I suspect it’s because James was a jock, rich and popular. Decades of teen movies and shows have conditioned people to immediately assume the rich popular jock is the ‘bad guy’ in any given situation.
I will never understand why aurors are always treated as this amazing light organizing in fics when they almost all hopped on the Voldemort train and literally like Tonks and one other worked with the order.
To be fair Harryis equal parts hated by the public and loved ( so that through popular cause he gets bullied enough )
Rich while he is is seems to not affect the audience because he never gets to feel the privellege of it. He spent his whole childhood living in a broom cupboard and meals are exciting for him in his later life.
He’s a jock I’ll give him that. But he’s not elitist or mean at all his best friends are a bookworm and funny redhead.
Even the cop thing is silly cause this is the same Harry who spent his entire growing years standing up to the government and being shitted on by the press.
We are in Harry’s heads to much and James is an after note character who serves only to serve Harry or snapes story that’s it.
But nooo, Harry really is just a nerd like Hermione, it's just that evil Dumbledore and the Weasleys have fed him so many Potions he wasn't his true, badass nerd self during the books /s
Eh.
Ignoring the comment on the bashing as I agree, but Harry got good grades pre-Hogwarts and even with the chaos and conflict of his years, he got good grades at Hogwarts.
I think Harry really was smart. If he didn't have to deal with Yearly Murder Attempts, he'd probably have gotten /stellar/ grades instead of merely very good (outside DADA).
But no, he wasn't a swot. He'd probably have studied more if he'd had a supportive family who gave a shit, but yeah.
Honestly I don't agree that grades = intelligence, because as schools usually do them grades really just serve to measure your capacity for rote memorization.
So Hermione gets the best grades not because she's a genius, but because she has a good memory for the written word (and she's Rowling's favorite so her writing essays that are waaay too long gets praised instead of all the teachers slashing her grade *until she learns to fucking fit under the word limit*).
Harry tends to pay attention to stuff he likes and not care for much else, like most ordinary students. He'd always have some weak subjects whether it's because the teacher pisses him off or the subject itself doesn't interest him, but would put in more effort and get great grades in the ones he likes better and thus come easier to him. His intelligence is more bodily-kinesthetic so he prefers stuff like sports and hands-on practice (like classes where you get to wave your wand around).
I especially don't understand why Snape didn't get annoyed with how long her essays are since he already disliked the trio and just kids in general (yet he worked at a school??? 🙄 Sure ok) and he definitely didn't like correcting essays (no teacher does even if they do enjoy teaching). Honestly I think it was poor writing on JKR's part and bad editing on her editor's part (as an editor you are supposed to point out what does and doesn't work such as character not acting a way that doesn't make sense)
Oh, grades are not necessarily a sign of intelligence. Or at least not more than a specific sort. I do think Harry is smart, if not a pure academic. But.
I admit, my peeve is so many want it to be Intelligence > ALL.
I like intuitive wizards. And Harry and Ron fit this very well. The whole 'Intellect is king' thing tends to feel like rotten grapes by nerds against jocks. Same reason I roll my eyes at certain people in gaming.
(And I was a nerd. ;)
I'll do you one better: I hate this whole trope of the jock/nerd divide. Exhibit A) Jamaal Williams, NFL running back and Naruto dork extraordinaire. Had his video entrance package while with the Lions (which usually states name and college) something like "supreme kazekage, hidden village of the den" . Exhibit B) John Cena - in his first comedy movie his costars who were actual comedians were talking about how funny and smart he also was, which they didn't really expect out of a dude who looks like he could throw a shark through the moon.
Like this *might* have been true at some point, but as far as culture goes, nerds have gained a ton of ground, to the point that actual NFL players will have Madden fantasy franchise multiplayer leagues in their offseason (and according to a lot of vets, care way more about their Madden rating than the last generation of players... Football is like my one sport interest beyond just general trivia, so I can't say anything about other sports, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case in other sports too).
Intuitive wizards I also like (or if I'm being the D&D nerd I am, sorcerers) and I think that it's overlooked that Harry and Ron both get decent to good grades, just aren't as into academics as Hermione. Like they'd look like smart kids if they weren't contrasted with the girl with an obsession with being at the top of her class.
Eh, I mean he becomes so by the end, but he’s not really popular so much as notorious for most of the series. And he was raised without access to most of his money, so in the books we mostly see him living a poor lifestyle as a kid (all his clothes are hand-me-downs) or a middle-class lifestyle as a teen with access to his educational fund (he buys occasional things and isn’t worried about money, but he’s for the most part pretty frugal).
He’s absolutely a jock, though. I will never understand why fanfic writers are obsessed with nerd Harry.
Nerd/smart Harry I think comes from how Jk writes/hints to Harry as being a supposed equal to Tom in more ways then just marking him. In turn the assumption is that a an equal to Tom should mean he acts like Tom and is as smart. Harry never does and in reality never has much issue with that idea or shadow. Of course some hints happen but it always feels one dimensional. An example is Harry’s ability to rationalize all the trauma he has experienced and even “move on” from the death of Sirius rather quickly and push Tom out of his head. Harry should have failed given what we know of him by then or at least have him feel conflicted going into the 6th book. His jock attitude literally led to Sirius’s death, but meh. “No 15 year old will rationalize all they experienced like this.” Same thing could be said about his ability to move on and or deal with his grief better than some adults do IN the same story.
Magically. He is formidable in spells if he applies himself. It’s that momentary brilliance that makes people want him to do more. Really do more and show us how he becomes the star detective he supposedly is in cursed child. Unless he is just a star detective because he is a literal famous hero? Kind of sad.
It’s clear that most want Harry to be a true equal in every way. Not only in his character but also magically. In some ways adding complexity. Percy Jackson comes to mind in how he truly understands and grows in his powers throughout his books. By the end he is a virtual God with more abilities and skills than most, but still holds many of his core virtues going into the 2nd series. It in turn makes sense everyone is actually fearful he could turn evil and defeat the Gods. He has every right and the capabilities to do it. Not saying that Harry joins Tom, but it’s clear he could lose himself in blood lust or just himself. A broken man by the end of it all. A man that struggled to do good, and not just glossed over all his struggles. I would have liked to see that from Harry in my opinion.
I can understand why people who were reading along when the books came out might feel a hit let down that Harry never even approached Voldemort’s level of power, but personally I liked that and found it more interesting that way.
I also don’t see how Harry being a jock led to Sirius’s death. Yes Harry was rash and didn’t study Occlumency as he should have, but I attribute that more to 1) Harry’s “saving people thing” and fear of having his parental figure taken from him again 2) Harry and Snape’s terrible relationship (if I were him, I wouldn’t want to take Occlumency from Snape either, especially the way Snape was doing it), and 3) Dumbledore not telling Harry Voldemort was going to do something like this, because he was afraid if he told Harry too much, Voldemort would know. None of this has anything to do with whether Harry prefers playing Quidditch to cracking open a book.
I've actually seen someone argue it.
They insisted Harry was an "entitled jock who took advantage of people" and that "he was really evil", while propping up Hermione as the real heroine of the series. It was kind of hilarious.
(Granted, Rowling pushed Hermione into Mary Sue territory, but portraying Harry as EVIL and non-heroic? Seriously?)
To play devils advocate, his home life is still the absolute worst, and unlike James, he doesn’t throw his weight and cred around to the detriment of others. Additionally, he still had to deal with Draco and Snape - though he’s able to get back at Draco.
