Jumping Ship from the Lily's Pad

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

On Saturday night I was catching up on reading DTCL and came across a post from terri_testing about why so few people claim James and Lily as friends. (posted 8/6/12, in reply to “Lupin’s ‘Resignation’,” by danajsparks) Part of it reads: 

What did happen to those witch friends Lily had in fifth year, the ones who couldn't understand why she even talked to Severus, the ones she sat and chatted with after the DADA OWL? Did their jealousy over the Mudblood scooping the Head Girl position (and the most eligible Pureblood bachelor) separate them? Were they naturally driven apart by diverging life paths caused by Lily's extremely early settling into marriage and motherhood while her friends all pursued careers....? 

Or there's always the solution I proposed in my abusive!James fic "Liberacorpus," that James had taken the precaution of sleeping his way through all of Lily's friends, so as to alienate them from her.... 

This got me to thinking: Maybe Lily’s friends were alienated, not by her good fortune or by James, but by Lily herself. I see two possibilities, both of which reflect badly on her and which are not mutually exclusive:

1) It’s certainly possible Lily’s friends were jealous because she got to be Head Girl and caught Big Wizard on Campus James. But under normal circumstances, friends get over such things. 

At least, they would have unless Lily rubbed their faces in her triumphs. If she bragged about how lucky she was, or how her success was proof of her greatness, particularly since she was a latecomer to the wizarding world, that would alienate anyone who wasn’t a complete doormat.

Of course, there is no proof Lily did that. But this kind of behavior accords with the assertion some people, most notably marionros, have made about Lily’s being a narcissist. Narcissists love to brag about themselves anyway (think Dumbledore in King’s Cross), and a triumphant narcissist would be worse than normal.

Such boasting is also compatible with the behaviors we see from Lily that indicate she had a poor character. For example, she was somewhat contemptuous and superior towards Severus, such as when she ordered him around, dismissed his feelings and concerns, or automatically took other people’s versions of events over his. 

She also exhibited a sadistic streak by using her magic to scare and torment Petunia. This is the moral equivalent of having your friends hold somebody while you punch them, or shoving over someone in a wheelchair, then laughing when they can’t get up.

No wonder she walked off and left her “best friend” to be attacked. She was doing the same thing outside of school herself, and to her own sister, who could not fight back. Which brings me to my next point. 

2) The other possibility for why Lily’s friendships ended may impart to her schoolmates a level of perspicacity they didn’t possess, but it’s an interesting idea anyway.

Lily may have bragged to or joked with her friends about using her magic to torment Petunia. I would never want to be friends with a person who was debased enough to attack her own family for entertainment.  

Regarding Severus, while Lily’s friends were no doubt happy to see her dump the greasy Slytherin, they may not have liked the way she did it. Initially, they just would have been happy he was gone, but over time, they may have become uncomfortable with her actions.

This was a boy Lily had known for six years, since she was nine. Her friends may have known she’d told Severus they were “best friends.” She had refused to break off their friendship for years, despite pressure from her House to dump him.

Then one day, he slipped up and insulted her while under extreme stress. And that was it. She literally turned her back on him and left him while he was helpless, to be assaulted by a ruthless gang of thugs. 

Severus didn’t just apologize for insulting her. He actually groveled to her, begging her forgiveness, risking his safety in the process. (Every time I think about this scene, I hear the Temptations singing, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”) Yet she refused to even accept his apology, let alone have anything to do with him again.

If Lily was a prefect, her behavior was even worse. Regardless of her feelings for the victim, it was her duty to protect someone from being assaulted, especially by a group of attackers. She failed to do the job she’d been chosen for, to live up the obligation she’d accepted. This makes her nothing but a prettier, spunkier version of Remus the Spineless because they both allowed their personal feelings to prevent them from doing their duty.

