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First, I all want to recommend 'Liberacorpus' by terri_testing. You can find it here: http://terri-testing.livejournal.com/756
The following under the cut can't really be called an essay, it's nature to rambling, but I'd love to see what you all think.
We've seen not many glimpses of James, but what we have seen is pretty scary. My warning bells are ringing with this guy. And if James really was a manipulator and a possible abuser, then the whole Lily/Severus relationship changes. Before I thought Lily a shallow bint, who acted like a real b*tch to Sev during the SWM incident, but what could've have gone before? Before reading my ramblings, you really ought to read terri's fic, though. Be warned, James turns out to be nastier than many people give him credit for.
It's the only thing that makes *sense*, really. I've been rereading Gavin DeBecker's 'The Gift of Fear' again in response to this fic and it always amazes me how people will fall for creepy guys because culture has somehow convinced us that guys who will not take 'no' for an answer, will threaten violence, who are 'charming', who brag about their ability to flaunt authority are somehow 'cool' and desirable as mates instead of pushing all our 'warning' buttons.
It makes *sense* that James would be abusive. It's in the text! It is CANON that he and Sirius would sneak away under the Cloak to Hogmead to drink Rosmerta's. Fifteen, sixteen year old boys who sneak out of school to go drinking? Warning sign! It's CANON that the Marauders roam around the countryside, endangering people, every month. For *years*. Warning sign!
Look at James' friends, they tell yo so much about him. People will say, "oh, but the Marauders were such wonderful friends!" Really? There is Remus. You know, the guy they cared so much for that they learned how to be animagi, just so they could comfort him in his pain. Because they were so nice and good that they just didn't care about his lycanthropy. Weren't they nice? So nice, that when they leave school they dump the werewolf because.. they are afraid that The Werewolf was a DE?! Because you can't really trust werewolves after all? Canon would have us believe that this was a legible reason for James and Sirius to distrust their friend, but I say that if you distrust a friend for being a werewolf, then that whole song and dance about the Marauders turning animagi to help their werewolf friend is bogus. They became animagi because it was illegal and they wanted to and they joined Remus every month because it was against the rules and thus exciting.
Then look at Peter. We all thought that Peter must've been such a wonderful actor; acting as if he was a timid nice boy all the while plotting to defect to Voldemort, but when we look at CANON, we see that even as a boy Peter was very, very creepy. A syncophath of the worst order. 'Almost wetting himself', as Sirius sneeringly remarks, in his fervent bootlicking. Would any nice guy *want* to be friends with such a slimy, creepy guy? No, he wouldn't, but a nasty guy would want to have 'Wormy' (the name just hits it on the head, doesn't it) around to do some dirty jobs you don't want other people to know about. You'd want him if your ideas of a 'good time' and yours coincided. Think about it; Remus and Sirius weren't surprised that Peter betrayed James for an 'even bigger bully', they were just surprised that had the guts and the brains to do so. Peter is portrayed in CANON as a cringing, wheedling, slimy, smarmy creep, and this is *not* the 'face behind the mask' but the way he *has always been*. And he was one of the Marauders and James and Sirius trusted him above Remus to be Secret Keeper.
James 'friendship' with Remus wasn't very deep if he dumped him so easily.
James' only real strong relationship was with Sirius (Red Hen did an excellent essay on this) with Sirius firmly being the follower and James being the Alpha dog. Sirius was the follower, the doer, the guy who acted and reacted impulsively. It was James who always got the ideas. It was James who got the idea from the start to bully Snape throughout school and who did so, JKR tells us, because of his jealousy about Snape's friendship with Lily. When we first see him in Snape's memory of the Hogwarts train, it was *James* who badmouthed Slytherin and Sirius kept quiet (Sirius whole family was Slytherin, after all, and who would want to diss his family, certainly at that age?) but when Sirius was Sorted he was so in Gryffindor, and when we see him again he hates everything Slytherin, he hates his family and even moves out and *moves in with James* when he is sixteen. Gosh, *somebody* must've done a good headjob on that boy. *Somebody* must've recognized Sirius biddable and controllable qualities...
Sirius was the ideal fallguy too. Think of how Sirius felt so guilty about suggesting Peter for a Secret Keeper that he was raving 'I did it, it was my fault' when the Aurors picked him up. Now think back to SWM and the Prince's Tale. CANON tells us that the SWM incident took place shortly *after* the Shrieking Shack Incident. We also see that Lily berates Snape when he tries to warn her against the Marauders and especially James. She says, "I know about your theories that Remus is a werewolf". (I'm quoting from memory here)
What? Snape *knew* that Lupin was a werewolf (or at least suspected it) and still he went into the Shrieking Shack during full moon? Why would he do something so stupid? What could Sirius possibly have said to lure him into such danger? How about "Evans was so curious about where Lupin goes every month, we've decided to show her, har har har." I can't imagine Snape willingly going into a suspected werewolf den just to 'get the Marauders into trouble' but I *can* imagine Snape doing so to rescue his friend from the jaws of one.
