James and Intent And Snape

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 187045

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
>
Alla:
> > 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:
*(snip)*
> Bullying is defined as "an act of *repeated* aggressive behavior in > order to intentionally hurt another person, physically or mentally".

Ceridwen:
Another person, or an entity.  By hexing a lot of other students, one student can intimidate an entire group along the lines of making an example, firing a warning shot, and so on.  Defy the bully and this is what any of the members of a certain group can expect.  Isn't that what Voldemort and his Death Eaters do?  They target individuals with the implication that this will happen to anyone else who defies LV and his agenda.

We don't know that James did this with the boy whose head grew or the other hexes for which he got detention.  We can debate over the reason James got detention so many times - how many times was he not caught, or was he caught every time and given detention? or why he hexed people - were they all suspected Dark Arts aficionados, and if so was he trying to intimidate that group by the individuals he chose to hex? or was it just Slytherins? and so on.

And before someone asks, yes, we can do this with Snape too, only without as much canon.  Notice his name didn't come up in the detention cards for whatever reason.  And besides...

zanooda:
> 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 :-)).
*(snip)*
> 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.

Ceridwen:
James's behavior is less admirable to me in SWM.  He's supposed to be the Good Guy.  I expect more out of the Good Guys than I do from the Bad Guys.  I want to see the change after this but I wasn't shown.  I was given third-hand rumors of his change but no evidence.  Without evidence I'm left with the doubt that the praise is only because he was a friend, or only because he's dead and people don't want to speak ill of the dead.

I put more burden on Good Guys because it's harder to resist the urge to bully if you can, or take revenge, or attack someone who has wounded you, than it is to give in.  The Bad Guys already have failed by giving in to baser urges.  I do expect the Good Guys to rise above.  My standards for them are higher.

Snape joined the DEs after SWM.  He failed.  He had to work his way back.  James joined the Good Guys but was that just because he was taught by his parents to dislike the Dark Arts, or because he disliked Snape for being perceived as an obstacle on his way to Lily, or was it because he really changed?

Ceridwen.