I can’t help comparing Lily and Remus as prefects with the black American soldiers who served in World War II. These men fought and died for their country, even though they had been the victims of vicious racism at home and knew they would be again once the war was over. They realized many of the people they were fighting for were disgusting bigots who didn’t consider them fully human. They usually weren’t even allowed to serve in the same units as white soldiers. Many of them were only a few years older than Lily and Remus. Yet despite all that, they put their sense of duty ahead of their personal feelings and risked their lives for all Americans, regardless of how loathsome many individuals were. That is why they are now considered groundbreaking heroes. 

Imagine having Lily as a comrade in the Order. You will go into battle with her and trust her with your life. You’ll expect her to have your back, no matter what. 

What if you say or do something wrong while under pressure? How do you know that, when you need her the most, she won’t turn her back on you, too, and leave you at the mercy of your enemies? If she could do that to someone she’d been friends with almost half her life, why wouldn’t she do it to you as well?

Would you trust someone like that in battle?

I wouldn’t. 

  

Comments

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

You raise some excellent points here. Lily's friends might not have liked how she ended her friendship with Severus. I know the characters were teenagers at the time and teenagers can do awful, hurtful things that they regret later once they're adults. Yet only one person in SWM changed for the better. All parties behaved badly here, but only Severus apologised for his behaviour and learnt from it. Severus became an adult who told Phineas Nigellus not to use the word Mudblood and died fighting against Voldemort (and Voldemort persecuted non magic users and people with non magical parents. Please excuse me - I don't like using the word 'muggles', it sounds ridiculous to me).

Lily and Remus did not meet their duties as prefects. Severus' racial slur against Lily was inexcusable, but she should have protected him from being beaten up and humilated by James Potter and his friends.

You're right - the black American soldiers you mentioned fought for their country in WW2, having experienced horrifying racism. They served their duties and risked their lives. They deserve all of our respect and admiration.

I wouldn't want to have 15 year old Lily as a comrade in the Order. Maybe if she'd lived longer she might have matured and regretted her past behaviour. It's hard to say.

Thank you so much for writing this thoughtful and intelligent post. :)

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Severus' racial slur against Lily was inexcusable, but she should have protected him from being beaten up and humilated by James Potter and his friends.
Hm, I think there are two aspects in all of this:
First, as you say, Severus' slur was inexcusable and, IMO, cannot be explained by him being under a lot of pressure. Pressure and humiliation tends to bring your defences down, meaning you cannot controll yourself from saying things you normally wouldn't say. It doesn't MAKE you say things you don't think. So - in Lily's stead, I think I would have ended our friendship as well - not because I couldn't believe in Severus saying he was sorry for it (I'm sure Lily did - there is no indication she was daft, after all), but because of the reason behind him using this slur. Just as I wouldn't want to be friends with a man who believed women in general to be some sort of pet or piece of meat to use - no matter if he treated ME differently.
Now you say, she should have helped him all the same, because it was her duty no matter what and agree in principle. If he had been just some random student, being harrassed by James. But up to that moment, Severus had been her friend and - as weird as it may seem - I think she might have owed him to respect his wish for her not to interfere on his behalf. He clearly is very much humiliated and obviously to him, it's even more humiliating to be "the damsel in distress" needing protection from the original damsel, so to speak. Of course, this idea is misogynist in itself, but I think it might have been a sign of mutual respect to leave him alone instead of patronizingly protecting him against his express wish.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Pressure and humiliation tends to bring your defences down, meaning you cannot controll yourself from saying things you normally wouldn't say. It doesn't MAKE you say things you don't think.