And suddenly it all falls into place. We've been staring ourselves blind on Snape in the Slytherin Common Room getting his ears filled with anti-muggleborn propaganda, but we've totally neglected Lily in the Gryffindor Common Room. James must've spent years poisoning Lily's thoughts about her Slytherin friend, twisting Snape's actions and words to discredit Snape and make himself look good. *That's* why SWM is his Worst Memory. It was *the* moment that Lily finally, totally 'went over' to the Other Side, and look what happened to her.
*That's* why Snape felt so guilty for her death; for years he had been warning his friend about no-good James Potter. *He* was not such an idiot to be fooled by that smooth talking bullying pureblood bastard. James played 'devide and conquer', playing Severus and Lily against eachother, bullying Sev and manipulating things so that it looked as if it was *Severus* fault (classic manipulator behaviour: shifting the blame of the abuse onto the victim). Hey, he got the *teachers* gobbling up his pretty stories about 'Snape giving as good as he got' after all. Lily turned out to be a harder nut to crack; it took him five years. Five years of bullying Snape, five years of manipulation, shifting blame, smooth talking, charm and badmouthing Slytherins in general and Snape in particular. It took a while - Lily *knew* Severus after all - but in the end he succeeded.
First he would wait until a new full moon. Then, just before the Marauders would go to the Shrieking Shack he would say something about Snape suspecting Lupins lycanthropy. He would then smoothly suggest to Sirius something like "Oh Snape would never dare to follow us, you know how all Slyths are cowards at heart. Wouldn't it be fun if he did, though? He'd shit seven colours! But he'd never... well, maybe if he thought that pretty redhead Evans were with us. Even slimy Snivellus might want to rescue a damsel in distress, ha ha ha!"
Sirius would be off in an instant (probably thinking it his own idea) to find Snape (Marauders map) and say something like, "looking for your girlfriend Snivelly? She's with us tonight. Arrhooooo!!"
Snape would leg it to the Shrieking Shack, just as Lupin transformed, and of course James would be waiting there to be 'just in time to save Snape'.
James would spin his usual tale and just as usual be believed by DD (isn't it weird, you might ask, that Dumbles didn't even know the Marauders were animagi who let Lupin out of the shack to roam around the countryside for *years*? This tells you something about Dumbles, but it also tells you something about James' ability to lie and charm his way out of murder *just as a certain other Head Boy we could mention*!)
After this 'incident' James stages the very, *very* public Worst Memory incindent, carefully checking (canon!) that Lily is in the vicinity and at the end of that day Lily has permanently broken with her best friend and is shown as believing James' every lie. Oh, the also spewed her anger at *James*, but James is nothing but tenacious (another warning sign!)
For two years he keeps on bullying people (and especially Snape), he just hides it better. He keeps telling Lily that he 'cleaned up his act' and that she and her actions that day 'made him a better man' (again, shifting the responsibility of his own actions, "if you don't become my girlfriend/wife I might regress into my old behaviour and then it would be your fault" - warning sign!)
The rest is history.
So poor Snape, who at first congratulated himself for not being so stupid to fall for James' tricks, finds out that he has, instead, been playing to James' tune. James called every shot during the SWM incident. Snape had been so furious with Lily, listening *again* to that bastard instead of hexing his balls off and freeing him. Hadn't he warned her again and again that Potter was no good. Why did she listen to him? And how had Potter learned the Levicorpus? He had told only Lily of his new spell (Lily had, of course, shown the spell to James to prove that 'look, Sev *isn't* a Dark wizard. He makes these spells himself, you know, he doesn't learn them from the other Slytherins. He's very clever.. Look at this one..") So he lashed out in utter fury at her, calling her the one name he knows would hurt the most because he *wants* to hurt her that one time, for so betraying him (and he is immediatly sorry for doing so) and it played into James' hand.
Think of the guilt he must've felt. "If only I had.. she might not have married that bastard, she wouldn't be in this situation.." etc. etc.
I loved the bit about the photos. Now we know why Snape cried and tore that foto in Sirius' room. We also know why that letter sounded way to naive for a young, intelligent woman. We also know why Lily, for such a 'brave Gryffindor', ended up huddling pathetically, pleading for her child's life without so much as trying to accio her wand; abused women will cower, not fight.
In the end, it just comes down to two options. If James was really a nice guy, then Lily must've been a nasty golddigging bitch who dumped her poor halfblood friend so she can marry the rich jock/biggest bully on the playground. Then Snape must've been mentally disturbed for continuing to carry a torch for such a horrid girl.
Or James is really a nasty piece of work. A possible abusive husband, who only associates with people he can use and whose closest relationship is with best buddy, rebel-without-a-cause, Sirius. At least a manipulator who poisoned Lily with lies for years, who filled her head with stories about 'those Slytherins' until she believed them and discounted the stories of her friend Severus.
I suddenly find myself liking Lily again and can truly feel the tragedy of her and Sev's history.
Early in canon we learned that he had been a privileged jock - which was a huge strike against him in my book. In real life, how many of us in high school learned that unless you were in the 'in' crowd, jock was just another word for stuck-up jerk.
