Snapedom

RE James: yes, he seems to have been a devoted father and husband from what little we see. That however has nothing to do with whether he reformed regarding the questionable behavior we do see from him, which is oriented mainly towards other characters, not those in his family. A person can be a wonderful loving family man and a sadistic camp guard (for example, not saying James is that) at the same time: they are different contexts, with different people, and the person's behavior in one situation does not relate in a redemptive/nonredemptive way or predict hir behavior in the other. The family love can be quite genuine when the sadism towards the prisoners is also real, and the one does not excuse or cancel out the other. Take Lucius for instance. Although he definitely has questionable attitudes and does bad things, he seems to clearly love Draco and want the best for him. Teaching him those questionable attitudes, from our perspective, may look like bad parenting, but from his understanding of the world he's trying to help Draco be successful. He's wrong in his attitude, not uncaring as a parent. But his love for Draco has no relation to whether or not he is redeemed regarding the question of having joined Voldie.

James is not mainly talked about as 'reformed' or not regarding moving from being a bad parent to a good one; the question of whether he's reformed has to do with how he treats specific people he does not like and certain problematic attitudes that he has. Snape is the central example here, and we never see anything to indicate that his behavior or attitude towards Snape changed. His regard for Lily and Harry has nothing to do with it. So yes, he's decent *within that situation,* I agree. But that does not weigh as evidence that he changed at all regarding the flaws we see him display with Snape.

Regarding his 'cabin fever:' yes, it's natural to feel that way. But what differentiates the mature from the immature is the attitude one takes towards it and how one handles the situation. A mature person, understanding the risk, would say to themselves 'This is really getting to me, but given the consequences I had better just deal with it the best I can, it won't last forever. My wife and son are in danger, not just me; I can't do anything that might jeopardize them even if I hate it here.' And would just deal with it. Not complain about it and sulk, not keep saying they wish they could sneak out and be reckless again. If they discussed how they felt with their family, it would be more along the lines of 'you know, I really hate being cooped up like this, but I understand why we've got to do it. It won't be forever. I'll do the best I can to handle it.' Given that we never see such an attitude expressed by James regarding everything else, there's not much evidence that he felt that way about hiding, and Lily's letter certainly would still fit with a reading of James as having a rather immature attitude about it all.

And yes, he's young. I know. It's understandable, but that doesn't mean he's free from criticism over it, especially since he felt old and mature enough to be able to sign up for a life-and-death struggle in which he is not the only one at risk. Taking on that sort of role brings with it expectations and responsibilities, a need to grow up because your life isn't the only one potentially on the line. If he's going to play soldier, it's only fair to expect him to make an effort to fulfill the part responsibly, which includes learning to give up immature attitudes. And IMO I don't think we ever see that from him, understandable though his situation might be. I don't think there's evidence that that notion even ever really *registered* with him. One can speculate that it did, but that is not present in the text.