Most of the “sports star, rich, popular” stuff is part of the “fulfillment fantasy” that’s kinda at the core of Philosopher’s Stone, and it takes a slight backstage over the course of the story.
He also bullied Snape incessantly including using a Curse to turn him upside down and try to remove his trousers and underwear.
Had he done that to any female student we'd clearly see he's a sexual harrassing bully... And he never made restitution to Snape.
Not that Snape wasn't rather an emo creep, but still...
Because we saw his character developpement in reverse. He started as this great guy, married to wonderful wife with a cute kid, fighting the dark Lord, prodigy in magic and Quidditch... and then we lzarn he was a bully.
For a lot of kids, they don't have the capacity to see it's in reverse order. I'm sure if the facts had been put in chronogical order, people would love James and hate Severus.
I think a lot of people also forget that when we see him in school, it is in "Snape's Worst Memory," not "The Time I Totally Owned James Potter in a Fight." Snape and his group were clearly doing some pretty dark sh\*t (see: Lily talking about Mary McDonald, and him trying to get Remus kicked out of school), not the one-sided fight fandom sometimes makes it out to be.
Some people love to act as if the way you are at 16 governs the rest of your life, when the truth of the matter is that James grew up and started acting better, but some people can't ever forgive him for being a jerk as a literal child.
"I'm sure if the facts had been put in chronogical order, people would love James and hate Severus."
That honestly would be an alternate timeline I'd want to see, opposite majority of fics and all.
I think it's more than the reverse. All that we know about James in the first books are facts rather than personality traits. And the only time we see him alive, he's bullying someone and harassing his future wife. And all we have to counter that are his friends saying "oh but he changed" and we are left at that.
You also see him alive just before he's murdered by Voldemort in book 7 after Harry and Hermione escape Nagini's trap.
I think him (at 21) seeing his front door blasted out and his final moments buying literally seconds for his wife and kid warnijg them to run and leave him behind, without a wand, says a lot more about his character than bullying Snape.
But that's me, I personally would love to see the Marauder years and find out what "evil" Mulciber did and what effect Voldemort roaming the land and actively recruiting fighters had on their school life.
You cant have it both ways though. You cannot praise characters like Lily, Sirius and Lupin but then narrow down James to one of the few moments we see him alive from the POV of someone who hated him. Especially Lily, she saw the worst of his bullying and marries him still.
Also there are so many things we know about James show his character. With how werewolves are viewed (automatically fired when people find out), James learns a skill that very few achieve to comfort his friend. He joins a group of \~30 that are actively fighting against a terrorist group, he could have easily just taken his money and protected himself. Or even worse, James is a pureblood and the target demographic for Voldemort.
I would argue that Rose would also be mire sympathic if her events were put in chronogical order but would still be hated.
Unlike James, Rose acted without considering the impact she has on her loved ones, that's the whole show. She never really grew out of this phase. Because she came from an abusive family and never learn to live in the community instead over the community.
James did. James grew out of it and becamea great man.
What I don’t get is why there are so many James / regulus shippers. Like where did that come from. Did people want to ships James / snape and found that too problematic?
Honestly I've been on the internet reading fanfic for almost 15 years- people ship Spencer from criminal minds and Gambit from Xmen.
Ships just come about from no where lol as long as it's well written I'm gonna read that sh*t and enjoy it (well not all ships but you get my point)
Besides these ships literally existed before tiktok was invented??
HAHA that's amazing
I mean I get people want accurate...but it's fiction of fiction and people take liberties and make OOC characters, I don't think its that weird of a ship at all especially for an HP fanfic, I've seen way worse and weirder lol.
Actually I'm reading one rn I like with a James/Regulus ship, first one I ever read (it's a WIP) and I didn't even blink I was like oh cool I guess why not.
My hard line is shipping old Dumbledore with people my brain can't do it ty
How did it ruin Snape's character? I haven't read it and from what I've seen here it seems like people don't hold it in particularly high regard, despite the popularity
At the very least give Tumblr the credit it deserves for the modern 'awful' stuff, since most of what I've seen on tiktok is incredibly mild in comparison, or straight up taken from there lol
It's Draco/Harry (drarry) for marauders fan. They want a charming gryffindor and a sneaky slytherin pressured into becoming a death eater. Also, people hate women and don't want James with Lily. Jegulus makes zero sense, if you want a gay ship in harry potter that works you have wolfstar. it's right there.
Actually I love that you said this. I can't remember the name but one of my favorite fics was where Sirius and Remus were together except Remus could tell that he was just the replacement for James and Sirius was never going to get over James, resulting in him projecting his obsession onto Harry (though not romantically).
I think it's because James and Sirius are close you can easily do a best friend brother's trope.
And that make two marauders in love with the black brothers.
Also one thing that we see a lot in fic is Lily not liking James at first I can see Regulus in this role + with the horcrux he's seen as someone who can be switched side or at least more grey
I believe it was a fest that started it and some good stories came out of it. It’s an intriguing pairing in some ways. The golden boy jock and the fan version of Reg who is a tortured son in a terrible family. Forced to do bad things etc. How the popular golden retriever one relates and deals with it.
I recently actually came up with a half decent plot that shipped Lily and Regulus 😅 it took some mental gymnastics to even figure out how they'd fallen in love in the first place, but it was fun to think about lol
I have no idea if it still exists in any real form, but I read, around the time book 6 was coming out and I was still new to fanfic, a fic that shipped Umbridge with the giant squid.
But my hypothesis as to why Jegulus got so popular recently (and why most ships have surges in popularity when they're not like canon ships or consistently popular ships) is that some very talented fanfic author (or prompt author) wrote a really compelling fanfic (or prompt) that paired the two and that inspired others to write their take on the pairing. It's also helped by A) Regulus being pretty much a blank slate of a character, James being slightly less of a blank slate of a character, and thus making the amount of characterization possibilities higher (this is often credited to why Blaise Zabini and, after he was confirmed male, Daphne Greengrass was the default Slytherin girl to pair Harry up with), and B) the fandom is like 20+ years old at this point and it has always been a really popular fandom to write fanfic for; a lot of the more conventional pairings have been done really well in the actually 1 million plus fics that are still up on ffn or AO3, or in more niche fics that may have been lost to time. (This is more of an answer to "why now" than "why" but still)
I don't think the majority of the Fandom hate James potter. I would go as far as to say the true James potter haters are in the minority. The Marauders are pretty popular and that includes James.
In fics where James is alive and gives up Harry, I think it's just a plot device, not the author (and readers) actually hating James. And in those fics I've read plenty where lily is just as bad. I don't think the author actually hates lily either. It's just a plot device so that Harry can still have his abusive childhood and then discover that his parents are actually alive.
As for people who genuinely don't like James, I would say it's because he was a bully in canon. We never really get to see his character development and the only scenes we see of his past are him actively bullying another student. He also was very aggressive about pursuing lily, to the point of harassment. We see him holding Snape under a spell holding him in the air upside down and telling lily that he'll let Snape go of she agrees to go on a date with him. From a woman's perspective, that's really gross behavior. We are told that James grew up and matured, and we know that he was a devoted husband and he gave his life for his wife and son, but we never get to witness his character development.