Further in canon, we learned of the Marauders - and isn't that such an appropriate name for a gang? Because James Potter didn't have a pack of friends - he had a gang, and he was their undisputed leader. And what do gang members like to do? They make themselves feel empowered by terrorizing and controlling other people. The Marauders weren't some group of high-spirited teenage boys prone towards harmless hexes and mischievous pranks like so many characters in canon seemed to blithely regard them - they were a gang of bullies, Hogwarts was their turf, and woe to anyone unlucky enough to draw their 'interest'. Like one unfortunate Severus Snape. Maybe Snape did indeed know more dark art spells than any other student his age, but he needed every one of them for protection against his repeated encounters with the Marauders. Four against one? My, my, how 'brave' of James Potter, taking on an opponent he always has outnumbered.
How could the teacher's have turned a blind eye to such bullying? How could Dumbledore have let the Marauders get away with murder almost literally (Shrieking Shack incident), then punish them with barely even a symbolic slap on the wrist (yet punish Snape the most by trivializing the entire event and even forbidding him, the victim, from discussing it with anyone else)? Is it such a surprise then that Snape wound up joining the Death Eaters? Seems rather obvious to me that he was, on at least a subconscious level, seeking the protection of the most powerful gang in the area.
James Potter was a bully and a manipulator. The frightening part is that he got away with his abuse because he was also rich, handsome, charming, and athletic. It's regretable that Lily eventually fell for the packaging and didn't stop to give a critical look at what was truly inside the man.
Thanks to everybody who commented on my incoherent babbling above. I hope I made people think outside of the box. People in fandom tend to stick to 'first impressions'. For instance the 'Snape knew more spells in first year than seventh year'. Who says this? Sirius. Do we believe Sirius? Are we *shown* that what Sirius claims is true? No. Even more damning; who should he have learned them from? His muggle father? His cowering, ineffective mother? Lily?! So why believe the babblings of a character like Sirius, whose veracity is questionable, to say the least.
And this is but *one* of the things characters or even the narrator *say* that is totally in contradiction to what people *do* or what is *shown*.
So, keeping in mind that what is *said* in the Potter series should be neglected in favour of what is *shown*, we can look anew at the Lily-Severus friendship.
What are we shown about Lily? We are shown that she is Severus' friend before coming to Hogwarts. We are shown that when she and Sev encounter rich, snobby, spoilt git James, Lily reacts angry towards him and chooses Sev's side. We see that five years later, she seems to have changed her tune. We see how Sev tells her that he wants to show her that James and his cronies *aren't* all cool and wonderful, but she cuts him off, telling him that *his* friends (housemates?) aren't wonderful either. We are shown that five or six years after that, when Sev and Lily's ways have long past, Sev still wants to save her, still cares about her and he will do anything, betray anyone, to save her life.
So, we can ask ourselves the following question: what changed between first years and fifth year? Why is Lily choosing James' side, even when she will readily claim that James is a git.
The easy answer would be 'Lily is a shallow bitch, a golddigger who ditched her poor, halfblood friend to marry a spoilt, bullying jock and good riddance to her', and that was *my* first reaction too.
But if this is the case, the consequence must be that Severus is a sad, puerile puppy who is stuck in his mind in the false belief that his childhood friend cared for him, even though she clearly never did. And that doesn't sit well with me, because in the whole sad, bloody awful series, Snape is the one character who acted as an adult; he looked at his own actions, saw the consequences of them and changed. This is adult behaviour that Harry or Dumbledore never reach.
So we look the evidence again. How else has Lily changed? Well, we see that before and during Hogwarts she was a girl who was never afraid to open her mouth to say what was on her mind. She was 'spunky'. Yet when the Big Bad enters her house, she doesn't even raise her wand? She sits there, cowering? She *begs*?
Enter the 'James has an manipulative, abusive personality' theory.
If James is indeed a manipulative, nasty git, who charmingly fed Lily bullshit about Slytherins in general and Severus in particular for *years*, who actively, by bullying Severus in such ways that Sev looks pathetic, drives a wedge between her and Sev, then this will explain how:
* Lily has turned from a feisty young girl into a cowiring, ineffective moomy.
* Severus still feels responsible for her even though she clearly made her choice by marrying James.
* Severus feels guilty for her death for twenty years. It can't have been that stupid McGuffin prophecy. Any Voldie sympathiser could've gone to the Ministry and checked out that prophecy. Besides, James and Lily were on Voldie's hitlist anyway. Severus pleading for her live was Lily's only chance, not her doom. So why the guilt? Because if only he had played things better, James would've been demasked and Lily would've realised what a cunning piece of shit he was and she would never have married James and wouldn't be on Voldie's hitlist etc etc.
The 'James Was A Manipulative, Possibly Abusive Bastard' theory gives us a likable but tragic Lily, a lovable but tragic Severus and a Very Nasty Wanker (instead of a plain Stupid Wanker) James.
What's not to love?
And that's fine with at least me. Because I've come to see James and Lily as very similar people: neither very deep, sensitive, or subtle, both popular, neither unattractive or from a bad home - the ultimate Mary Sue and Gary Stu. I see them fit together very well, and I think Severus was much, much better without either of them. Coming to this point has liberated at least me incredibly much; I don't care about the cheerleader couple any more, I just happily choose someone else for Severus - a sweet woman who really, really cares about him and understands him.
If James was really a nice guy, then Lily must've been a nasty golddigging bitch who dumped her poor halfblood friend so she can marry the rich jock/biggest bully on the playground. Then Snape must've been mentally disturbed for continuing to carry a torch for such a horrid girl.
