James and Intent

[mesmer44]

No: HPFGUIDX 186986

"pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> > 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."
> 
> Pippin:
> He was friends with Hagrid, who, the CoS film to the contrary, is not popular with students in canon. Most of the students would not think sharing their quarters with a werewolf was cool either. James could be cruel to people outside his  circle, but he was willing to include people in it that many others would have shunned. 
> 
> It's not a given that he would be on the good side in the war. When Dumbledore was James's age, he was supporting Grindelwald.
> 
> Isn't giving your life for the good side and being a good husband and father enough to make a person a good man, even if he was an arrogant berk sometimes? Or are you saying you don't see how anyone who could find it in himself to do those things could ever act like an arrogant berk?   I think JKR shows us that very well through her other characters.  
> 
> It seems to me you're setting a standard for James that's beyond what is expected of a normal human. Acting scary and rude to policemen is not admirable, but it's not a crime either, except in places where policemen have way too much power.
> 
> It's true that we don't get to know James the way that all the people who admired him  must have known him. But that's because Harry doesn't. That's the tragedy of his loss, that he can never really know his parents. But for those few little glimpses, Harry has to take it on faith that his father became a better person than he was in SWM, and so do we. It becomes part of Harry's willingness to see the good in people. 
> 
> Pippin
>
Steve replies:  I agree totally that we are setting unbelievably high standards for james.  Also, it's interesting to me that so many people twist canon, read between the lines, extrapolate to high heaven, put in words like "apparently" and go off on well meaning but very non canon guesswork and supposition to champion their own pet theories but require some kind of unrealistically strict adherence to canon when it comes to having others prove some point like this one w/ James. Sure he was a bully at times as a student.  We acknowledge that.  It's his status as a good father, husband, loyal friend and member of the Order of the Phoenix that we are talking about.  And as another wizard said, (paraphrasing a bit from the Wizard of Oz:): a kind heart is measured not just by how you are able to love, but how well you are loved by others.  James was loved by others as an adult. That was obvious in the books, which as far as memory serves, is where canon comes from.