying to get the Mauraders in trouble. Shouldn't he have just gone to a teacher or his head of house? We see his inner self come out when he calls Lilly a mudblood. If he never had thought it, he wouldn't have said it. Finally we see Snape attack James with his back turned.
> 
> Carol:
> Of course, he was wrong to sneak around after curfew to find out what the Marauders were up to, but how is that different from Harry sneaking around after curfew to find out what Draco is up to? What the Marauders were doing was very dangerous, and, IMO, they should have been caught and stopped. But who was Severus supposed to go to for help? It was obvious that the school was sanctioning the presence of a werewolf. He wanted to find out for himself, and he also wanted to convince Lily that James was a toerag. Actually, that's *her* word, and it made him happy--for a little while, until SWM ruined everything. As for attacking James with his back turned, who attacked first, two on one?

jkoney:
As I said Snape could have gone to a teacher or his head of house and explained is thoughts. The teachers may have given him an answer or sent him to Dumbledore. Snape could have presented his belief that the Mauraders were all going out. That is something the teachers didn't know about and would have wanted to know. But Snape made it personal and wanted to do it himself. Again showing the animosity between them. 

Actually it is Snape who was going to attack first and it was one on one. No one else, including the crowd cast a spell. 

> 
> jkoney: 
> > And it was James, for whatever reasons you believe, who saved Snape's life. That's not something Snape was willing to do or even cared about when he met Dumbledore.
> 
> Carol:
> But the problem is, he saved Severus's life (certainly out of no personal fondness for him) *before* he attacked him on the playground. He didn't change or learn any lesson from it, which makes it clear that he did it for selfish reasons, to keep himself and his friends out of terrible trouble, and not for altruistic or humanitarian ones. And, sure, Severus became a DE after that. Sure, he came to DD asking him to save *Lily's* life, not James's or their son's. But he ended up asking DD to save them all, promising to do "anything" in return, and spending the rest of his life protecting Harry and undermining Voldemort (admittedly not that difficult for the first eleven years, but he risked his life for a year before Harry was born and for all seven years that Harry was in school or Horcrux-hunting, most particularly the last three.

jkoney:
What lesson should James have learned? If anyone should have learned a lesson it should have been Snape. Go to the teacher if you suspect a problem. 

Snape only said to protect them all because he was frantic. He only wanted Lilly protected. It was Dumbledore who intimidated him into saying the right thing.


>Carol 
> I would have liked to care about James, to like him and respect him and feel that Harry had a father to be proud of. All I'm saying is that the James she depicts so memorably in SWM is not yet that admirable person, and we have to take on faith that he did become that person because JKR chooses to *tell,* not *show*, us that he changed.
> 
> All those of us who feel cheated by canon!James want is a scene showing his admirable Order member side. The best we get is a young father playing with his baby--and brilliantly laying his wand on the couch because he trusts an untrustworthy friend. I feel sorry for that James, betrayed by the unworthy Wormtail, and I certainly like him better than the arrogant little berk of SWM who isn't even particularly nice to his own friends. But I would have liked to see him being truly chivalrous, maybe standing up for Muggles against DEs. *Something* to make me see that he'd stopped bullying and started protecting someone other than his own wife and child. Something comparable to Snape's "lately, only those whom I could not save" and by his saving not only Draco and Dumbledore and Katie Bell but even Lupin, who thought he was a murderer and a traitor and hated him.

jkoney:
First we are supposed to have canon to back up our point. In canon it says he changed. But that isn't enough we need to see it. So we get the graveyard scene, the comfort as he walked to Voldemort and the scene in the house playing with baby Harry. 

We see James unarmed charge to his death to try and buy time for his family to escape. "Greater love hath no man..."

If that isn't enough, then I don't think there are any amount of scenes or stories that will make you believe that James is good.
> 
>