I think it's more about JKR's inability to bring true shades of grey into the story: it was all about horrible, nasty Slytherin Snape and the ultimately good, brave Gryffindors Lily and James. She obviously thought everybody would see it this way, which can be seen in how the Snape in her public comments and the Snape in the story don't match at all.
In that vein, you might be interested in reading a short "creative meta" fic I recently posted, Childhood's End, exploring my view of how, if Severus had turned away from the Death Eaters and ended up marrying Lily, they still would have eventually drifted apart, once the scales fell away from both of their eyes, due to their fundamental incompatibility. The sad thing is that no one was on hand in the canon story line to help him get past idealizing Lily's memory and see, as you put it, that he could, indeed, do better than Lily (at least the Lily we are SHOWN in canon).
I just happily choose someone else for Severus - a sweet woman who really, really cares about him and understands him.
Heh. I hear you. I almost always gravitate towards pairing Severus with an OC, usually female, and almost always outside of the wizarding world!
I think you're absolutely spot on about the relationship with Remus Lupin and the animagi transformations, though. I don't think James truly cared for him very much, and that the other marauders liked the forbidden/dangerous/thrill -seeking aspects of becoming animagi as much as the ability to keep Remus company and in control during the full moon.
Oh, I'm certain that JKR never wanted us to think James possibly abusive or manipulative, just as she never wanted us to believe Snape to be a hero :-)
I do not believe that Snape is 'certainly no hero', just because the Author proclaimed him to be. I look at Snape's actions and judge him according to them. Same with James and Lily.
I reject Rowlings' worldview and substitute my own! Revolution Now!! Yeeaaahhhhh!!! *does Kermit armwave* *feels silly*
But seriously, JKR is either an incredibly bad writer (um, yeah, I'd buy that) or (and?) she has ideas about the way the world works, about right and wrong, which is *so* totally opposite mine that it simply *boggles* my mind that so many people swallow it. Frightens the hell out of me, I can tell you that.
Anyway, no matter *what* JKR says, if James and his cronies were at *my* school, they'd frighten the sh*t out of me, but they'd also be expelled because *my* old Headmaster wouldn't have stood for that kind of behaviour. Chances were that they'd have found themselves inside a policestation before they were thirteen..
But then, I could've said the same about the Trio (stealing, brewing illegal substances, joyriding, stealing candy from a shop, not to mention scarring a fellow student for life)
I agree with your analysis of the "friendship" of James with Lupin. People have held that up as an example of what a great guy he is, so kindhearted and generous and selfless, but in light of his overall pattern of behavior--including the distancing from Lupin post-Hogwarts--I really do think it had more to do with reinforcing his image of himself (and before his peers) as a "great guy," and with being an excuse to become an Animagus and run around the grounds after hours. Someone posted an essay about Dumbledore being a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder; I think it would be possible to view James through the same lens, because everything he does seems to be about being The Great James Potter--especially and including his PR tactic of convincing Lily that he has "changed" and "grown up" in order to break down her resistance to dating him.
I still think canon Lily wasn't really such great friends with Severus as Severus thought she was. I think JKR wants us to think they were, but that's not what I see in the texts. I don't know if you saw my recent post about this, Severus and Lily: The Way They REALLY Would Have Been, but that, and the meta-story "Childhood's End," pretty well sums up my view of the shallow nature of their childhood friendship, and how poorly it would have carried over into adult life even if Severus had never spoken the taboo M-word and had never become a Death Eater.
Anyway, one more thought about Severus: If he did, in fact, see James as no good for Lily--not just out of his own self-interest or jealousy, but because he saw James as potentially abusive, at least psychologically abusive--then in a twisted way it might have made sense to him to go on and become a Death Eater. Because to Severus, becoming a Death Eater meant the POWER to vanquish his enemies and be vulnerable no more, and so he might have reasoned that he would be in a position to protect Lily from James. Which would explain why he wasn't too worried about Voldy killing off James--he'd probably see it (through an admittedly immature, young man's reasoning) as the best thing that could happen for Lily. Of course that would make it all the more ironic and tragic that his becoming a Death Eater ultimately led to Lily's death: the very thing he did to "save" her ended up killing her.
Just speculation, there, but this is certainly an angle worth examining! Thanks again.
I've read Swythyv's essay about Dumbledore having Aspergers and another about him being a Narcissist, and I fully agree. Personally I think Dumbledore is the most evil character in children's lit, ever, and I don't care wether JKR thinks the sun shines out of his nether orifice, so there! *evil grin*
Yes, when we look at James' actions instead of the authors opinion of him, we see quite a different picture, and not a flattering one at that. If we take Lily's actions at face value we don't see a nice girl either, but she clearly chooses Severus' side before entering Hogwarts but changes sides a few years later. As I've said in response to another post above, what changed between first years and fifth year? Why is Lily choosing James' side, even when she will readily claim that James is a git.
The easy answer would be 'Lily is a shallow bitch, who believes all the 'Gryffindor is Superior and Slytherin is Teh Evuhl' shite that even the teachers will endorse at school. She is a golddigger who ditched her poor, halfblood friend to marry a spoilt, bullying jock and good riddance to her', and that was *my* first reaction too.
