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If we carry through on the racism/blood prejudice equivalency...
was James Potter a racist of the worst order?
Think back to the Snape's Worst Memory scene. Remember when Lily asks James just what Severus ever did to him? The reply from James was, "it's more the fact that he exists if you know what I mean. . ." Most people, IMO, interpret that to mean the bully's "natural" prey instinct had kicked in, but what if we are going to carry through on the claim that anti-Muggle and Muggleborn prejudice is equivalent to racism.
These boys were born in 1960, and it was not until 1967 that Loving v. Virginia struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the US. Ahhh, you say, stop trying to apply American standards and baggage to Brits. So let's look at Rowling's model: Anti-miscegenation laws were enforced in Nazi Germany. They were also enforced in South Africa between 1949 and 1985. So....was Snape's existence the result of a violation of the law? How many half-bloods did we see in the Marauder era? And even if it's not illegal, was it considered shameful by a large segment of the Wizarding population? No, it wasn't by Harry's time, but mores change. Is that part of what James meant when he said it was that Severus existed? He added "if you know what I mean", which is the nod-nod, wink-wink of a racist, roughly equivalent to the loaded statements characters in Seinfeld used to make about homosexuals, always followed up with the tag line: "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (nod, nod, wink, wink). It's also the shrug and eye-roll that accompanies many whites' comments about Native Americans, with the apparent idea that they can imply the most outrageously racist things, and it doesn't count because they trail off towards the end. But their buddies all know what they meant, so they're covered either way.
I can almost hear the howls of outrage. ;-) You idiot, they say, he was married to LILY, the ultimate poster child for Muggle-borns. But...
How many friends did James Potter have who were not pureblood? I mean friends, as opposed to hangers-on or sycophants. We know he was married to Lily, obviously. Which means that he made an exception for his own behavior, not uncommon at all for bigots. And yes, he "befriended" Lupin the werewolf in school. But how much did he do after school, when Lupin was not a dorm-mate and, later, a prefect in a position to choose between admiring them or blowing the whistle on Sirius and him? Rowling said in her interviews post-DH that James was independently wealthy, which allowed James and Sirius not to worry about having jobs, so they could "work" for the Order full-time. Note that she does not include Lupin in James' largesse, which according to her extended to James' wife and Sirius, who just happened to be pure-blooded.
These boys were born in 1960, and it was not until 1967 that Loving v. Virginia struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the US. Ahhh, you say, stop trying to apply American standards and baggage to Brits. So let's look at Rowling's model: Anti-miscegenation laws were enforced in Nazi Germany. They were also enforced in South Africa between 1949 and 1985. So....was Snape's existence the result of a violation of the law? How many half-bloods did we see in the Marauder era? And even if it's not illegal, was it considered shameful by a large segment of the Wizarding population? No, it wasn't by Harry's time, but mores change. Is that part of what James meant when he said it was that Severus existed? He added "if you know what I mean", which is the nod-nod, wink-wink of a racist, roughly equivalent to the loaded statements characters in Seinfeld used to make about homosexuals, always followed up with the tag line: "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (nod, nod, wink, wink). It's also the shrug and eye-roll that accompanies many whites' comments about Native Americans, with the apparent idea that they can imply the most outrageously racist things, and it doesn't count because they trail off towards the end. But their buddies all know what they meant, so they're covered either way.
I can almost hear the howls of outrage. ;-) You idiot, they say, he was married to LILY, the ultimate poster child for Muggle-borns. But...
How many friends did James Potter have who were not pureblood? I mean friends, as opposed to hangers-on or sycophants. We know he was married to Lily, obviously. Which means that he made an exception for his own behavior, not uncommon at all for bigots. And yes, he "befriended" Lupin the werewolf in school. But how much did he do after school, when Lupin was not a dorm-mate and, later, a prefect in a position to choose between admiring them or blowing the whistle on Sirius and him? Rowling said in her interviews post-DH that James was independently wealthy, which allowed James and Sirius not to worry about having jobs, so they could "work" for the Order full-time. Note that she does not include Lupin in James' largesse, which according to her extended to James' wife and Sirius, who just happened to be pure-blooded.