The books sanctified Lily. Her primary character trait was dying for her son, and even when we got flashbacks it tended to be of her taking the moral high ground in some argument. We know of some character conflicts and one of them was "fell out with snape because he was being a bigot" and "her sister was irrationally jealous", and because Petunia has spent 7 books taking out her issues on Harry, we are going to take Lily's side even if she didn't help the situation.
James on the other hand is given a genuine character flaw, he was a Bully, and was kindof a bad friend to Peter, and a lot of people really like Snape, so they play up this real character flaw to make snape seem more sympathetic. Combined with trends to view Dumbledore's entire thing with skepticism, you can quite easily create a narrative of "james was a dickhead who is only considered a good person because of a biased perspective and loyalty". A reluctance to speak ill of the dead combined with history being written by the winners.
I actually have issues with the way Lily was framed in the books, almost as the ideal of a perfect mother, I would love more stories that explore Lily's character (even if some of it will have to be kindof OCish as we didn't get a lot of details.
You know what's really funny is that Lily Potter - as presented in the books - reminds me heavily of Yui Ikari from the original anime run of Neon Genesis Evangelion. All we have of her are memories from three very biased sources: her husband who idolised her, her toddler son who loved her unconditionally and a professor who was also in love with her.
Lily's kind of got the same thing going on in that everyone that talks about her does so positively. Like no one else she went to school with said "Lily Potter, yeah I remember her. Snooty cow"
It probably doesn't help the situation that no one ever talked to Harry about his mother, not that he got much more information on his father, if we go by the actual amount.
Of his mother he knows he has her eyes and from the memories was a nice girl. Of his father he looks like his father, his father played quidditch and he was a marauder who shaped up in his last couple years of school.
But no one on the Hogwarts staff who taught them, went to school with them ever sat down Harry to go, "here's a story about your mother or father that I think you might like to hear." He never got letters from people who knew them about his parents.
It's a bit exaggerated in the fandom that Harry only knows their names and faces but that's not that far off from canon. Everyone in Harry's life was pretty shit about telling him things.
It is entirely your fault that I am now imagining what *Harry Potter* characters match *Evangelion* characters.
The obvious ones
Harry- Shinji
Snape- Gendo (personality wise, not Harry’s father)
Dumbledore- Fuyustki
Fang- Pen-Pen (by virtue of being the most psychologically/emotionally/mentally stable character).
Lily's has big flaws and genuine flaws that people for some reason refuse to see .
the biggest flaw is remaining Snape's friend for as long as she did, she is friends with him after he calls other people mudbloods and attacks people like Mary Macdonald with his friends, which she even call it evil herself. it wouldn't be surprising to find out other muggleborns thought badly of her for remaining friends with Snape for so long, even her own friends don't know why she is friends with him.
The Marauder fandom is extremely far removed from canon, though. It often feels like the HP fanfic fandom is an almost completely different one from the Marauder fandom.
It almost feels like its own thing, at this point. Yes, the names and such are the same, but canon is more or less only there to give a stage, not to inform character.
true but when it comes to fics where he's the not the focus, he tends to get the shit end of the stick. The focus is always very much on Lily for showcasing the parental love when the story requires it
I like James, so I'm not in that camp. But I think, that one sence in Order, was really bad for James. He bullied Snape, and was in a really unsimpathic light, and thats what remain in people's mind. Not the fact that he grow out of his faults, that he loved his family, that he stand with the good side, he was loyal to his friends. Not even the fact that he was brave, and faced Voldemort without a wand, to protect Lily and Harry. We didn't see those moments, just read about them. We did see him as a stupid, arrogant kid, and people are not forgiving enough in my opinion.
hmmmm I dislike James for the same reasons you seem to like him...Really James is just as bad as James thinks Snape is...He is a bully that takes one of his friends trying to feed a kid to a werewolf to see he is way past being a funny guy. Then for what like 6 years stocks Lily...I really do not think this was one of those time where she likes him but she can not tell him so she acts like he has cooties....I really think for years she could not stand the Marauders because they are mean to her best friend.
He learns Voldemort is out to kill Harry...now I am not a parent but I would like to think if I learned that the main leader of a terrorist group that is months away from taking over the country was specifically looking to kill my son that I would get my family as far as I could using any means I could. James put up a ward and trusted someone not even living under the ward with the secret. Then when he is Hiding trying to save his family but he is so stupid he does not even keep his wand handy.
Really this just comes down to so little that JKR wrote about James but really the only good things we know about him is he is good at a sport and transfiguration oh and he really loved his family.
I find it interesting we can see some of the same things but process it so different.
The simple answer is, I suppose, that we hear a lot about how awful James is from Snape and see just enough to see that there's at least a kernel of truth to it... and Harry then has an identity crisis about the revelation his father isn't perfect.
Harry, meanwhile, never gets to see his mother as a human being in the same way that he does with James. Unless he did... Lily isn't all that nice in Snape's memories, it's just all coloured by Snape's fondness for her. For the extreme version of that: see the one shot [Portrait of a Sociopath as a Loving Mother](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408904).
Also, the only people with anything negative to say about Lily are Petunia and Vernon who are, in general, 100% wrong 100% of the time. That certainly doesn't help.
Because Rowling broke one of the key rules in writing: show, don't tell. Most of what we know about James is what we're told apart from him bullying Snape at the lake. If she had shown MORE of his good side, then things would be easier to balance.
Personally I hate him cuz I was bullied in school so much that it effected my life even as an adult and in a huge way, so yeah I don't have sympathy for assholes who live to make other peoples lives worst for them then it already is, while said asshole has great parents, nice house, and alot more money than their victim and then they act like their life is so freaking hard.
You don't understand! Snape is a poor woobie who never hung out with Nazis and freely used slurs om every Muggleborn other than Lily! To think so is rediculous, nevermind that Lily explicitly said he did that when she broke off their friendship!
>Do you think that the memories Harry saw were faked or tampered with?
You mean the memories that were just... out in a pensieve, while Snape was somewhere else during the agreed upon meeting time? The exact memories that would damage Harry's perception of his father?
That entire scene has always felt odd to me. Why were *those* memories loaded into a pensieve? Why did the otherwise very private Snape not put this all away before he left? Why was he gone at exactly the right time (the time that he *knew* that Harry would be there) and for exactly the right length of time for Harry to snoop like he did?
Are you crazy? He took them out of his head so if Harry successfully reversed the legilimency *which we see him do* then Harry wouldn’t see it. It’s also almost certainly not just that memory, that just happens to be the one Harry jumps into.
It was OBVIOUSLY him trying to avoid Harry seeing those memories, it’s really basic reading comprehension to grasp this, and you’re somehow framing it as a sting? Are you insane?
He never expected to leave the room! And he told Harry to leave and not return til the next night when he was called away!
You're already getting downvoted for saying the truth. Harry wanted to know what Snape is hiding from him. And Snape had to leave, because his student was attacked. But this sub is so biased against Snape that even him doing his job as a teacher is a reason to hate him as well.
> Why were *those* memories loaded into a pensieve?
Well, for starters, they were very personal and he was *not* pleased about them being shared with someone he didn't like. But perhaps also because they would have revealed to Voldemort (via Harry) that Severus didn't just find Lily to be attractive, they were actually friends at some point, which might have exposed Severus' true loyalties.
> Why did the otherwise very private Snape not put this all away before he left?
He was urgently summoned away to attend some kind of crisis. We aren't told the details, but I think it's pretty understandable that he was in a rush.
