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deathtocapslockI've been trying to piece together the Marauders' group dynamic from what little we see, and found something that didn't quite square with how the characters themselves describe things. I know, shocker. But it's a discrepancy which might mean something.
Everyone describes James and Sirius as a "double act," and Harry compares them to Fred and George.
But is that an accurate analysis?
We see them on the Hogwarts Express as new BFF. James expresses disdain for Slytherin. Sirius seems surprised or mildly offended, since all his family have been in Slytherin--i.e., until this moment, however he might have felt about his family, he apparently didn't know anyone would have a problem with their House. But all James has to do is suggest that maybe his Slytherin affiliation means Sirius isn't "all right" after all, and Sirius immediately decides he might "try" for Gryffindor, his new friend's preference. So the beginning of their relationship is Sirius being insecure and James using peer pressure to influence him. Hm.
We don't see them again until Snape's Worst Memory. What happens there?
Would Sirius say that James suggested they attack Snape, and he went along with it? Would observers? No, they would all probably say it was one of those "double act" decisions, wouldn't they? Sirius is rebellious and independent, not James's trained dog. Right? Certainly he would be offended at the idea. And it's true that James didn't explicitly order or even pressure Sirius to join him in the attack.
And of course, James as good as tells Lily that this attack on her friend is a ploy to get her attention and convince her to date him. In the moment, it triggers the final breach between Lily and Sev, the one person who can be relied upon to tell her that James is dangerous. Which, once done, clears the way for James to publicly "reform" until she decides she does want to date him. Mission accomplished, with a little help from his friends.
The only other time we see James and Sirius during their schooldays (or at least, probably during their schooldays) is that prequel snippet. (Archived transcript here.) This scene is closest to showing them as a "double act," playing off one another. They're both smirking when the officers finally corner them. They draw their wands to flip the police car with no prior discussion and "identical fluid movements." Though even here, I note that James gets the first line of the two, and it confirms that they'll be speaking to these officers mockingly and condescendingly. He gets the last line, too.
So much for their on-screen appearances together. What do we hear about them? Well, Remus makes the surprising claim that he "led" his friends, at least some of the time, in the Animagus escapades which resulted in "many" nearly-fatal incidents. Did he really? Join in the four-on-one hexing, yes, insult their hated enemy's nose and hair, yes, happily roam the woods while transformed, yes. But make a firm decision and lead his friends openly? Does that sound like Remus? Usually we see him improvising within broad guidelines set by someone else (Dumbledore, Tonks, etc.). Except when he decides to leave Tonks to go Voldie-hunting with the kids, but he's easily talked out of that decision. By Harry. Remind me, who does everyone keep saying Harry looks like?
And about those escapades. If it were just a matter of using their animal forms to calm Remus during his transformations, it probably would have sufficed to stay inside the Shack. Sirius and Remus, being fellow canines, would have had enough room to play. Not as much as in the Forest--it would have been cramped--but enough. Peter as a rat was limited in how much he could participate indoors or out. I imagine him clinging to Sirius's fur as he ran through the forest, shouting something like, "Hi ho Padfoot!" in Rat. Which admittedly would not work as well tussling indoors. But he still might be able to participate a bit; rats are good jumpers. Which leaves the giant stag, who wouldn't be able to do anything indoors but kneel down and wait the night out. Maybe he could snort at the canines and shove them away when they knocked into him. Not much fun. But his presence might still do something to calm Remus, so as a good friend, he ought to be able to make that sacrifice once a month. And he could run around in stag form any night he wanted, so it's even less of a hardship to spend one night more sedately. (You have to wonder what Remus did when it wasn't full moon and the others wanted to transform and go exploring. Jog behind them under the Invisibility cloak, Peter in his pocket? Ride James while under the cloak? Stay in bed because he's exhausted from the last transformation?)
Remus and Sirius could have managed fine in the Shack, and Peter been not much worse off than outdoors. So... whose benefit were those escapades mostly for, again? Who really first pushed for going outside?
I can't prove it, but it seems likely that Remus "led" his friends in the same way that Sirius "equally" decided to try for Gryffindor and attack Snape. Which is to say, he didn't. James pointed him in the right direction, and then Remus "somehow" got these ideas to suggest to his friends.