So? Consider the other swear word in HP-canon, the word 'bitch'. For a long time it was often used to specify a woman who didn't 'know her place' - whether by standing up for herself or rejecting a man who believed himself entitled to her attention or any other way. The word criticizes a woman for not being 'womanly enough'. But it became an all-around insult for a woman for whatever reason, whether said reason would also apply to a man or not. So people may intend it either as 'insufficiently submissive woman' or as 'evil person who is female' (even if they don't believe all women are inferior to men). In other 'net places I hang out at the more vocal posters are raising awareness for such behavior and are advocating the idea that gendered insults are uncool, regardless of the reason the word was chosen, because even if the speaker did not intend the word in a sexist way, its use promotes a culture of sexism. They tell people that if they want to insult someone call them an asshole because everyone has one. Or use random words as equal-opportunity insults (the most common one is 'cupcake' and believe me, it is pretty obvious when the word is being used to insult). Debate continues as to which other insults to add to the list of words to be discouraged. (Is 'douche' sexist? Homophobic?)

Back to Severus. He heard the word 'mudblood' a lot. I bet his mother referred to Lily as such. So when Lily behaved badly to him he called her the way others did when they disparaged her (and people like her) - and you can't know if it meant 'Muggle-borns shouldn't behave like that, but I would accept such behavior from someone who wasn't' or 'she is behaving unacceptably *and* Muggle-born, so I'll call her an insulting word for a Muggle-born'.

But up to that moment, Severus had been her friend and - as weird as it may seem - I think she might have owed him to respect his wish for her not to interfere on his behalf.

That moment was already too late. Lily should have done more, whether as a prefect or a friend before things got bad enough that he lashed out at her. No, I don't expect her to be a mind-reader, I'm saying her supposed 'defense' of Severus was not. She was standing there arguing with James instead of disarming him and undoing his hexes. If she was going to use Severus' humiliation to mentally bat her eyelashes at James then yes, he had no need for her 'help'.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

That moment was already too late. Lily should have done more, whether as a prefect or a friend before things got bad enough that he lashed out at her. No, I don't expect her to be a mind-reader, I'm saying her supposed 'defense' of Severus was not. She was standing there arguing with James instead of disarming him and undoing his hexes. If she was going to use Severus' humiliation to mentally bat her eyelashes at James then yes, he had no need for her 'help'.

Good point, even JKR says she's flirting with James! She even has a quick smile as she walks up to them.

[sunnyskywalker]

That's one of the sticking points for me with Lily's character. I agree with aasaylva that Sev's use of the slur could be a reasonable reason to end the friendship - even if she does believe he's sorry, and used it as a word that can be used as an insult against people like her (rather than meaning that he thought it described people like her accurately) to take Oryx's distinction - that combined with the fact that his friends are supposedly known to be anti-Muggleborn generally would make it harder to trust him as a friend. Depending on the exact circumstances (just how bad have Sev's friends been? would he be in danger if he stood up to them?), maybe they could work it out, maybe not, but I wouldn't particularly hold it against her, even if she didn't handle it especially well, because that is something I'll cut immature, emotional teenagers a break for.

But. She sees her friend - even if they're on the rocks, he's still been her best friend for years - being tormented, and her response is not to give James a warning and then try to disarm him and/or call for backup if she needs it, but to stand there and flirt-fight with him? At best, it looks like she doesn't value Sev's well-being that highly. And after watching James attack Sev and others unprovoked - starting him being a snob and jackass on the train - for years, she finds James at all attractive? Most people I know would have an instinctively aversive reaction toward someone like that, even if they believed he had done one single good thing once. I think this would be a valid reason for Sev to want to stop being friends with Lily.

So given that, it seems a lot more like Lily isn't especially bothered by bullying and cruelty as such, unless it's directed at her or someone she values that day. Or is committed by someone she doesn't like. Or it looks like she supports arbitrary bullying of people who don't "deserve" it, because I don't think that fits with her image of herself as one of the good people who doesn't do that sort of thing. And that puts her dumping Sev and hooking up with James a year later in a worse light.