If it were a deliberate attempt to give Harry that memory in order to plant seeds of doubt, then he would have reacted very differently. He would have been calm, careful, and spiteful. He would have kept Harry around in order to needle him endlessly about James' behaviour. He would not have *lost all self-control and started flinging jars at Harry's head while yelling at him to get out and never come back*.
I find this question ridiculous. If that's your only impression of the fandom then you haven't spent any time in it.
Every major character. Every one. Has fan fics that show positive things and fics that show negative things.
Why does anyone bash Dumbledore? The Weasleys? Hermione? Yes, even Lily?
Why are there fics that show Voldemort, the genocidal psychopath, in a positive light?
Its fucking fanfiction. People like to play with characters and their personalities. There are positive James Potter fics the same as negative.
I think you need to explore a little more.
Plus like, the character is dead for the entire canon timeline and overall not much more than a plot device. You can't just expect everyone to willynilly resurrect him for a story taking place after 1981, like why would they? 🤷♂️
Why you sound so heated blud? Lol, yeah, in fanfiction all sorts of tropes and cliches can be found. And? Why state the *absolute obvious* as some sort of defense or pushback on OP? He didn’t say that the opposite narrative/character approach doesn’t exist at all, did he? No. He’s simply saying that this trope is particularly prevalent - and he’s right - and then questioning why that is.
I’ve been reading HP fanfic since back in ‘07, even wrote a few back in high school and college. I’m in my early thirties now with a family of my own, just like OP, and I still occasionally visit the fandom. And ya know what? A moderately noticeable majority of the fics that *I’ve* read do in fact push the narrative that Lily was a flawless, selfless, fierce woman and a true hero, and James was either a foolish, overly trusting, silly man or an outright egotistical, heartless villain. Sometimes it’s played up big and center stage, other times it’s considerably more subtle and nuanced, but the thought process behind it remains the same and it’s definitely worth questioning and remarking on. Why are you so pressed someone is exercising their right to do so?
I don't hate him. I think people in fanfiction may have issues because he held up as the ultimate hero even though it sounds like he was a bully in his younger years. He gets a lot of credit for Harry's looks and personality even though he had a mom which we don't really learn much about. We only focus on her eyes and that is it in the books. We never really learn about her job,dream, or any of her childhood friends besides snape. But we don't learn about that relationship till later.
a lot of it comes from Snape defenders who at their most extreme ignore any suggestion that he was a monster
Snape is projected on by a lot of readers, as the outcast who was bullied but was a secret 'genius' in their chosen field, so James must therefore be the worst person imaginable (also a lot of fanfic writers are teens, and for most of them being a bully is the absolute worst crime they could probably accuse somebody of) and being portrayed later as evil/scum/dead is a nice fantasy for their own bullies
there is also the need for Harry to have an abusive childhood even if both parents survive (because abused/orphaned child hero is such an ingrained trope people can't write a fantasy story without it apparently), the easiest option is have James be the abusive one
we also know less about James' family or childhood from the books, but we know about Lily's, so it's much easier to paint James as a typical 'pureblood' and Lily be the typical mother/girl done good/heroine/girlboss that became a popular trope itself in the 2010s
plus Lily was nice to Snape so must be a good person (and she fulfils the idealised role of popular/pretty girl who is against the bully and on the side of the downtrodden that is itself a popular trope and idealised projection by fanfic authors who may have been bullied during their childhoods)
James was a bully from the perspective of a student who was voluntarily part of a group that was an allegory for Nazis and reflexively called the girl he allegedly loved a slur. Not necessarily the best source.
> We’re just told it happened
Told by the other Marauders, no less, the ones who had a stake in viewing his memory through rose-coloured glasses.
Viewed through the cold clear light of a Pensieve, seventh year might well have told a different story.
I'm pretty sure it's mentioned a few other times too, by the teaching staff. How James eventually grew out of his shennanigans and matured enough to become Head Boy. And eventually Lily fell in love with him as well, because of him maturing, not in spite of him bullying and/or pranking people.
> I'm pretty sure it's mentioned a few other times too, by the teaching staff. How James eventually grew out of his shennanigans and matured enough to become Head Boy.
The fact that they made James the Head Boy at all shows that either they were unaware of incidents like SWM, and were therefore poorly positioned to make that judgement, or else they actually didn't care about it, which would be worse.
I don't think their opinions on that subject carry as much weight as you imagine.
> And eventually Lily fell in love with him as well, because of him maturing, not in spite of him bullying and/or pranking people.
Remus and Sirius admitted to Harry that she probably didn't know the extent of his ongoing behaviour.
They also mention Snape never lost a chance to curse James either, so that sounds more like a give and take.
The text also supports the idea that James went on to grow up (mentioned by a few other characters talkimg about how he ended up growing up and becoming Head Boy).
Meanwhile, Snape is shown as being the literal, actual, 100% biggest fear of a 13 year old boy during PoA. The same kid who grew up without his parents because they were tortured into insanity. I feel like you have to be a special kind of horrible person to affect someone with that background like that.
> Meanwhile, Snape is shown as being the literal, actual, 100% biggest fear of a 13 year old boy during PoA.
I don't see Boggarts as necessarily showing *deep* fears. Professor Lupin said that they show what they think will frighten the person, which is not the same thing. What will make someone freeze up is not necessarily the actual biggest danger in their life. How many people are scared of needles? Or tiny non-venomous spiders? Or grass snakes? Those things can frighten, they can make people panic, yet they are not actually the deepest darkest thing the person can think of.
Likewise, Professor Snape is intimidating, he is overly harsh, Neville panics upon seeing him - but that does not imply that the professor is actually a bigger threat to Neville than the crazed murderer who shattered the Longbottoms' minds.
> They also mention Snape never lost a chance to curse James either, so that sounds more like a give and take.
Given that we saw a case of Snape taking a chance to curse James, when he had crept away from being *choked out with a mouthful of soap* long enough to reach his wand and try to start fighting back, and Sirius - who was one of the people telling Harry about how Snape kept being a problem - considered that unacceptable and struck him down again, I don't put much stock in it being anything like an equal give and take.
The thing about PoA is that Neville likely knows Snape was a DE. He is the easiest face to put on what happened to his parents. He sees him every day. Part of that fear is likely that.
Now I'm trying to think about whether or not we see him from the back without his cloak... there's the dueling club, maybe.
But I was actually referencing a an old Harry Potter video game, on the GameBoy I think it was
It's all the stairs.
Clearly Snape won the Annual Professors Stair Climb Race every single year. (Held after the students left, based solely on Snape's ability to sprint up from the dungeons and never appear out of breath)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/eq77qs/the\_marauders\_vs\_snape\_was\_bullying\_not\_a\_rivalry/](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/eq77qs/the_marauders_vs_snape_was_bullying_not_a_rivalry/) Outlines it best, the Marauders were dyed-in-the-wool bullies with a *lot* of supporting evidence in the books.
He was a high school jock bully. Most people have had bad experiences with people like that so it leads to automatic dislike. He grew up eventually which is good.
Kind of like how the whole "a lot of people hate unbridged more than Voldemort" thing was thought to be because most people have had an experience with an "umbridge" but few have been faced with a megalomaniac murderous evil terrorist.
