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I accidentally answered this partly on Livejournal before I realized where I was - sorry!!!
Here's my post in two parts:
I think you may be right that JKR intended to draw a Pride and Prejudice parallel, but had "classics fail." ;) James was no Darcy, even if Lily later thought she had misjudged him.
Yes, Darcy saved Wickham to save Eliza's family name, and that was a bit self-serving of him. But it was also the right thing to do for a man of his means and his own family connection to Wickham. At least Wickham got a wife and family and career out of the deal. However, when James saved Snape's life, he then used that fact to persuade Lily to date him and shut Snape out of her life.
That's sort of like being "half a Darcy" - pay Wickham's debts, but marry Lydia yourself.
Maybe instead of Eliza, we ought to look more at Lydia, since Lily got engaged apparently at seventeen and had a hurried wartime marriage. ;) Lily/Lydia sounds quite similar to me. (I'm joking a little, but it does!)
To me, James is Wickham, because he's not what he seems, and he does things behind Lily's back. And he takes advantage of Snape's silence about Lupin - which Lily is too dimwitted to understand. Therefore Snape becomes Darcy, sworn to silence about Wickham's escapades, which leads to the Bennett's trusting them. In HP, Lily is the one who ends up trusting James and the Marauders, which leads eventually to her own death.
Lily thinks quite highly of her Gryffindor husband and his friends (like Lydia waxing poetic about Wickham's uniform and his horse-riding skills). Lily's blindness to her faults and those of James is much more , and not so much like the more intelligent Eliza Bennett.
More in another post!
Here's my post in two parts:
I think you may be right that JKR intended to draw a Pride and Prejudice parallel, but had "classics fail." ;) James was no Darcy, even if Lily later thought she had misjudged him.
Yes, Darcy saved Wickham to save Eliza's family name, and that was a bit self-serving of him. But it was also the right thing to do for a man of his means and his own family connection to Wickham. At least Wickham got a wife and family and career out of the deal. However, when James saved Snape's life, he then used that fact to persuade Lily to date him and shut Snape out of her life.
That's sort of like being "half a Darcy" - pay Wickham's debts, but marry Lydia yourself.
Maybe instead of Eliza, we ought to look more at Lydia, since Lily got engaged apparently at seventeen and had a hurried wartime marriage. ;) Lily/Lydia sounds quite similar to me. (I'm joking a little, but it does!)
To me, James is Wickham, because he's not what he seems, and he does things behind Lily's back. And he takes advantage of Snape's silence about Lupin - which Lily is too dimwitted to understand. Therefore Snape becomes Darcy, sworn to silence about Wickham's escapades, which leads to the Bennett's trusting them. In HP, Lily is the one who ends up trusting James and the Marauders, which leads eventually to her own death.
Lily thinks quite highly of her Gryffindor husband and his friends (like Lydia waxing poetic about Wickham's uniform and his horse-riding skills). Lily's blindness to her faults and those of James is much more , and not so much like the more intelligent Eliza Bennett.
More in another post!