I doubt that her friends would be particularly bothered if she did talk about turning Petunia's teacup into a rat etc., because that doesn't seem like something most witches and wizards would see as anything but a hilarious prank. And they probably thought Sev deserved whatever he got. But if she had a habit of abandoning friends who had offended her to unpleasant situations, or just dropping them, they might clue in that it wasn't just about leaving one slimy Slytherin to a richly-deserved fate, but something about Lily's character which made being friends with her more difficult. Especially if it were out of proportion to the offenses. That might have led to a cooling of friendships, during or after their school years.

It's also entirely possible that while James wasn't still hexing everyone into oblivion, he was still an ass, and Lily wouldn't listen if her friends complained about this and came up with all sorts of reasons why they were wrong or oversensitive or started it. That would get old, fast.

Another possibility is that Lily and James were a really annoying couple, one of the kind who suddenly never, ever have time for you after they get together. It would be easy enough for her friends go go, "Fine, you're too busy to hang out now that you're with Jamesie-pooh? We'll just have girls' night without you, then."

[oryx_leucoryx]

But if she had a habit of abandoning friends who had offended her to unpleasant situations, or just dropping them, they might clue in that it wasn't just about leaving one slimy Slytherin to a richly-deserved fate, but something about Lily's character which made being friends with her more difficult.

Continuing this line of thought, it may have been Lily who abandoned her friends one by one. Or perhaps after she became James' girlfriend there were situations where James' 3 friends complained about Lily's 2-3 friends and at some moment of conflicting loyalties she chose James' friends.

[sionna-raven.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps after she became James' girlfriend there were situations where James' 3 friends complained about Lily's 2-3 friends and at some moment of conflicting loyalties she chose James' friends.

They don't need to complain or be openly unfriendly. It's an awkward situation to bring another girl into this 'exclusive' boys club. They are contend with each others company. Lily is accepted as James' girlfriend.
It gets worse, if any of her friends was interested in Lupin or Sirius and hoped Lily could 'help'. Lupin would be utterly embarrassed and I don't even want to imagine how Sirius would react to the slightest hint of attempted match-making.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

Then there's the fact that Lily apparently had no one to stand up with her at her wedding, and Harry has no godmother. What's up with that? It sounds to me like James managed to separate her from her girl friends, perhaps actually alienated them in some manner.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/She was standing there arguing with James instead of disarming him and undoing his hexes./

And that’s why the revelation of Lily and Severus being best friends in DH was such a surprise. Not only did Lily not act as if she knew Snape personally, she didn’t even behave as if he was there at all! Her whole focus during the scene was on James. It was as if she’d caught James bullying Severus, Severus had run away, and then Lily had confronted James, instead of Lily confronting James and having a long argument with him while Snape was *still there.* Instead of both Lily and James treating Snape like he was a background prop, not worthy of their attention.

Again, if Draco had done the same thing to Harry and Hermione had rushed to the scene, how many people believe that she would have ignored Harry’s predicament in favor of arguing with Draco, then telling Draco to put Harry down instead of doing it herself, and then continuing to ignore Harry in favor of arguing with Draco?

/If she was going to use Severus' humiliation to mentally bat her eyelashes at James then yes, he had no need for her 'help'./

Or for her “friendship.”

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Good post!

But actually, it's worse than just Lily.

Where are ANY of the female characters' women friends? Who are Molly's kids' godmothers, or Petunia's maid of honor, or Ginny's girlfriend, or Tonks's bff? Who's Cissy's or Bella's or Minerva's confidante? Hermione's? Dolores's? Luna's? Alecto's?

Jo has female characters, but they all orbit around men: Tom, Albus, Cornelius, Harry, James.... If several orbit around the same man, they're considered friends. Or at least allies, where they are not rivals.

Luna's golden ropes illustrated that pathetically--if she bound herself in loyalty to Harry, those others bound closest to Harry might let her in, like they let her come along on the Ministry raid.

The only canon females I can think of who are friends with each other are the Human Hosepipe, Cho, vilified by Harry for her loyalty to Marietta, and those worthless girly-girls Lav-Lav and Parvati.