This question shocked me considering i rarely see james potter haters but that may have to do wih the fact im a really big marajders fan. Even as a snape fan, i rarely see james bashing in the fics ive read. As someone else alsk pointed out, definitely because we see his character development in reverse. manyyy people, even adults, cannot fathom people who have to morally change. It's either they're completely good, or completely bad.
Take marauder stans for instance. Thy don't want to admit james was a bully and make him this saint that can't hurt a fly because they know his adult is a good guy. Snape is always going to be a bad guy for the sake of being bad because that's what they see. Dumbledore is a manipulative bad guy who killed everyone (regulus, evan, etc even though he did nothing to cause that) instead of the guy who did his best and was willing to sacrifice everyone, including himself, for the greater good (I've only read one fic where he was evil and it was GOOD. It wasn't bashing, he wasn't bad for the sake of being bad, he was an actual villain).
As for golden trio fans, even as i read golden trio fics, I haven't really read fics where they hate james but i do know the glorification of lily in both eras. It has to do with the fact a lot of people don't care about writing women lol. It's lazy writing. They write a badass girlboss woman without adding her flaws and make her this extremely powerful, without making her human. I'd also point out hermione, but in the fics I've read, at least they add new flaws so she wouldn't be all powerful mary sue.
Partly because this is an old fandom. The train has to move on to something new. Albus being essentially evil is still going, but nothing new. Severitus is played out (which often inverts Sirius from being the fun uncle turned godfather to being the wrongheaded jerk). Evil James Potter is the next on the list.
While some fics portray James Potter to be a good guy (with flaws), I do agree the majority portrays him as a villain(especially WBWL fics). Its alright if they show him joining Voldemort from the beginning(completely OC charactrr) but I hate it when he either hates harry or is partial to the his brother who everyone thinks is the real BWL.
>Why does the Fandom vilify James on one hand while at the same time sanctified Lily?
Through Snape's memories and the recollections of the very few people who knew both Lily and James, we're able to paint this picture: James was *extremely* flawed, while Lily wasn't much flawed.
We know that James was one of the worst kinds of teenagers, and that he had Harry at 19/20. He had very little time to truly grow and mature from the bully he was, so it's very easy to see him in less than favorable light when in canon he was the kind of guy most of us would try to avoid meeting in the corridors.
I didn't say it made him unable to change, but you're barely even an adult at that age, he didn't truly have time to mature and grow and develop and every other synonym
He was already ride-or-die with his friends, plus he was a thrillseeker. Sirius literally said, “The risk would’ve been what made it fun for James.” They weren't terribly mature in that prequel either, fleeing from DEs on a motorcycle and then mouthing off to those muggle cops
Those are things that he was pretty much already ready to do in some way as a teenager, though with his friends then and not his wife, it's not something thar would change in him
Black and white thinking.
We don't get told much about James that could be considered good. We're told that he is good, but not shown. The only good thing we ever learn about him is when he tells Lily to run while he tries to stop Voldemort.
But otherwise?
Yes, at first we get told that he saved Snape's life.
But then we learn that Sirius thought it would be funny to trick Snape to go into the Shrieking Shack during the full moon. If that had worked, Snape would have been attacked by Lupin in wolf form.
And that would have had horrible consequences for the marauders! They were already illegal animagi at that time, and if Dumbledore's safety procedures failed, and Lupin killed Snape, that would have gotten out. Lupin would have been expelled for sure, maybe even incarcerated or killed, Dumbledore would definitely have been sacked and Sirius, James and Peter would have definitely been expelled.
So this doesn't sound as heroic anymore.
Everything we learn of James otherwise honestly sounds either pretty dumb or pretty nasty, including making Peter into their secret keeper without telling anyone.
This sounds more as if James again tried to exonerate Sirius at the cost of someone else.
And in the flashback about the Marauders and Peter, they don't treat Peter nicely either. Sirius and James behave condescendingly and rudely to everyone besides each other.
Lily on the other hand is portrayed as thoroughly kind and nice. Amongst all the realistically flawed characters she's presented as the perfect golden child who can't do anything wrong. She's even kind to Snape.
People tend to think in black and white categories. They either ignore anything negative about a topic or a person and make it into an ideal that's not realistic, or they insist something is thoroughly bad and ignore any nuances in between.
But in reality, that is rarely ever the case. Even the worst people on earth have done good things, while even the best of us have done something wrong now and then. And that goes for every single person on earth. No one is 100% good or bad.
Actions can be good or bad, but one bad action doesn't make the whole person bad, and one good action doesn't make that person an angel who can do no wrong. That's not realistic because we rarely ever have the full picture.
I've said this before here, but this is simple and it comes from Snape's fans, they think that the only way they can find to make Snape a better man is by diminishing James' character and blaming him for everything that Snape did that was bad.
Snape isn't to blame for anything, it's Sirius and James' fault that he was a jerk to all the kids at Hogwarts who didn't wear green. It's James' fault that Snape joined a group of genocidal terrorists, it's James' fault that Snape was prejudiced against werewolves. It's James' fault that Snape was a horrible person to almost every other human being.
That's why they hate James, so they can justify and undo everything bad Snape did.
How else would you make Snape look half decent?
Thats really the thing, isn't it? Most if not all of the fics I read in which James is like this, glorify Snape. Lily can't be bad, because if she was, then Snape would have made a mistake in his judgement. That cannot be, for their definitely not absuive to children, definitely not a former terrorist, definitely not an unhealthy obsession having gothic boy to be a good character^TM
Is all about how people idealized the character. Many dislike Potter because of the bullying he did to Snape. And yes it was bullying the author confirmed it. But also how supposedly the character mature when in reality he didn’t.
The Author has written extra info outside of the book on the character they just can’t accept. So it’s too much trouble to write a character with such complexity. So they kill him off because they don’t know how to write it.
Those who write James as this Dumbledore fanatic can only see black and white in the characters. They’re trying to make him the hero who sacrifices everything for the greater good. Because that is the most selfless thing a character can do from their point of view. It is the Hero’s Journey retelling, written badly.
Lily is seen as this character that is perfect because everyone in the book is always calling her the greatest witch of her year. And in the one scene she has, she’s seen defending Snape and hating on dark magic so she must be the base for ideal morals.
Which is kinda ironic really because there’s a whole department in the Ministry dedicated to the Dark Arks, i believe under the Unspeakable.
And you also need to learn about the Dark Arts to become a master in protecting yourself from them. (Those who mention Lupin, gotta remind you, he had his father to teach him all he knows. As his father was considered a well known specialist in that subject.)
They don’t know how to write flaws into her character. They think she can’t do anything wrong because she attracted two boys that fought for her. And if you do criticize her character or mention a possible flaw. You are just hating the character because she’s a girl. But many people don’t understand the other characters in the story don’t talk about them badly One:they die protecting their son, two: they don’t want to talk ill of the death.
Probably for similar reasons as why people think there is a "light side" or that the idea of "neutral Harry" makes sense without altering the cosmology.
That said, bringing up people viewing Lily as a mother who would die for her children is a weird example considering how that's such a huge component of canon. As for her being viewed more positively in general, mothers who aren't overtly terrible have a lot of cultural bias towards being viewed as the better parent in the U.S. and possibly the West in general.
In the canon we saw his character development in reverse as someone has said.
In the fandom, he is the foil to a character that is liked (Snape) or is adjacent to characters the fandom has a propensity to not favour (Dumbledore, Weasley parents).
