Snapedom

Ah, I now know where at least the "heroes" reference comes from. Actually, JKR didn't call the Marauders "the" heroes "of" their generation, and if she had done so, the "the" would imply almost a Capital "T" - "The Heroes of Their Generation" sort of feel, which is what I assumed from various poster's comments. Instead, she said they were "four heroes as it were in the previous generation" which *does* say that she sees them as heroes, but she qualifies this saying that the aspect she was searching for was people of that generation who died specifically for Harry.

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.