In fact, James sounds uncomfortably like X, a serial killer Poirot uncovers who manipulates others into doing the actual killing without even realizing they're being manipulated. Not identical, mind: James isn't a quiet, sympathetic listener, and he does get his hands dirty. But the techniques he uses to get others to join him in wrongdoing are similar. Here's Poirot's description:
Like, for instance, twisting your friends' instincts for loyalty, exploration, and cleverness to bully other students and endanger innocent villagers. Or twisting that same loyalty to get (at least) one friend to set up your romantic rival to be murdered, or at least disgraced and silenced. Maybe Sirius really did plan the Prank on his own--as far as he knew. Maybe James even held Sirius "from violence, refuting with horror suspicions that have not been entertained until he mentions them!" But like X, maybe James was ultimately responsible for that whole affair. He was, after all, the primary beneficiary! He got to look heroic to Lily and the staff, which resulted in him (after a respectable waiting period) getting the girl and making Head Boy, and to continue those midnight romps which Remus enjoyed but probably could have done fine without as long as Sirius kept him company in the Shack. But if you asked, Sirius would be perfectly sincere in his belief that James hadn't been in on the Prank, and Remus equally sincere that he was at least an equal planner in their escapades.
X is good at exploiting weaknesses and sore spots. Here's another description:
Gee, why does that sound familiar?
Like I said, it isn't a perfect parallel. James, unlike X, gets his hands dirty. But then, overt violence seems to be more acceptable at Hogwarts than all those fictional murderer-infested English villages, so he doesn't have to fully refrain from violence. He merely, like Fred and George explain, has to keep to the right side of the line in public.
Where does Peter fit into all of this? Because many have hypothesized that he, too, is good at pointing people in the right (or rather, wrong) direction without them realizing he's doing it. It seems the most likely explanation for how he ended up as Secret-Keeper. Elkins, I think it was, showed how his conversations with Babymort are consistent with his manipulating Voldemort (to the extent anyone can, that is). And he certainly enjoys watching the fireworks, just like secret sadist X:
It's hard to see his sycophancy ("Wow, James!" indeed) as anything but his using the facade of a follower to influence his supposed leader. Now, I think based on the train memory, James was probably heading down this road himself. But having Peter around encouraging him even more can't have helped. And how lucky for Peter that he could let James do all the heavy lifting most of the time and just enjoy the fun!
And then, of course, there's that twinkly-eyed manipulator in the background. Oneandthetruth posited that he, too, enjoys manipulating people into causing chaos and pain without them realizing he's played a part. By planting ideas which others will mention later so that the victim can't trace them back to X, for instance. Like the way Terri pointed out that what Firenze says about Voldemort and the philosopher's stone doesn't add up with the way the Elixer of Life should work, but does suggest that Firenze was primed with the ideas by Dumbledore and then passed them to Harry without realizing he was being used--so that Harry would be pushed into taking action which, wouldn't you know it, was more dangerous and damaging than if he'd left well enough alone. (Not that Dumbledore explained that.) And what bad luck that the cleverest, most talented students in Dumbledore's care so often spend their school years fighting each other and then join vigilante groups and die young or end up permanently subordinated somehow! As much as I'd like to believe that Dumbledore's motivations aren't as boring and one-note as Voldemort's, he gets the results you'd expect from oneandthetruth's Dumbledore. Consistently. For decades. And that's before you count everything Voldemort did because Dumbledore "couldn't" find a way to stop someone he knew to be a torturer and a murderer before he left school.
It's funny. In Agatha Christie's story, X was the villain. In Rowling's, two possible X-analogues are supposedly heroes.
Everyone describes James and Sirius as a "double act," and Harry compares them to Fred and George.
But is that an accurate analysis?
We see them on the Hogwarts Express as new BFF. James expresses disdain for Slytherin. Sirius seems surprised or mildly offended, since all his family have been in Slytherin--i.e., until this moment, however he might have felt about his family, he apparently didn't know anyone would have a problem with their House. But all James has to do is suggest that maybe his Slytherin affiliation means Sirius isn't "all right" after all, and Sirius immediately decides he might "try" for Gryffindor, his new friend's preference. So the beginning of their relationship is Sirius being insecure and James using peer pressure to influence him. Hm.
We don't see them again until Snape's Worst Memory. What happens there?
"This'll liven you up, Padfoot," said James quietly. "Look who it is..."
Sirius's head turned. He had become quite still, like a dog that has
scented a rabbit.
Would Sirius say that James suggested they attack Snape, and he went along with it? Would observers? No, they would all probably say it was one of those "double act" decisions, wouldn't they? Sirius is rebellious and independent, not James's trained dog. Right? Certainly he would be offended at the idea. And it's true that James didn't explicitly order or even pressure Sirius to join him in the attack.