But if this is the case, the consequence must be that Severus is a sad, puerile puppy who is stuck in his mind in the false belief that his childhood friend cared for him, even though she clearly never did. And that doesn't sit well with me, because in the whole sad, bloody awful series, Snape is the one character who acted as an adult; he looked at his own actions, saw the consequences of them and changed. This is adult behaviour that Harry or Dumbledore never reach.
So we look the evidence again. How else has Lily changed? Well, we see that before and during Hogwarts she was a girl who was never afraid to open her mouth to say what was on her mind. She was 'spunky'. Yet when the Big Bad enters her house, she doesn't even raise her wand? She sits there, cowering? She *begs*?
Enter the 'James has an manipulative, abusive personality' theory.
If James is indeed a manipulative, nasty git, who charmingly fed Lily bullshit about Slytherins in general and Severus in particular for *years*, who actively, by bullying Severus in such ways that Sev looks pathetic, drives a wedge between her and Sev, then this will explain how:
* Lily has turned from a feisty young girl into a cowiring, ineffective moomy.
* Severus still feels responsible for her even though she clearly made her choice by marrying James.
* Severus feels guilty for her death for twenty years. It can't have been that stupid McGuffin prophecy. Any Voldie sympathiser could've gone to the Ministry and checked out that prophecy. Besides, James and Lily were on Voldie's hitlist anyway. Severus pleading for her live was Lily's only chance, not her doom. So why the guilt? Because if only he had played things better, James would've been demasked and Lily would've realised what a cunning piece of shit he was and she would never have married James and wouldn't be on Voldie's hitlist etc etc.
The 'James Was A Manipulative, Possibly Abusive Bastard' theory gives us a likable but tragic Lily, a lovable but tragic Severus and a Very Nasty Wanker (instead of a plain Stupid Wanker) James.
I can live with that scenario. *grin*
So yes, I can see James as being abusive--not in the crude, more obvious sense of him beating his wife, but in the more subtle ways you indicated, of him manipulating and isolating Lily so that she eventually has only him to depend on. I haven't read Terri's story yet, but it sounds fascinating, and I intend to get around to it soon.
And it's quite telling that Harry initially seems to agrees with your assessment after seeing Snape's memories in the Pensieve. He can't imagine what his mother could have seen in James, so he wonders if James someone how forced her to marry him.
I must admit that I find the HP series, taken as a whole, to be incredibly hypocritical and extremely morally ambiguous. JKR *shows* us that teenSeverus was the victim of an appalling and years-long level of abuse, but still fails to condemn the ones who treated him that way, while then characterising him as evil for devising spells and joining another group of bullies in an effort to defend himself from them.
Alison
Don't make me hex you
We even have young Harry worrying about James using a Love Potion on Lily.
And we know from one of Snape's memories that he believed James would/could 'fool' Lily. He tells Lily that James has everyone 'fooled' and then proceeds to say he won't let her .... (as in 'be' fooled most likely). Lily then shows here 'spunk' about Snape 'letting her' do anything. This suggests a very subtle use of manipulation on James' part. He could not have been overt about it - Lily reacts badly to overt instances of trying to control her (note she apparently saw Snape in that memory as wanting to control her rather than the alternative possibility for the end of that sentence - I won't let them fool you - or I won't let you be fooled)
Certainly Snape would worry about James abusing Lily. He didn't have a good parental example. Eileen was most likely abused (at least with threats of physical abuse - you don't generally cower from verbal abuse alone - you might deflate and be depressed from verbal abuse, but cowering suggests actual physical hitting).
I will disagree however with the idea that James was 'alpha'. I think he and Sirius probably were about 'even'. Note that on our new little 'prequel' that JKR just wrote for auction that James and Sirius were out either 'playing' at being Order members or had actually joined the Order during the summer before 7th year. Sirius would have had the money from Uncle Alphard by then and uses it to buy that motorcycle.
The bike is actually a smart idea (compared to a broom) for traveling around muggles - but it also narrows it down to only 2 people per adventure. No way Remus could go with them (since James' relationship with Remus was brought up as well)
So - just adding some canon points that support your ideas. -- Hwyla
evidence that JKR wants us to view James well?
Could someone - anyone - point out where those interviews are? Maybe provide a link over to Accio Quote about where they are?
Because honestly I can't see that JKR actually likes James. I haven't seen it yet in any of her interviews, although I admit to not being nearly as familiar with some of her most recent comments, especially following her US interviews after DH was published.
Someone also suggested that JKR had never been bullied or she wouldn't sympathize with bullies (assuming she does sympathize with the Marauders). Actually, it's the opposite. She was bullied quite a bit in school. Interestingly, one newspaper article revealed that one of her refuges of choice when being bullied in school was to go to the science block and hang out. This was where her mum was working under the supervision of JKR's supposedly disliked chemistry teacher.
Re: evidence that JKR wants us to view James well?
Of course, how she could include Lupin, because he died in "Harry's battle" but not include Snape who specifically died trying to get to Harry, is telling, and she clearly didn't want to see Snape as a hero as we all know.
However, I don't see this as evidence that JKR specifically sees James in a particularly good light. For that matter, I never got much impression that she saw Sirius in a great light, speaking of his prime good point as being his love for James and Harry, which is of course a good thing, but JKR spoke of that plus almost as though it was just the one thing, the main reason to appreciate him.