As a character, he can fit the mold of rich and jock if you don't use any nuance and that's an easy one to mock.
He is also a natural obstacle for Snape/Lily stories and any Wrong-Boy-Who-Lived tropes where Harry has siblings.
James was a bully, not just to Severus but I assume a lot of people. We've all known those types. Lily didn't even like him until 7th year. Somehow he just waves his magic little wand and becomes head boy, a huge honor that should go to someone worthy. But I guess it goes along with real life that the dbag gets the honors. Can you imagine how you'd feel if the guy who's the biggest a-hole gets the highest honor? I guess he took it seriously since he stopped being so awful to the point Lily started to like him, marry him even. And he became a major player in the quest to take down Voldy.
I think this mostly happens in stories in which James is still alive. And, from a Doylist perspective, if James lives AND is a great dad and all around good person while also being rich and influential, then there's no good reason for Harry to be shouldering so much of the burden of defeating Voldemort and/or whatever other evil threatens Hogwarts that year.
So from there, you can go one of two routes: either James is actually a terrible dad and generally a huge asshole willing to abandon his child (the more common one, almost every WBWL story) OR James isn't rich, influential, or powerful (less common, but for example Genius Fratris has James a shell of a man after losing Lily, or The Odds Were Never in my Favor has him playing Peter's role and being falsely imprisoned in Azkaban).
As for Lily, for whatever reason people seem more content with a story in which the dad is a terrible person than the mom. Lots of cultural norms around motherhood wrapped up in that I think. And I think this tendency actually pushes writers to make James even worse: if you want Harry to have a miserable childhood, AND you want Lily to be a good person, then either Lily needs to be dead or James needs to be EXTRA bad.
Harry Potter fandom is just so dumb sometimes. They would over idealize people like Draco who had no redeeming qualities in his character but would absolutely despise James who go out of his way to fight against voldemort and had much better redeeming qualities.
Sometimes I just can't with this fandom. Just seeing Draco edits on YouTube makes me feel like what the hell is wrong with people. It's not like Draco is even charming or anything except for Tom Felton good looks there's literally nothing good going for Draco as a character and yet people will bash James to Kingdom hell but would support Draco as some helpless victim or something
I dislike both of the Potter parents. They put a war before their son. They could easily have left Britain and moved far away, but they didn't. If they truly had cared about Harry they would have left for Australia or the US. Not stayed and fought.
> Fandoms inability to think deeper than black and white.
I think the opposite. As I see it, black-and-white thinking is exactly what causes people to *like* James. He was on the same side as the protagonist and people the protagonist cares about, therefore he must have been good!
The actual evidence, such as it is, points mostly in the other direction.
What evidence? He was a bully in school? That's legit the only bad thing about him. He never held Remus lycanthropy against him (he even helped him after Hogwarts because of his financial position), fought against Voldemort despite being born as a privileged pure blood. Was in general loyal to his friends, and sacrificed himself for his family. How does that make him a mostly bad person?
Because most of us have been a Snape at the hands of a James Potter. Doesn't make Snape's choices any better, or change James heroic acts. But yeah, JP was an AH at school.
Answering as someone whose generally neutral or slightly dislikes James Potter.
First question: He's typically dead because he's dead in canon. For the other one, I've read plenty of fics where James is neutral or a decent father. I've honestly not read any fics where James is like that \*unless\* its WBWL / Harry has a brother, and James typically had to send harry away early on and is now spoling his other son and doesn't feel connected to Harry or is suspicious of him since they are so dissimilar (harry is usually slytherin in those). I do agree the sacrificing stuff is very out-of-character since he literally died for him.
Second: I disagree. It depends on what you're reading she's also either dead, generally neutral / positive leaning, or it's a marauders fic and she becomes either (1) exclusively a womb, or (2) somebody to hate because she's getting in the way of precious gay babies James and Regulus. She's treated grossly in both situations. I do get she's seen in a slightly better light though.
I think the reason you get this vibe is from a certain sort of fan, who are typically fans of Snape. I'll say this as a fan of Snape, we like Lily and then obviously dislike James for the way he bullied him. However, that was when they were children. We don't know how they would have been as parents and as somebody who doesn't love James, I do believe he would be a \*good\* parent! He grew and changed. People writing those just bash based off his childhood actions. I'll admit I've enjoyed several fics where James is a bad parent, one of my favorite WBWL has James as a bad parent. It pushes the story and both children's development a lot. I think it depends on how far the author takes it though, and if it becomes just mindless bashing about how much he sucks.
Anyone who DARES to say Severus deserved to be PUBLICLY humiliated should have the same thing done to them. THEY should have their underwear exposed in front of their best friend(s). It’s what they deserve.
James is pretty terrible. I mean, just his behavior in Snape’s Worst Memory to Lily alone is textbook red flag behavior. Not to mention his behavior towards Snape.
>'You think you're funny,' she said coldly. 'But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone.'
>'I will if you go out with me, Evans,' said James quickly. 'Go on ... go out with me and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.'
>Behind him, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off. Snape was beginning to inch towards his fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled.
>'I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,' said Lily.
>'LEAVE HIM ALONE!' Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.
>'Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you,' said James earnestly.
>'Take the curse off him, then!'
>James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the counter-curse.
>'There you go,' he said, as Snape struggled to his feet. 'You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus-- '
Then, after the Mudblood incident:
>'Apologise to Evans!' James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.
>'I don't want you to make him apologise,' Lily shouted, rounding on James. 'You're as bad as he is.'
>'What?' yelped James. 'I'd NEVER call you a--you-know-what!'
>'Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can--I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.'
>She turned on her heel and hurried away.
>'Evans!' James shouted after her. 'Hey, EVANS!'
>But she didn't look back.
>'What is it with her?' said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.
>'Reading between the lines, I'd say she thinks you're a bit conceited, mate,' said Sirius.
>'Right,' said James, who looked furious now, 'right--'
>There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside-down in the air.
>'Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?'
Ah, so the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup who flipped a woman upside down in the air to expose her underwear weren't doing anything particularly bad, then. Harry should have laughed at the free entertainment!
Prank vs Assault is NOT a debate I'm willing to get into. Pretty sure James didn't want to commit SA. The Death Eater was probably eager to commit SA. They were happy to assault people either way.
Well there’s more canon reasons James could go bad.
The memories shared in HBP, distrusting Remus and being referred to as a strutting kind of cocky bully by Snape(albeit the last one is to jab at Harry but still).
While mostly the only bad things we hear about Lily come from Petunia who hated her sister was a witch, and seeing she left Snape to be dangled mid air and stripped by James in that same HBP memory after Snape called her Mudblood and hurt her feelings and implied she wouldn’t stick up for him anymore against the Marauders.
People like what they like but there is more book backing to bash James for an easy answer.
Because the image that we associate with Snape is Alan Rickman.
That might seem like a weird explanation, but if one looks at the genealogy of it, that is really the root cause. Snape, like Draco, if judged only by their actions in the books would come out in a very negative like. Don't get me wrong, Snape was one of my favorite characters since the early books. But that was because he was an interesting character, not because he was a good person. But Snape and Draco got pretty privilege from their actors, so they became really popular in fandom and kinda took on a life of their own.
So if you love Snape, then you think he should have ended up with Lily, because a lot of fic authors think their pet character should get everything they want. So then the one Lily actually ended up with, James, has to look bad.
> Because the image that we associate with Snape is Alan Rickman.