And, of course, briefly, Lily and Mary McDonald and those other girls at the lake, before Lily wised up and cast her lot in with the (male) Marauders. And was seen no more among the girls. No godmother, no maid of honor, no female visitors except James's elderly neighbor instructing James's ignorant bride on ancient history and Pureblood etiquette.....

There was a misogynist myth current in my youth (Jo's youth), that women were incapable of true loyalty to one another. We could form temporary alliances, but our lives were defined by our relationships to MEN, and we'd always sacrifice other women. Fighting like cats over A MAN, or in defense of OUR MAN'S interests, or of OUR MANCHILD.

Very weird to see a world in which that's all TRUE, that any woman, however bright or powerful or "spunky," can best be defined by her loyalty to a man. Just as racist ideas are ACCURATE in the Potterverse: there exists a biological superiority which justifies the possessors' mistreatment of their inferiors.

Actually, this is a phenomenon I first observed when I was 13, reading Ayn Rand: that she was writing S/F UNINTENTIONALLY. I don't mean ignorant of genre conventions, fulfilling/transgressing them without understanding--I mean that, reading Ayn Rand, her characters sometimes acted so differently to how the people I saw daily acted, I could only account for it by assuming AR was wrtiting in some AU of her own creation where human nature was different than it is in RL.

And so is Jo.

In RL, women have friends. At least, in my experience we do.

Okay, we can cut Hermione some slack: if Forugh Farrokzhad could write "I'm as much alone as a schoolgirl crazy about geometry" and expect that image to resonate, we can accept that an overly-intellectual schoolgirl at Hogwarts (surely more benighted than mid-20th-century Tehran) might feel isolated. And after all, Hogwarts is a MUCH smaller school than any I ever attended. Maybe there actually weren't any kindred spirits among ANY of the girls. Or rather, given the structure of Hogwarts, among any of the Gryffindor girls. You whittle a group down to 3-4, and yes, you might achieve isolation.

But the other characters? No excuse. There should have been some scene, somewhere, of Harry barging in on a tea-party at the Burrow of alarming veterans of the Maternal Wars, or of Minerva conferring with Pomona or conspiring with Amelia, or of Tonks telling Ginny and Hermione about Girls' Night Out with the younger members of the DMLE....

Where are Petunia's loathsome cronies, her spiritual sisters, those narrow-minded, cold-hearted, irredeemably shallow bitches who put irrelevant markers of status and respectability before considerations of decency, kindness, and indeed self-preservation? (I'm imagining, here, the Landscaping Covenants Committee of Little Whinging's Garden Estates Properties. Chastising the Death Eaters for defacing property.)

I want them!

Nah. What's going on instead was, Jo was writing some weird AU universe in which true commonality between women simply doesn't occur. That sixties fantasy lampooned (among other places) in Russ's The Female Man.

But... here's the true question, finally--why on earth did Jo want to? Of all the weird, unaccountable, bizarre twists to bend the Potterverse Diagonally away from the real one, why pick THAT?

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

The simplest explanation is that she truly believes that's how the world is. If she doesn't have any true female friends, only strategic 'alliances' like she learned growing up, why should she believe other women when they say their relationships are different? The same goes for the racist sentiments.

Although, there is a more disturbing options if we assume that she subconsciously wishes these things were true, even though she consciously denies them in interviews and the like. The world certainly would be much simpler and less stressful if you could tell at a glance who was good or bad or stupid or cruel....

[sunnyskywalker]

You whittle a group down to 3-4, and yes, you might achieve isolation.

Okay, I have to chime in as someone who actually attended a small high school. My graduating class was the largest to date at 39 kids - ie, almost exactly the same size as Harry's class - and the class before mine had 22.