Any other interview evidence about her thinking James particularly great? On another thread someone mentioned JKR commenting about wanting her patronus to be a large black dog. Actually, she *wished* it would be an otter, but suspected it would be a large dog, no color specified.
Pre-DH, when I tried to search for evidence of what JKR thought of the individual Marauders, I never came up with much positive. Her comments about James always seemed pretty wishy washy as though she didn't see much to him -- the "pampered only son" and someone who was going to get killed by Voldie regardless, unlike Lily who intentionally died to try to protect Harry. She claimed to sometimes speak through Dumbledore's character to pass info along to readers, and I didn't see Dumbledore as being particularly pro-James either (not particularly cut up over his death, was he?, nor Sirius' death either). And she never put a scene in the books with James in it where he looked particularly good.
Oh, don't worry, I'm not arguing that converse -- that she thinks the world of Snape. Obviously she doesn't. But that doesn't mean she thinks particularly highly of James either.
Re: evidence that JKR wants us to view James well?
MA: "How did they get together? She hated James, from what we've seen."
JKR: "Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying." [Laughter.]
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0
When you contrast that assessment with her description of Snape ("Who on earth would want Snape in love with them, that is a very horrible idea." - 12 October, 1999; http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1999/1
Re: evidence that JKR wants us to view James well?
The "stag" animagus form.
We all know animagus forms are intended as comments on one's inner personality: Peter the rat (traitor), Sirius the dog (faithful), so James as a stag is clearly meant to imply the nobility, beauty and grace that comes with this heraldic symbol.
I honestly think it is possible for a writer to write a character who s/he thinks is a praiseworthy person, and for the character's actual behaviour to ring warning bells for many readers. Edward Cullen is one such character, and James Potter is another.
I agree, I do think James as far as our eyes can see (including that 800-word prequel) is a character consistently showing tell-tale signs of would-be abusers. But I wouldn't really say that it's analytically meaningful to wonder if James actually ended up abusing Lily. And not just because it's clear from the text that JKR wants us to see that couple as "ideal happy husband-and-wife." It's because while James is textually readable as potentially abusive, he is only one character in a long, long line of characters with abusive tendencies, in HP's universe.
Dumbledore the empathy-deprived narcissist is my prime example. Then we actually have Lily, who (while on the surface only ever presented as a sweet and nice girl) is capable of leaving her so-called friend on the ground struggling and choking on soap suds while she righteously chit-chats with his romantic rival, and suggests to Snape that he should abandon his House-mate friends if he wants to keep on being friends with her, without so much as suggesting any alternatives for boys that she might have him consider being friends with (which she knows and we know that he has none). And then we have cases like Hermione's callous treatment of all her enemies (Marietta, Rita Skeeter, etc.) and even of her friends and allies (her parents in DH, Ron in HBP when she gets jealous), and Sirius treating his house slave with extreme cruelty and happily enticing his godson into seeking out danger, etc. etc...
So James is not an isolated case, and that's my primary reason for seeing him and Lily getting married as more of an image of "bullying jock and shallow cheer-leader couple" as someone said above. Not that there isn't such a thing as a pecking order among bullies, and since gender and especially mother/father roles seem to be very rigidly set in the Potterian universe, I suppose yes, it is extremely likely that Lily did eventually get abused. Or would have been, if they had lived long enough.
But I think that wondering about James abusing Lily distracts us from the true patterning structure of the HP universe: the most salient thing to note about the abusive relationships of this world IMO is what we see in the relationships between narratively glorified characters and narratively condemned characters: Lily and Snape, Lily and Petunia, Dumbledore and Snape, etc. Dumbledore and Snape, for one, reads as *textually* abusive. No potential prospect about it. And as I discussed with several fen in this post -- http://raisin-gal.livejournal.com/1539.h
That's the thing of it, really. As someone commented in the thread here about JKR'S "bad boy syndrome," the most horrific thing about these books is that the narrative insistently aligns our reader POV with that of abusers and bullies, making us empathize with them rather than their victims. We are told to look on with an indulgent smile as James takes another boy along to attack his romantic rival while he's alone. We are instructed to find it humorous when Snape, who has jumped into the very stage of his childhood trauma (on the night of the full moon no less) believing Harry was in danger from a werewolf and the murderer of his parents, is floated around unconscious and purposefully bumped into ceilings.
I so agree with everything you've said here! Reading the Potter books are an execise in doublethink, knowing what right and wrong is and yet having to believe that right is wrong when the wrong person is doing it and wrong is right when the right person is doing it. And I so, *so* detest the way the author is *nudging* me all the time; "look, look, the fat boy is choking on a toffee! hah hah! Isn't it funny how his stupid parents flap around like distraught animals flapping around their wounded offspring?! hah hah! The fat kid's tongue is all thick and gross and he is getting all purply and blue! This is even better than *last* time when we gave him a pigs tail! Hah hah!"
I swear, every time I read a scene like that I feel as if I have to scrub my eyes with bleach. Ugh.
