James and Intent And Snape

[zanooda2]

No: HPFGUIDX 187036

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:

> Do you consider James hexing people according to Lily 
> and his detention cards an evidence of him being a bully 
> to other people besides Snape?


zanooda:

No, I don't, although I know that many people won't agree with me :-). A victim of bullying is someone who is hurt repeatedly, over time, so, unless that boy whose head grew twice its side was James's constant target, he was not a victim of bullying, IMO. Bullying is defined as "an act of *repeated* aggressive behavior in order to intentionally hurt another person, physically or mentally". 

The victim of a bully feels him\herself singled out, specifically targeted all the time. If James and Snape just met in a hallway and exchanged a hex or two, neither of them is a bully in this case. I want to emphasize that this is only my personal opinion, nothing else :-). That's how I understand bullying :-).
 
 
> > zanooda:

> > Besides, we are not discussing Snape, we are discussing 
> > James :-). 
 
> Alla:

> You mean because topic says so? I would think that since scene 
> involves them all we can discuss them all, but here you go, 
> topic changed LOL.


zanooda:

LOL! I didn't want to say we shouldn't discuss Snape :-). I wanted to say that for me it makes no difference what Snape did to "deserve", in some readers' opinion, what he got in SWM. Even if Snape ever did the same thing to James, it doesn't make James's behavior in SWM more admirable (to me, of course :-)). Do you see what I mean? I'm not sure I explained it well :-). 

Talking about Snape being a bully is trying to find an excuse for James, and I don't see it as an excuse, that's all I wanted to say. I don't mind switching to Snape (Carol will be happy :-)). Besides, we already changed topic, because it started as a discussion about JKR's writing and now it is a discussion about James :-).