And of course, James as good as tells Lily that this attack on her friend is a ploy to get her attention and convince her to date him. In the moment, it triggers the final breach between Lily and Sev, the one person who can be relied upon to tell her that James is dangerous. Which, once done, clears the way for James to publicly "reform" until she decides she does want to date him. Mission accomplished, with a little help from his friends.
The only other time we see James and Sirius during their schooldays (or at least, probably during their schooldays) is that prequel snippet. (Archived transcript here.) This scene is closest to showing them as a "double act," playing off one another. They're both smirking when the officers finally corner them. They draw their wands to flip the police car with no prior discussion and "identical fluid movements." Though even here, I note that James gets the first line of the two, and it confirms that they'll be speaking to these officers mockingly and condescendingly. He gets the last line, too.
So much for their on-screen appearances together. What do we hear about them? Well, Remus makes the surprising claim that he "led" his friends, at least some of the time, in the Animagus escapades which resulted in "many" nearly-fatal incidents. Did he really? Join in the four-on-one hexing, yes, insult their hated enemy's nose and hair, yes, happily roam the woods while transformed, yes. But make a firm decision and lead his friends openly? Does that sound like Remus? Usually we see him improvising within broad guidelines set by someone else (Dumbledore, Tonks, etc.). Except when he decides to leave Tonks to go Voldie-hunting with the kids, but he's easily talked out of that decision. By Harry. Remind me, who does everyone keep saying Harry looks like?
And about those escapades. If it were just a matter of using their animal forms to calm Remus during his transformations, it probably would have sufficed to stay inside the Shack. Sirius and Remus, being fellow canines, would have had enough room to play. Not as much as in the Forest--it would have been cramped--but enough. Peter as a rat was limited in how much he could participate indoors or out. I imagine him clinging to Sirius's fur as he ran through the forest, shouting something like, "Hi ho Padfoot!" in Rat. Which admittedly would not work as well tussling indoors. But he still might be able to participate a bit; rats are good jumpers. Which leaves the giant stag, who wouldn't be able to do anything indoors but kneel down and wait the night out. Maybe he could snort at the canines and shove them away when they knocked into him. Not much fun. But his presence might still do something to calm Remus, so as a good friend, he ought to be able to make that sacrifice once a month. And he could run around in stag form any night he wanted, so it's even less of a hardship to spend one night more sedately. (You have to wonder what Remus did when it wasn't full moon and the others wanted to transform and go exploring. Jog behind them under the Invisibility cloak, Peter in his pocket? Ride James while under the cloak? Stay in bed because he's exhausted from the last transformation?)
Remus and Sirius could have managed fine in the Shack, and Peter been not much worse off than outdoors. So... whose benefit were those escapades mostly for, again? Who really first pushed for going outside?
I can't prove it, but it seems likely that Remus "led" his friends in the same way that Sirius "equally" decided to try for Gryffindor and attack Snape. Which is to say, he didn't. James pointed him in the right direction, and then Remus "somehow" got these ideas to suggest to his friends.
In fact, James sounds uncomfortably like X, a serial killer Poirot uncovers who manipulates others into doing the actual killing without even realizing they're being manipulated. Not identical, mind: James isn't a quiet, sympathetic listener, and he does get his hands dirty. But the techniques he uses to get others to join him in wrongdoing are similar. Here's Poirot's description:
"So then, we are all potential murderers. And the art of X was this: not to suggest the desire, but to break down the normal decent resistance. It was an art perfected by long practice. X knew the exact word, the exact phrase, the intonation even to suggest and to bring cumulative pressure on a weak spot! It could be done. It was done without the victim ever suspecting [...] It was something more insidious, more deadly. It was the marshalling of the forces of a human being to widen a breach instead of repairing it. It called on the best in a man and set it in alliance with the worst."
Like, for instance, twisting your friends' instincts for loyalty, exploration, and cleverness to bully other students and endanger innocent villagers. Or twisting that same loyalty to get (at least) one friend to set up your romantic rival to be murdered, or at least disgraced and silenced. Maybe Sirius really did plan the Prank on his own--as far as he knew. Maybe James even held Sirius "from violence, refuting with horror suspicions that have not been entertained until he mentions them!" But like X, maybe James was ultimately responsible for that whole affair. He was, after all, the primary beneficiary! He got to look heroic to Lily and the staff, which resulted in him (after a respectable waiting period) getting the girl and making Head Boy, and to continue those midnight romps which Remus enjoyed but probably could have done fine without as long as Sirius kept him company in the Shack. But if you asked, Sirius would be perfectly sincere in his belief that James hadn't been in on the Prank, and Remus equally sincere that he was at least an equal planner in their escapades.