You know what happens when there are 40 kids in your year? You make friends in other years, that's what. At minimum, with the kids one class ahead and one class behind. Especially since given the way school cutoff dates work, the kids one year ahead or behind you might actually have been born just a few months (or one month) apart from you. There really isn't that much of a gap. Hell, I was two years younger than most of the students in my year, and they didn't even know unless I told them. Also, wasn't exactly uncommon for, say, seniors and sophomores to hang out sometimes either. Occasionally even seniors and freshmen, though that was less common. My school also would almost certainly have had inter-house friendships, had we had houses, given that we never had rigidly defined groups of, say, jocks, nerds, and theater kids - plenty of students legitimately fell into all categories simultaneously (plus were on the newspaper and student council), and even those who didn't were still friends with people in the other groups.

So to me, "there's only like four Gryffindor girls in her year!" is an unbelievable reasons for someone not to have friends. Especially since Hermione is one of the oldest in her year and so ought to be closer in maturity to the second years when she starts. She could easily have been friends with Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff girls in her year, or girls from those houses one to two years ahead of her, in a realistic small school - if there weren't other factors involved. That would have been a good place for JKR to introduce the idea that Hermione really was excluded from some things for being Muggleborn, for instance. Or that her personality really is that off-putting.

I was also one of the most introverted and unobservant people around, and I still knew who all the kids in the other years were, and I didn't even live with them! I find it utterly baffling that Harry has no clue who most kids one year off from him are when they live in the same dorm and share a common room. How has he never noticed Cormac McClaggen for six years?

Maybe this is unusual, and there are small schools out there with rigid social barriers between students of different years and interest groups. I just find it hard to fathom.

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh, and yes, it is bizarre that none of those characters are ever so much as mentioned having girlfriends in an aside. That Landscaping Covenants Committee of Little Whinging's Garden Estates Properties, or something like it, seems so likely that it's utterly bizarre it doesn't exist. And it would fit right in! "Harry had to do more chores than ever that day, because Aunt Petunia was going to her equally horse-faced friend Mathilda's house for tea, and she would not be able to scrub the kitchen herself..." Or perhaps Petunia is so warped by her fear of accidentally revealing Harry's freakishness that she has deliberately isolated herself? But that still wouldn't explain why Molly never mentions friends, or Harry never comes across McGonagall discussing Quidditch scores with Sinistra.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I agree with annoni_no, Jo's HP universe is the universe Jo herself -- or at least her psyche -- inhabits in RL.

No close female friends, no close biological sisters, except for the 2-dimensional almost cartoonish Parvatis and the dysfunctional Blacks.

But in Jo's HP universe we are not only faced with the question regarding the absence of close friendships amongst contemporaries of the "Marauder Era", but also the question of why, by Harry's era, there is a decidedly strange lack of any large extended families spanning generations. For a population where living to over 100 years of age is not unusual, why are there no grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts and uncles, etc.?

What happened to Harry's grandparents, both Evans and Potters? Ditto Molly and Arthur Weasley's parents. The only grandmother we see mentioned is Neville's, leaving open the question of what happened to his other 3 grandparents.

So what we end up with is a singularly disjointed society that Jo presents to us, one that seems to have had it's moorings cut from it's immediate past.


This is the moral equivalent of having your friends hold somebody while you punch them, or shoving over someone in a wheelchair, then laughing when they can’t get up.

Bizarrely, the above statement exactly applies to the current Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States! :-P

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Please excuse me - I don't like using the word 'muggles', it sounds ridiculous to me.

I never use it, either. I think it's both ridiculous and racist.

Lily and Remus did not meet their duties as prefects. Severus' racial slur against Lily was inexcusable, but she should have protected him from being beaten up and humilated by James Potter and his friends.

I don't blame Lily for ending their friendship for whatever reason. Nobody is required to be anyone's friend, and it's common for childhood pals to drift apart as they grow up.