Re: You idiot, James was married to Lily!
I so need a few James-and-Lily-bashing fics. I so, *so* need them.
*goes on knees and begs shamelessly*
Re: You idiot, James was married to Lily!
And I started thinking: my own personal experience with an abuser was a friend's boyfriend, and I prided myself on my good judgment in never liking him from the start while he manipulated her so easily with his good looks, charm, and sweet talking. But years later, after all he'd done came out, I realized: he DID manipulate me. Perfectly. While he was manipulating her into falling in love, he was manipulating me into fighting with her over it. We ended up becoming estranged...as, by a strange coincidence, did her family and most of her other friends... so that by the time he started being overtly abusive, she was alone with only him. And he mostly did it by setting up situations in which existing annoyances would escalate, and my friend and I would be encouraged to show our worst sides to each other....
Which makes the SWM scene even more chilling.
Of course, C. was a 35-year-old charmer, James a boy in his teens. But we know another black-haired, handsome, charming Head-Boy-to-Be who was adept at manipulating people when he was 16.
Re: You idiot, James was married to Lily!
I like this idea... There are so many small (but significant) clues about James' creepiness. The bullying is the biggest clue, of course. He's the biggest bully on the playground, he's the leader of the gang. Sirius, who is no slouch when it comes to sheer nastiness, is more thuggish - he doesn't have it in him to plot, to manipulate. Sirius is a follower, who recognises James as his Alpha. This tells you something about James.
We first see James in SWM at his OWLS, doodling pictures of snitches with L.E. in them. This to me is chilling. He sees Lily as something to be caught, to be won.. He is a Seeker and highly competitive. Lily, to him, is something to be snatched away from The Enemy (being Slytherin, since in his Gryffindorish mind, Hufflepuff doesn't count and neither does Ravenclaw)
Would James have wanted Lily if he hadn't remembered her friendship with Severus?
There are two types of abusive boyfriend/husband; the kind that picks a weak partner because they are more easily controlled and the kind that picks a fiery, strong partner, because they are more fun to 'tame'. James strikes me as a classic example of the latter sort. Not that I have personal experience with abusive boyfriends (thank Dog!), but I've read Gavin deBecker's 'Gift of Fear' (a book every woman should read) and I nodded like mad when he talks about the signs dangerous people give, signs that make us instinctively uneasy but which popular culture (such as the Potter books) tells us is 'gallant' or 'charming' or 'he's just being romantic'.
James Potter pushes all my warning-sign buttons, that's for sure!
Much is being made in this community of Snape having to live in House Slytherin and therefore being subjected every day to racist remarks, using them in SWM as a weapon to hurt Lily, and rightly so. It's not surprising that he would use 'mudblood' to hurt Lily, even if he didn't truly believe the ideology behind it.
Strangely enough, nobody has done the opposite. Nobody has asked, 'but what kind of rhetoric was *Lily* subjected to, 24/7, in the Gryffindor Common Room?
Wanna bet that her ears were continuously filled with anti-Slytherin bias, ending up with her having to 'make excuses' for her friendship with such a foul creature as a Slytherin?
Wanna bet that James was at the heart of the campaign, and that behind him was the looming shadow of Dumbledore?
I'm a staunch believer in the 'Dumbledore created Voldemort to secure his position as Leader of the Light' theory. James is exactly the kind of person Manipulative Dumbles needed to be his Champion; good-looking, charming, intelligent, independantly rich and only really interested in his own pleasures (the kind of person who would endanger innocent people by roaming around with a werewolf and thinking it funny) and the ultimate Gryffindor (I don't think that 'courage' is Gryffindor's characteristic, but 'wanting to be acclaimed, wanting fame' and this could result in courageous behaviour, if nurtured by a better person than loathsome Dumbledore). Give him a license to do whatever he wants by giving him a 'for the greater good' card and you've got one hell of a dangerous situation..
PS Sorry I'm a bit late with responding, but RL is rather hectic.. (too hectic to read good fics? Noooo! *Never* to hectic to read good fics! Perish the thought!)