James and Intent

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186988

Carol earlier:
> > 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. 
> 
,snip>
> 
> 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
>
Carol responds:

All I'm saying is that there's nothing in canon to make his transformation believable. He was always close to certain people (if not always tactful with them--the only person he listened to was Sirius), so it's no great transformation for him to love Lily (whom he always desired) and their son.

And, more important *to me*, there's nothing to override the unpleasant impression so vividly created by SWM.

Harry chooses to overlook his father's failings (though SWM is still so painful for him the second time around that he stays as far away from his father as possible). He chooses to forgive, to see the best in James, and to name his son after him (a familiar pattern, also seen with Albus and Severus). But with Snape, and to a lesser degree with Dumbledore, we see why he made that decision. With James, all we get is the scene with James and baby Harry. But, of course, Harry has always known that his father died trying to protect him (the bit about being wandless makes his death pitiable rather than heroic, at least to me). And apparently, for Harry, that's sufficient. He also has the echoes coming out of the wand and the Mirror of Erised, and he knows that his father loved him.

For me, it's much harder to overcome the unfavorable impression created by SWM. The same is true for Sirius Black, who participates in the bullying and considers it entertaining and Remus Lupin, who sits there uncomfortably fearing to assert his authority as prefect. Lupin has already been presented favorably in PoA (though his flaws and weaknesses are still there), and Black has been shown to be a victim of injustice, falsely accused of murder and betrayal, and he clearly cares about Harry, his godson, so however arrogant and rash and unreasonable (and anti Snape ;-) )he still may be, the reader at least gets to see him in a favorable light, especially in GoF as Padfoot.

James, the most important Marauder in terms of his relationship to Harry, is the one we know least, and yet his transformation from arrogant berk and playground bully to Order member and loving father is taken for granted, unexplored. We understand exactly how Lupin and Black (and Snape) got to be the way they are. James gets short shrift. We have to take his transformation on faith because his only motivation seems to be to look good for Lily, to hide the fact that he hasn't changed at all inside him so that she'll date him and eventually marry him.

And, no. Being a loving father isn't sufficient in itself. As someone else pointed out, Vernon Dursley loves his wife and son and would fight to protect them. Nor is being on the good side sufficient. Snape is on the good side, which doesn't keep a lot of readers from considering him a bully as a teacher. As for James's friendship with Hagrid, we don't *see* it, and he probably didn't know that Hagrid was half-giant because Hagrid didn't go around advertising that fact (except to fellow half-giant Madame Maxime). And do we see any indication that James and Sirius actually *liked* Lupin as a person rather than as the werewolf who lent danger and excitement to their lives? Sirius cuts him short when he asks for help with Transfiguration, a subject that he and James don't need to study, having already learned enough to transform themselves into animals (which is probably enough to pass their NEWTs). Nor would Remus's desire to be liked, which makes him useless as a prefect, lead them to respect him. Would they like that quiet boy, whom they don't invite along on most of their pranks, to judge from the numerous detentions involving just James and Sirius, if he weren't a source of adventure for them? Sure, they became Animagi so that they could run with him on full-moon nights, but how much of that was fondness for him and how much was the sheer excitement of doing something exciting and illegal (learning to become Animagi) with the goal of doing something exciting and illegal and dangerous?

Anyway, we know that James was talented and clever based on his becoming an Animagus and on the Marauder's Map. So was Severus, based on his invented spells and Potions improvements. We know that James became an Order member at about 18; Snape became Dumbledore's man at about 20, risking his life in the process. But we also see that James was a bully at sixteen, behaving in ways that made Lily consider him a "toerag." Severus apparently *wasn't* hexing people who annoyed him in the hallways (though he obviously used his spells on someone or they couldn't have become known and Levicorpus couldn't have become a fad); Lily's disapproval of him was based on the boys he associated with, a pair of DE wannabes, and on his slip in calling her a Mudblood. Sure, James wouldn't use that particular word, but that doesn't make him *good.* And sure, he was opposed to Dark magic, but that doesn't make him good, either, since he certainly used non-Dark or semi-dark magic (jinxes and hexes) on any and everybody he pleased. He broke rules for pleasure, not, like Harry, to try to help or protect other people.

Are all bright boys like that at sixteen, showing off and bullying people and generally thinking they're better than anyone who's not part of their own gang (or, for that better, even members of their own gang who aren't as "cool" as they are)? I don't think so. To qualify as genuinely good, he needs to stop being arrogant, to really believe that other people are as good as he is, to help and protect them for that reason and not just because they're part of his group (or, in the case of Severus, because his death or becoming a werewolf would lead to trouble for himself and his friends). We don't see any real change or any maturation process.

I get that he had some good qualities to begin with, notably loyalty to his friends and a fearlessness that passed for courage, but the opposition to Dark magic and the idea of Gryffindor being the House of chivalry (a concept that he doesn't really understand or practice) seems to have been indoctrinated into him by his parents, just as Severus's mother seems to have indoctrinated him with the idea that Slytherin is the best House, the House for brains. Both of them, like Draco later, are the product of their upbringing (and later indoctrination in the values of their respective Houses). For James, the choice of joining Dumbledore against Voldemort was no choice at all. It was a given. But egotistical, arrogant bullies can and do join good causes. They can and sometimes do love their families, who are, after all, part of themselves (Us vs. Them). Even Bellatrix loves her sister (the one who didn't become a "blood traitor", and the Malfoys love each other. 

Did James change? Did he grow up? Or was he simply loyal to his family and protective of them like any other father, even Vernon Dursley? Did he ever learn to care about Muggles or Muggle-borns other than Lily *as people*? If so, why treat the Muggle policemen as mere buffoons? Did he ever learn to care about Remus *as Remus*, and, if so, why would he exclude him from the Secret and suspect him of being the traitor, as he must have done since Sirius did? Sure, he stopped hexing people (other than Severus) in the hallways, but only so that Lily would go out with him. And, once he'd left Hogwarts, he could take out his desire for hexing on DEs (though we don't see him do it). Did he ever stop thinking of himself--rich, talented James Potter--as the center of the universe? We don't see it in canon.

I get that it doesn't matter to you. It does, however, matter to me--again because SWM leaves such a vivid impression. If only he had learned a lesson from the so-called Prank, that even Slytherins who have not yet become Death Eaters deserve life and a chance to choose the right side. Instead, he attacks Severus two-on-one, unprovoked, because he exists just one week later.

Carol, who just wants to be *shown,* not told, that James did more than choose the right side, that he actually grew up