I really shouldn't say this, because it is not done to psychoanalyze authors by their works, but reading the Potter books and reading JKR's interviews I sometimes wonder if JKR doesn't have a touch of Aspergers herself... (yes, yes, I know people will whack me down for making personal remarks) She simply *does* *not* *seem* *to* *get* that people really don't enjoy watching bullies 'playing jokes' on their victims. She really does not get that what people *do* says more about them than what they *say*. She really does not get that teachers that are 'mean' to you can really be good and even kind people (suddenly a scene from the 'Love Actually' dvd comes to mind. It's one of the deleted scenes where the Headmistress of a school, who has been shown in one scene to be very strict and feared by parents and children alike, comes home to her very ill partner. The scene is so poignant, with them chitchatting about sausages, whilst they both know that one of them is dying. Wonderful movie! *snif*)
I find it very telling that a fully grown, adult woman feels the need to publicly declare that she has created a character (whom she loathes and whom everybody is *meant* to loathe) as a revenge upon her old chemistry teacher because he was 'mean' to her.
Hello? Talk about schoolgirl grudges! Grow the hell up, woman!
I've read your post about Petunia, and I *love* it! JKR is playing such a devious (although devious isn't really the word since JKR seems to do this without actually meaning to) game where she has two parties, a party of nazis and a party of Old Southern Cottongrowing Slave owners. When you say that slavery is wrong, that to kill somebody for insulting a lady (he spits at her, you lynch him), that both the ideologies of Slave owning and fascism are based on the idea that people are unequal, that there are ubermenschen and untermenschen and that's its okay to harass, torture or kill untermenschen because they don't count, then people will shout at you: "if you are against the Slave owners you are for the nazis!! You filthy fascist #@%!!!!"
It's enough to make you bang your head against your desk.
Actually, I've got a few ideas about JKR and her inspirations for the Potterverse which might explain a few things, but I've been typing away for several *hours* now, in response to all the replies I've gotten to my humble post, so it will wait until another day. Hugz!
My gut feeling agrees with this, but I can't point out anything in canon. In short, James was the head and Sirius was the heart.
It was James who got the idea from the start to bully Snape throughout school and who did so, JKR tells us, because of his jealousy about Snape's friendship with Lily.
This is in interview canon, I suppose? Where?
when we see [Sirius] again he hates everything Slytherin, he hates his family and even moves out and *moves in with James* when he is sixteen. Gosh, *somebody* must've done a good headjob on that boy.
*sporfle* I know you meant as in "brainwash", but my slasher soul says otherwise... ;)
*Somebody* must've recognized Sirius biddable and controllable qualities...
Which is not a bad thing of itself. Obeying a master can be an admirable quality. Not everyone has all the same ones (qualities, that is). That said, I think Sirius is very headstrong and not that "biddable". If he gives you his loyalty you have it forever because he feels more than he thinks, but that doesn't mean he is usually amenable to others' commands.
I can't imagine Snape willingly going into a suspected werewolf den just to 'get the Marauders into trouble' but I *can* imagine Snape doing so to rescue his friend from the jaws of one.
We have strayed well into the fields of fanfic here.
And suddenly it all falls into place. We've been staring ourselves blind on Snape in the Slytherin Common Room getting his ears filled with anti-muggleborn propaganda, but we've totally neglected Lily in the Gryffindor Common Room. James must've spent years poisoning Lily's thoughts about her Slytherin friend
Ummm, whoa. James has probably been trying to caution her against Severus as much as the reverse (Gryff/Slyth bias as well as personal rivalry), but I think we should view it in the same terms. Neither has an objective perspective on the other. If Severus is not "poisoning Lily's thoughts", then neither is James.
*That's* why SWM is his Worst Memory. It was *the* moment that Lily finally, totally 'went over' to the Other Side, and look what happened to her.
Hrm... I think I disagree. This is another perspective on it, yes. The memory is clearly a quite complicated piece of work with many meanings. But I don't think this is one of them. If this was "final" and "total" then Severus wouldn't have tried to apologize so earnestly, I don't think. OTOH social skills are not his strong point.
For two years he keeps on bullying people (and especially Snape)
Do we have any evidence that he bullies anyone other than Severus?
This comment is too long, so broken it gets!
And how had Potter learned the Levicorpus? He had told only Lily of his new spell
While I think this is reasonable (Lily = a leak), we have absolutely no canon evidence for how James got hold of the spell.
(Lily had, of course, shown the spell to James to prove that 'look, Sev *isn't* a Dark wizard. He makes these spells himself, you know, he doesn't learn them from the other Slytherins. He's very clever.. Look at this one..")
This is an interesting bunny, though!
So he lashed out in utter fury at her, calling her the one name he knows would hurt the most because he *wants* to hurt her that one time, for so betraying him (and he is immediatly sorry for doing so)
This I can believe. (Hence "in that moment she was every bit the filthy name he called her", as I wrote in one
If James was really a nice guy, then Lily must've been a nasty golddigging bitch who dumped her poor halfblood friend so she can marry the rich jock/biggest bully on the playground. Then Snape must've been mentally disturbed for continuing to carry a torch for such a horrid girl.
Um, whoa, whoa!