What I've always objected to is the way she did it. What we see of their relationship clearly indicates it was deteriorating before "the mudblood incident." But Lily wasn't straight with Severus and didn't just tell him she didn't want to be friends any more. Instead, she waited for him to screw up so she'd have an excuse to break it off and blame it on him, knowing that his social awkwardness and the pressure he was under would cause him to do something wrong sooner or later. Then she laid a (life-long) guilt trip on him on top of that, acting like it was all his fault, and the insult was the only reason she was ending it.

That's not brave Gryffindor behavior. Severus was right. She should have been in Slytherin.

Thank you so much for writing this thoughtful and intelligent post. :)

You're welcome. I'm glad you appreciated it.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

So? Consider the other swear word in HP-canon, the word 'bitch'. For a long time it was often used to specify a woman who didn't 'know her place' - whether by standing up for herself or rejecting a man who believed himself entitled to her attention or any other way. The word criticizes a woman for not being 'womanly enough'. But it became an all-around insult for a woman for whatever reason, whether said reason would also apply to a man or not.

What makes me really angry is when people use female-related terms to insult men, such as "bitch," "cunt," and "pussy," or when they denote someone in a subordinate position by calling them "so-and-so's bitch." Those are just modern ways of calling a man "womanish," meaning that he's automatically weaker if he's like a woman than a "real man" should be. Considering all the crap women have had to put up with over the centuries, if anything, women as a group are stronger than men, not weaker.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Good point, even JKR says she's flirting with James! She even has a quick smile as she walks up to them.

Yes, it always annoys me when younger readers say they don't think Lily was flirting with James. To all the under-45 readers of HP:

It doesn't matter what you think. You are not Baby Boomers. To someone of our generation, there is no doubt Lily and James are flirting.

People's actions always have to be evaluated in historical context. In the 1970s, girls were not allowed to openly show their interest in boys, especially "bad boys" like James. For people young enough to grow up in a time when women had the freedom to express their sexual interests openly, congratulations. You're lucky not to have the necessary background to recognize this behavior. That does not mean older readers are wrong when we say flirting is occurring--particularly since the author herself has confirmed our belief.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

She sees her friend - even if they're on the rocks, he's still been her best friend for years - being tormented, and her response is not to give James a warning and then try to disarm him and/or call for backup if she needs it, but to stand there and flirt-fight with him?

If she had cared about Severus, or even about doing her duty, she would have: (1) ordered James and Sirius to leave Severus alone. (2) If they didn't comply, Stupefy or Body-bind them and take their wands. (3) undone their spells and checked to see if Severus was all right. (4) Levitated James and Sirius into the castle, either alone or with help, so they could be punished.

So given that, it seems a lot more like Lily isn't especially bothered by bullying and cruelty as such, unless it's directed at her or someone she values that day. Or is committed by someone she doesn't like. Or it looks like she supports arbitrary bullying of people who don't "deserve" it, because I don't think that fits with her image of herself as one of the good people who doesn't do that sort of thing.

Gasp! You're not suggesting she's fickle or shallow, are you? ;-)

I doubt that her friends would be particularly bothered if she did talk about turning Petunia's teacup into a rat etc., because that doesn't seem like something most witches and wizards would see as anything but a hilarious prank.

If you're talking about most magical on non-magical violence, I would agree with you. The reason I specified family is because many people consider it worse to abuse your family than people not related to you. So they might think it's not OK to torment your own sister, but it is OK to do the same to some random stranger.

Another possibility is that Lily and James were a really annoying couple

Oh, I can easily see that. Heck, they're annoying all by themselves; put them together and the irritation factor goes up exponentially.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

/If she was going to use Severus' humiliation to mentally bat her eyelashes at James then yes, he had no need for her 'help'./

Or for her “friendship.”

What's really sad about this is that he was so lacking in self-respect he didn't realize that. Not then, and not ever.

