Snapedom

A thought-provoking essay for sure. However, to me it seems pretty clear from canon and JKR's comments that James was simply meant to be a rather reckless but deep down benevolent, charming youth who then "came to his senses" and started dating Lily. Nothing in canon or JKR's statements implies to me that that James would have been an abusive jerk or that these two were anything else than insanely happy together.

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.