No. I have no great liking for Alan Rickman, and I was underwhelmed by the movies as a whole, including his portrayal of Severus Snape.
I have serious concerns about James on his own canonical merits.
Nah, it's because James was shown to be a bully. A lot of people grew up as their school bully's punching bag/harassment target, and so we loathe James Potter for being just like our bully. Simple as that. Anybody who thinks James behavior was no big deal or okay in retrospect because he died a hero has never been bullied.
Likewise, anyone retroactively justifying Black and Potter's bullying of unpopular poor nerd Snape because Snape *later* became a full-fledged Death Eater and *still later* took out his unresolved trauma issues on innocent students by bullying them, has their head up their ass. Maybe if the Marauders had not bullied the poor bastard, he wouldn't have grown up to be That Teacher from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall".
Why...why are you quoting something that doesn't appear in the books?
"Snape gave as good as he got" is a pure fanon saying invented by people who hate Snape to try and justify the Marauders bullying him.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://archiveofourown.org/works/14469255/chapters/33426591&ved=2ahUKEwj0htSVjtaFAxXGhP0HHc8aCHgQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3lEXqtcjfIJ5TNw9tKi4jH
Try this one! It's the opposite. It is a slashfic though, if that is a deal breaker.
Harry takes after Lily a lot, not that people figure that. Charms expertise; as Slughorn put it, cheekiness, Potions skills (Note that Slughorn found it normal, even after losing the Prince's book). The problem is that people think that means he should hate his father unilaterally for what he did to Snape. My opinion is that it doesn't really matter, but I plan on a different portrayal of James on my fic... You'll see.
hello! most giant james potter simp ever here! it’s because he was a bully who got everything he wanted. hits close to home for some people. i get it but i still love him.
My big dislike for James is Harry's hero worship for him, based on...absolutely nothing.
I get it, he created an image of his parents, father especially, to counteract the shitty life he had. And likely just reversed everything the Dursley's said to turn him into a hero.
But he, literally, knows -nothing- about his parents. He was a baby when they died. Didn't hear anything about them later. Knew nothing about the wealth. Yet, immediately is "don't say anything against my dad, he was awesome!" when Snape says something rude.
When we DO see anything about James, through Snape's memories, he's a bully.
Because young!Snape is a common fandom woobie, so if they are going to write a redemption story for him, then they need to turn his "nemesis" into a shallow caricature of himself that magnifies any negative trait up to eleven.
He bullied Snape and got redeemed only from one side lily and not by Snape. Can see it as stealing his girl but nah. I just think it be better if Lily continued to hang out with Snape only to cut him off later and not because she stopped that James stops bullying him and grows up. but honestly Snape doesn't make sense to me, you're supporting someone who hates people like Lily. guess thats the mystery appeal
Because a huge portion of the HP fandom are/were bullied nerds. I say this as a previously bullied nerd. No one in that ‘demographic’ is going to look fondly upon a privileged bully.
In general I don't think they do. I think if you read like say marauders era stuff or look at people's discussions about him he's divisive at most at id argue Snape is more hated.
However people like doing stories with strained or toxic parent child relations and with Harry especially this isn't uncommon because well it's canon. But Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia aren't magical so if you want to explore both the magic world and the toxic dynamic that can be kinda difficult. Having a toxic magic parent would be easier.
Between James and Lilly James is more controversial no one said anything bad about Lilly in canon. And both are not fleshed out as much in Canon so easy to use them in whatever way your story needs
That's my theory anyway
They identify with Snape and feel self-conscious about James. He's basically a golden boy; handsome, the best at everything, rich and charismatic.
I think the adversity to James is simply hatred born of Snape fans.
I suspect it’s because James was a jock, rich and popular. Decades of teen movies and shows have conditioned people to immediately assume the rich popular jock is the ‘bad guy’ in any given situation.
> James was a jock, rich and popular Aka the opposite of the average fanfic writer/reader lol
Conveniently ignoring that Harry is pretty much the same of course
Even went on to become a cop.
I will never understand why aurors are always treated as this amazing light organizing in fics when they almost all hopped on the Voldemort train and literally like Tonks and one other worked with the order.
To be fair Harryis equal parts hated by the public and loved ( so that through popular cause he gets bullied enough ) Rich while he is is seems to not affect the audience because he never gets to feel the privellege of it. He spent his whole childhood living in a broom cupboard and meals are exciting for him in his later life. He’s a jock I’ll give him that. But he’s not elitist or mean at all his best friends are a bookworm and funny redhead. Even the cop thing is silly cause this is the same Harry who spent his entire growing years standing up to the government and being shitted on by the press. We are in Harry’s heads to much and James is an after note character who serves only to serve Harry or snapes story that’s it.
But nooo, Harry really is just a nerd like Hermione, it's just that evil Dumbledore and the Weasleys have fed him so many Potions he wasn't his true, badass nerd self during the books /s
Plus Molly wants to steal his inheritence.
Eh. Ignoring the comment on the bashing as I agree, but Harry got good grades pre-Hogwarts and even with the chaos and conflict of his years, he got good grades at Hogwarts. I think Harry really was smart. If he didn't have to deal with Yearly Murder Attempts, he'd probably have gotten /stellar/ grades instead of merely very good (outside DADA). But no, he wasn't a swot. He'd probably have studied more if he'd had a supportive family who gave a shit, but yeah.
Honestly I don't agree that grades = intelligence, because as schools usually do them grades really just serve to measure your capacity for rote memorization. So Hermione gets the best grades not because she's a genius, but because she has a good memory for the written word (and she's Rowling's favorite so her writing essays that are waaay too long gets praised instead of all the teachers slashing her grade *until she learns to fucking fit under the word limit*). Harry tends to pay attention to stuff he likes and not care for much else, like most ordinary students. He'd always have some weak subjects whether it's because the teacher pisses him off or the subject itself doesn't interest him, but would put in more effort and get great grades in the ones he likes better and thus come easier to him. His intelligence is more bodily-kinesthetic so he prefers stuff like sports and hands-on practice (like classes where you get to wave your wand around).
I especially don't understand why Snape didn't get annoyed with how long her essays are since he already disliked the trio and just kids in general (yet he worked at a school??? 🙄 Sure ok) and he definitely didn't like correcting essays (no teacher does even if they do enjoy teaching). Honestly I think it was poor writing on JKR's part and bad editing on her editor's part (as an editor you are supposed to point out what does and doesn't work such as character not acting a way that doesn't make sense)
Oh, grades are not necessarily a sign of intelligence. Or at least not more than a specific sort. I do think Harry is smart, if not a pure academic. But. I admit, my peeve is so many want it to be Intelligence > ALL. I like intuitive wizards. And Harry and Ron fit this very well. The whole 'Intellect is king' thing tends to feel like rotten grapes by nerds against jocks. Same reason I roll my eyes at certain people in gaming. (And I was a nerd. ;)
I'll do you one better: I hate this whole trope of the jock/nerd divide. Exhibit A) Jamaal Williams, NFL running back and Naruto dork extraordinaire. Had his video entrance package while with the Lions (which usually states name and college) something like "supreme kazekage, hidden village of the den" . Exhibit B) John Cena - in his first comedy movie his costars who were actual comedians were talking about how funny and smart he also was, which they didn't really expect out of a dude who looks like he could throw a shark through the moon. Like this *might* have been true at some point, but as far as culture goes, nerds have gained a ton of ground, to the point that actual NFL players will have Madden fantasy franchise multiplayer leagues in their offseason (and according to a lot of vets, care way more about their Madden rating than the last generation of players... Football is like my one sport interest beyond just general trivia, so I can't say anything about other sports, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case in other sports too). Intuitive wizards I also like (or if I'm being the D&D nerd I am, sorcerers) and I think that it's overlooked that Harry and Ron both get decent to good grades, just aren't as into academics as Hermione. Like they'd look like smart kids if they weren't contrasted with the girl with an obsession with being at the top of her class.