If James was really a nice guy, then Lily, who was also supposed to be a nice
guygirl, is naturally better with him than with Severus, who whatever wonderful things you can say about him, is not "a nice guy".It's not nice to ditch an older, poorer friend for a shinier one, no. That's part of the tragedy of Severus's story. Lily was a teenaged girl at the time. It would be wonderful if she had had acted otherwise and gone with loyalty over "coolness", but I might have done the same thing at that age. Thus I can only condemn her in hindsight as much as I do myself: "That's wrong and I know it, but teens will be teens" or something like that.
Therefore I think, IMHO, that this toppic about whether or not James Potter might be an abusive husband - regadless how fascinating this one might be - belongs rather to the community dedicated to discussions about the character named James Potter.
I might be not the moderator for this community but with this coment of mine I would like to point out that with article like this above we are drifting away from the main purpose, Snapedom has been created for: discussing Snape.
Picking on people such as Severus because they're into the Dark Arts (the convenient excuse), greasy or an oddball --- that's not a mark of a good person, no matter if they were only in their teens. Sirius at Book 4 still relished to call Severus a greasy and oily kid-- I have the impression James would've done the same. We also know that James's behavior to Severus was mainly out of jealousy--so it's okay to torment your rival, whose an oddball, poor kid anyway? (would he have done if, say, Lucius Malfoy, was the rival in question? - I think not). James even 'blackmailed' Lily into going out with him, using Severus as the bait. As for James lying to Lily about not hexing people anymore, that's disturbing. Remus and Sirius called Snape a special case as he presumably never let an opportunity of cursing James pass by but how could he start those fights when James was said to be careful not to hex Snape when Lily was around?
I agree that the way Sirius and James treated Peter as a (tag-along) Marauder was appalling... they just wanted someone in awe of them and someone to insult so they could feel better and superior (same case as Severus). James's feeling of entitlement really galling. Certainly, someone of a good stock, who's supposed to be intelligent, talented, rich, and popular need not feel superior at the expense of others? That's why JKR's definition of James' being cool doesn't sit well with me. I'm not very sure about Remus but how come James supported Sirius after school when Remus was the one in need of money? I think they never thought of the other 2 as their equal.
Lily seems pretty naive to me ( her letter to Sirius while being hunted by LV and how she easily believed the version of the Marauders of the Shrieking Shack Prank) but she also seemed to be very shallow so it didn't surprise me that she fell for James. She may be Head Girl and an Order member but she doesn't strike me as an intelligent girl (magically talented probably but not the intelligent/discerning kind) or else she would've seen through others' prejudices and James/Marauders' half-truths. JKR said she liked James even at SWM so she readily accepted those half-truths, because she liked him, anyway. And when James did tone down his behavior in front of Lily (but never really really changed), it sealed their relationship. All in all, I was not impressed with Lily (and I liked her before!) after DH came out... and yes, for me, she is a horrid girl.
James went on excursions while being hunted by LV. That, for me, showed me that he put excitement ahead of his safety and that of his wife and son. And Lily seemed to be accepting of this need for excursions... well, at that point, she was totally dependent on his money and I think she also loved James so that was okay with her (I really dislike this couple although I feel they deserved each other!).
I'm sorry, but that what's teenagers do. They experiment, they drink under-age, they break rules. It's not a warning sign that they are bad people. For most, it's just a part of growing up. If I had an invisibility cloak I'd do the exact same thing. Note that I don't go home and beat my woman afterward.
So nice, that when they leave school they dump the werewolf because.. they are afraid that The Werewolf was a DE?!
Where in canon does it state that they didn't trust Remus because he was a werewolf? Oh yeah, nowhere. Try again.
God, I read half of this and the stupid was just so overpowering that I had to stop.
Classic example is it being a huge WARNING SIGN that teenage boys sneaked out to drink. You must be afraid of everyone then (because GUESS WHAT, teenage girls do it too. I will testify against myself).
Listen, Lily/Severus has been my OTP since before the fifth book came out, I don't know if anyone was happier than me about "The Prince's Tale"...but I'm not going to trash other characters (like James) to try to shine up the ugly bits to their relationship. No one wishes more than me that Lily hadn't broken her friendship off with Severus after he called her a Mudblood, I think it was rash and not thoroughly thought out, maybe even unwise, but you can't completely blame her for it. He called her a horrible, horrible name, and more importantly despite her repeated warnings and pleas, he was associating and getting into a group of people who are, in fact, the KU KLUX KLAN. Targeting people just like Lily. In fact, they were targeting her, whether or not Seveurs himself was planning to do her any personal harm. That's pretty unforgivable.
Lily knew Severus much better than James; there is nothing to indicate she would have listened to him in the slightest if he tried to "poison" her about him, she acted on what she KNEW herself to be true. And her breaking the friendship had nothing to do with James. There's nothing to indicate she was a golddigger, that's ridiculous.
Likewise, there is nothing to indicate the Marauders suspected Remus because he was a werewolf. It was the whole atmosphere at the time, everyone was suspecting everyone else - Remus said it himself, he suspected Sirius of being of the traitor.
Sigh, I didn't mean to write this much because I don't think it's going to do much good, but I do have to put my voice of dissent out there.
One last thing:
accio her wand
Lol, oxymoron much?
-lavinialavender on LJ
I don't really expect this comment to make much of a difference, if any, but I hope you will at least reconsider before using these disorders as a slur in the future.