X is good at exploiting weaknesses and sore spots. Here's another description:
"It is all set, then. The cumulative effect. The breaking point [...] shamed before his fellow men, writhing under the knowledge that they are quite convinced he has not got the guts to do anything but submit meekly to bullying--and then the key words of escape [...] I'll show her [...] And afterwards--afterwards the evil spell was broken. She was [...] the woman he loved in spite of everything."
Gee, why does that sound familiar?
Like I said, it isn't a perfect parallel. James, unlike X, gets his hands dirty. But then, overt violence seems to be more acceptable at Hogwarts than all those fictional murderer-infested English villages, so he doesn't have to fully refrain from violence. He merely, like Fred and George explain, has to keep to the right side of the line in public.
Where does Peter fit into all of this? Because many have hypothesized that he, too, is good at pointing people in the right (or rather, wrong) direction without them realizing he's doing it. It seems the most likely explanation for how he ended up as Secret-Keeper. Elkins, I think it was, showed how his conversations with Babymort are consistent with his manipulating Voldemort (to the extent anyone can, that is). And he certainly enjoys watching the fireworks, just like secret sadist X:
Wormtail was looking from Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face.
It's hard to see his sycophancy ("Wow, James!" indeed) as anything but his using the facade of a follower to influence his supposed leader. Now, I think based on the train memory, James was probably heading down this road himself. But having Peter around encouraging him even more can't have helped. And how lucky for Peter that he could let James do all the heavy lifting most of the time and just enjoy the fun!
And then, of course, there's that twinkly-eyed manipulator in the background. Oneandthetruth posited that he, too, enjoys manipulating people into causing chaos and pain without them realizing he's played a part. By planting ideas which others will mention later so that the victim can't trace them back to X, for instance. Like the way Terri pointed out that what Firenze says about Voldemort and the philosopher's stone doesn't add up with the way the Elixer of Life should work, but does suggest that Firenze was primed with the ideas by Dumbledore and then passed them to Harry without realizing he was being used--so that Harry would be pushed into taking action which, wouldn't you know it, was more dangerous and damaging than if he'd left well enough alone. (Not that Dumbledore explained that.) And what bad luck that the cleverest, most talented students in Dumbledore's care so often spend their school years fighting each other and then join vigilante groups and die young or end up permanently subordinated somehow! As much as I'd like to believe that Dumbledore's motivations aren't as boring and one-note as Voldemort's, he gets the results you'd expect from oneandthetruth's Dumbledore. Consistently. For decades. And that's before you count everything Voldemort did because Dumbledore "couldn't" find a way to stop someone he knew to be a torturer and a murderer before he left school.
"Yes, there is the perfection of the art of murder."
It's funny. In Agatha Christie's story, X was the villain. In Rowling's, two possible X-analogues are supposedly heroes.
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Date: 2019-05-30 07:46 pm (UTC)You think? I got the impression it was after they left school, albeit quite possibly shortly after, such as the summer immediately following. "Late teens" could technically be anything from 16+ I suppose, but to me it said 18-19. James would turn 18 in March of his 7th year IIRC.
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Date: 2019-05-30 09:52 pm (UTC)*I can't remember where I saw an alternate explanation for the shirts, but someone suggested the golden bird is actually a golden snidget, not a phoenix, and this episode is more "football hooligans escaping Ministry traffic cops after a dust-up at a big game" than "Order vs. Death Eaters." Which is intriguing. But again, I guess I can't assume that scenario would be more likely when they're 17 instead of 18 or 19, can I? *sigh again*
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Date: 2019-06-01 01:06 pm (UTC)This does an excellent and canon-compliant job of filling in the gaps of James's apparent reformation (despite obvious canon evidence to the contrary). Well done!
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Date: 2019-06-01 07:35 pm (UTC)I remember the good old days when I could believe James was a decent guy. Okay, maybe he and his friends were reckless, but he shaped up... oh, he was also aggressive and cruel? Okay, but he still realized he was wrong and changed after the Prank... at least mostly, and, um, maybe he'd changed more after leaving school, because these things take time... oh, he didn't feel even a smidgen of remorse after the Prank? Um...
It was a real wrench to take in those successive revelations and re-evaluate everything else we knew about him in light of the new information. I'd really wanted to believe he wasn't that bad and had genuinely realized he'd done wrong and tried to change. Partly because that so rarely happens in the Potterverse. But Rowling decided to undermine everything that could support a reading of James as even a moderately okay guy.