Not consciously, anyway. I wonder, though, if maybe subconsciously he had a lot of hostility towards her for the way she'd treated him. Maybe Harry's having Lily's eyes was negative as well as positive, whether or not Snape realized it.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Is he the one doing the bullying or being bullied?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I have thought the same thing for a while now. But after Halloween it would be near impossible for him to acknowledge any anger towards her to himself - because of the guilt over her death, but also because he would need IMHO to believe in her as an ideal figure to whom he could devote himself in penance, as a way of subconsciously motivating himself to see his task through. Acknowledging that she was not perfect and had treated him badly, acknowledging anger at her, would threaten to make everything too complicated emotionally for him to deal with at a point when he didn't have the space or support to actually work things through for himself, and when he would feel the need for a simple/simplistic world in which he has a defined task and a defined role as repentant sinner. (I guess the whole Lily issue plays heavily into why I read him as essentially a Catholic figure, but that's a bit of a tangent).

But yes, I do see unacknowledged mixed feelings about her playing into his relationship with Harry - who for all the times he behaves like James also echoes Lily often as well. Take for example the scene in the Hall in PS/SS when Harry's scar hurts. I'd say that seeing a look of pain/anger (the two can look similar) directed at him by Lily's eyes in James' face would immediately trigger a whole host of negative feelings in Severus, not all of which he would feel able to acknowledge or process. Not a great first impression of Harry for him, no matter how mistaken the mix-up originally was. (BTW, is there ever a hint that Severus ever learned that Harry was reacting to his scar there, not so much any preconceived ideas about Severus himself?)

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

He'd think James a paragon of virtuous manliness. By which I mean to say he was the bully, of course. He and his friends at the time thought it hilarious to, for example, physically restrain and forcibly cut the hair of a (I think gay?) kid he didn't like. And he still can't bring himself to apologize and acknowledge it as wrong. He also thought it funny to trick teachers(!) into walking into glass doors.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

You're right. I'd heard about that hair-cutting incident and immediately thought of the similarity to James et al. As rotten as Sirius is, at least he admitted he'd bullied, even if he showed no remorse. Romney insists he "doesn't remember it." Right. I hadn't heard about his tricking teachers, though, and I watch a lot of MSNBC, which trashes him and Ryan regularly. Effing spoiled rich brat. Why wasn't he expelled and prosecuted for going after teachers?

That wife of his is seriously creepy, too. She has a real pre-Revolution French aristocrat feel to her.

OMG! THEY'RE THE REAL LIFE MIDDLE-AGED JAMES AND LILY! I JUST REALIZED IT!

Can't you just see them taking a £50,000 income tax credit for a special dancing broom? :D What a fanfic that would make!

Romney is also a more personable, better-looking version of Neil Gibson in the Sherlock Holmes story, "The Problem of Thor Bridge." Their business "ethics" are identical.

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

I don't blame Lily for ending her friendship either. People drift apart. And you're right - Lily should have been honest with Severus about why she wanted to end their friendship. It's not like she avoided talking to him because she was afraid he might hurt her. To me it seemed like Lily had all the power in the relationship, as Severus flinched when she said,"Let me?" after Severus had said,"I won't let you-" (before SWM). He camped outside her dormitory to ask for her forgiveness, and she acts like she's never treated him badly. Severus deserved so much better than that.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard about his tricking teachers, though, and I watch a lot of MSNBC, which trashes him and Ryan regularly.

It's been reported both on MSNBC and Current TV, also a couple of internet news sites.

The thing with the teacher walking into the door is even worse, because the teacher was BLIND! The ex-schoolmates who ratted Romney out regarding this and the hair-cutting incident not only all remember the incidents vividly, they ALL express some level of remorse over doing those things back then.

But Romney is all "don't remember it, but if I did it I guess I'm sorry..."

Then there's his attitude about strapping his dog on the top of the family car and driving at highway speeds...

That wife of his is seriously creepy, too. She has a real pre-Revolution French aristocrat feel to her.

Or Narcissa Malfoy. Dressage horses instead of white peacocks...