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Date: 2019-06-03 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-03 01:30 pm (UTC)Maybe this really was all due to the same problem with Harry and Snape. The narrative wanted the reader to hate Snape so badly, to see him as so awful and beneath contempt, that it didn't care that it was shooting itself in the foot when it came to the likability of the heroic characters. Harry is supposed to be better than Voldemort because of love, he's supposed to be compassionate and loving and so forth, and yet the narrative just can't resist making him hate Snape with a furious vengeance every five pages. But that's okay, because who cares about Snape? He's a nasty, bullying git. It's only right for our hero to hate him.
And it's the same thing with James. "Oh, it's okay if James was a bully, it was only Snape. Okay, yes, James hexed other people, but he grew out of it, honest! He reformed and that's why Lily married him. He grew up and stopped hexing people...except...well...okay, Snape was a special case, so...yeah, James kept hexing him, but...Snape deserved it! Come on, he's such a creepy, greasy loser! And he grew up to be a Death Eater, so of course he was always rotten! Look, it's no big deal, okay? It's just Snape. It doesn't mean anything because Snape doesn't mean anything."
It's like there's this compulsion to make Snape the whipping boy. It's as if it was impossible for JKR to say, "Yes, James grew up and reformed and stopped hexing people, including Snape. He apologized to Snape, left him alone, and they never spoke to each other again." The entire narrative seems to take it for granted that you will hate Snape and therefore root for anyone who treats him badly without realizing how bad it's making the heroes look.
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Date: 2019-06-04 02:55 am (UTC)It's also pretty sad how Harry thinks his dad must have done something as drastic (and horrible) as using a love potion to make Lily date him, and Remus and Sirius respond that no, actually he just hid things and lied to her, which is fine! And the narrative seems to be pushing us toward agreeing (otherwise an epilogue where Harry names one of his kids James would be horrifying and/or tragic, not a cathartic happy ending as the narrative structure insists). But poor Harry is so desperate to hold on to the idea of his dad as a good guy that he accepts this. Everyone telling him for years how much he looks like his dad and encouraging him to identify with James can't help matters.
OotP is the one book I don't have a copy of at present, so I don't remember exactly how that conversation went. Did they say James hexed only Snape after fifth year, or did they just agree that well, yes, he kept hexing Snape, and we're not saying one way or another about whether he kept hexing a few other favored targets? I seem to remember that Harry never asked, and Sirius and Remus never volunteered, whether it was only James continuing the hexing those years, or whether it was still four-on-one, only now in secret. (Kind of like how they never actually said whether Snape was right about them all being in on the Prank from the beginning, and just let Harry assume they weren't.)
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Date: 2019-06-04 02:01 pm (UTC)Because hurting someone because they had the nerve to fight back instead of meekly lying down and taking it? That's not the motivation of a villain at all, is it?
/And Lupin in the past claimed Snape didn't like James because he was jealous of his Quidditch prowess, so he's willing stretch the truth/
It's not a "stretch of the truth," it's an outright lie. As far as we could tell, Snape wasn't jealous of James about anything. Even in the scenes where Lily is stupidly defending the Marauders, Snape isn't arguing with her because he's worried that she wants to date James and not him; he's mostly frustrated because she doesn't seem to realize how bad they are. He already had plenty of reasons to hate James before Lily's desirability came into play. This is either A) JKR forgetting what she'd written or B) deliberately making Lupin lie and, again, not seeming to realize how awful it made him look.
/actually he just hid things and lied to her, which is fine!/
And bullied her so-called 'best friend' in front of her without any remorse or shame. But, yeah, Draco x Hermione shippers are so silly for wanting the heroine to hook up with the hero's rival, who never went that far with Harry. Stay away from bad boys like Draco, girls, you should instead follow Lily's example and go after upstanding boys like James.
/Did they say James hexed only Snape after fifth year, or did they just agree that well, yes, he kept hexing Snape, and we're not saying one way or another about whether he kept hexing a few other favored targets?/
Yes, after they said that James 'grew out of' hexing people, Harry then asks, "Even Snape?" Then Lupin slowly says, "Well...Snape was a special case."
So, yes, the implication is that the only person that James kept hexing after claiming to reform was Snape.
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Date: 2019-06-05 01:31 am (UTC)Hm. So they strongly imply it was just Snape, but don't outright say so--and before Harry presses them on that point, they were perfectly willing to imply that James hexed zero people the last two years of school, which isn't true. So I wonder how far we can trust the second version of events. Well, actually it's at least the third, with version one being the one where James wasn't a bully because they failed to mention that.
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Date: 2019-06-28 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-26 02:46 am (UTC)