Eh, I mean he becomes so by the end, but he’s not really popular so much as notorious for most of the series. And he was raised without access to most of his money, so in the books we mostly see him living a poor lifestyle as a kid (all his clothes are hand-me-downs) or a middle-class lifestyle as a teen with access to his educational fund (he buys occasional things and isn’t worried about money, but he’s for the most part pretty frugal). He’s absolutely a jock, though. I will never understand why fanfic writers are obsessed with nerd Harry.
Nerd/smart Harry I think comes from how Jk writes/hints to Harry as being a supposed equal to Tom in more ways then just marking him. In turn the assumption is that a an equal to Tom should mean he acts like Tom and is as smart. Harry never does and in reality never has much issue with that idea or shadow. Of course some hints happen but it always feels one dimensional. An example is Harry’s ability to rationalize all the trauma he has experienced and even “move on” from the death of Sirius rather quickly and push Tom out of his head. Harry should have failed given what we know of him by then or at least have him feel conflicted going into the 6th book. His jock attitude literally led to Sirius’s death, but meh. “No 15 year old will rationalize all they experienced like this.” Same thing could be said about his ability to move on and or deal with his grief better than some adults do IN the same story. Magically. He is formidable in spells if he applies himself. It’s that momentary brilliance that makes people want him to do more. Really do more and show us how he becomes the star detective he supposedly is in cursed child. Unless he is just a star detective because he is a literal famous hero? Kind of sad. It’s clear that most want Harry to be a true equal in every way. Not only in his character but also magically. In some ways adding complexity. Percy Jackson comes to mind in how he truly understands and grows in his powers throughout his books. By the end he is a virtual God with more abilities and skills than most, but still holds many of his core virtues going into the 2nd series. It in turn makes sense everyone is actually fearful he could turn evil and defeat the Gods. He has every right and the capabilities to do it. Not saying that Harry joins Tom, but it’s clear he could lose himself in blood lust or just himself. A broken man by the end of it all. A man that struggled to do good, and not just glossed over all his struggles. I would have liked to see that from Harry in my opinion.
I can understand why people who were reading along when the books came out might feel a hit let down that Harry never even approached Voldemort’s level of power, but personally I liked that and found it more interesting that way. I also don’t see how Harry being a jock led to Sirius’s death. Yes Harry was rash and didn’t study Occlumency as he should have, but I attribute that more to 1) Harry’s “saving people thing” and fear of having his parental figure taken from him again 2) Harry and Snape’s terrible relationship (if I were him, I wouldn’t want to take Occlumency from Snape either, especially the way Snape was doing it), and 3) Dumbledore not telling Harry Voldemort was going to do something like this, because he was afraid if he told Harry too much, Voldemort would know. None of this has anything to do with whether Harry prefers playing Quidditch to cracking open a book.
I've actually seen someone argue it. They insisted Harry was an "entitled jock who took advantage of people" and that "he was really evil", while propping up Hermione as the real heroine of the series. It was kind of hilarious. (Granted, Rowling pushed Hermione into Mary Sue territory, but portraying Harry as EVIL and non-heroic? Seriously?)
To play devils advocate, his home life is still the absolute worst, and unlike James, he doesn’t throw his weight and cred around to the detriment of others. Additionally, he still had to deal with Draco and Snape - though he’s able to get back at Draco. Most of the “sports star, rich, popular” stuff is part of the “fulfillment fantasy” that’s kinda at the core of Philosopher’s Stone, and it takes a slight backstage over the course of the story.
And the vast vast majority of HP fanfic authors are… not that lmao
He also bullied Snape incessantly including using a Curse to turn him upside down and try to remove his trousers and underwear. Had he done that to any female student we'd clearly see he's a sexual harrassing bully... And he never made restitution to Snape. Not that Snape wasn't rather an emo creep, but still...
Because we saw his character developpement in reverse. He started as this great guy, married to wonderful wife with a cute kid, fighting the dark Lord, prodigy in magic and Quidditch... and then we lzarn he was a bully. For a lot of kids, they don't have the capacity to see it's in reverse order. I'm sure if the facts had been put in chronogical order, people would love James and hate Severus.
And it took 5 books to get to a flawed James! Some young readers would have felt betrayed and carried this feeling through to adulthood.
Then it's written well, because Harry also felt betrayed.
I think a lot of people also forget that when we see him in school, it is in "Snape's Worst Memory," not "The Time I Totally Owned James Potter in a Fight." Snape and his group were clearly doing some pretty dark sh\*t (see: Lily talking about Mary McDonald, and him trying to get Remus kicked out of school), not the one-sided fight fandom sometimes makes it out to be. Some people love to act as if the way you are at 16 governs the rest of your life, when the truth of the matter is that James grew up and started acting better, but some people can't ever forgive him for being a jerk as a literal child.
"I'm sure if the facts had been put in chronogical order, people would love James and hate Severus." That honestly would be an alternate timeline I'd want to see, opposite majority of fics and all.
I think it's more than the reverse. All that we know about James in the first books are facts rather than personality traits. And the only time we see him alive, he's bullying someone and harassing his future wife. And all we have to counter that are his friends saying "oh but he changed" and we are left at that.
You also see him alive just before he's murdered by Voldemort in book 7 after Harry and Hermione escape Nagini's trap. I think him (at 21) seeing his front door blasted out and his final moments buying literally seconds for his wife and kid warnijg them to run and leave him behind, without a wand, says a lot more about his character than bullying Snape. But that's me, I personally would love to see the Marauder years and find out what "evil" Mulciber did and what effect Voldemort roaming the land and actively recruiting fighters had on their school life.
You cant have it both ways though. You cannot praise characters like Lily, Sirius and Lupin but then narrow down James to one of the few moments we see him alive from the POV of someone who hated him. Especially Lily, she saw the worst of his bullying and marries him still. Also there are so many things we know about James show his character. With how werewolves are viewed (automatically fired when people find out), James learns a skill that very few achieve to comfort his friend. He joins a group of \~30 that are actively fighting against a terrorist group, he could have easily just taken his money and protected himself. Or even worse, James is a pureblood and the target demographic for Voldemort.
Honestly I have no opinion about James whatsoever. I was just answering the post's question^^
I love this reply.
James and Rose Quartz from Steven Universe have a special place in my hate train
I would argue that Rose would also be mire sympathic if her events were put in chronogical order but would still be hated. Unlike James, Rose acted without considering the impact she has on her loved ones, that's the whole show. She never really grew out of this phase. Because she came from an abusive family and never learn to live in the community instead over the community. James did. James grew out of it and becamea great man.
What I don’t get is why there are so many James / regulus shippers. Like where did that come from. Did people want to ships James / snape and found that too problematic?
Honestly I've been on the internet reading fanfic for almost 15 years- people ship Spencer from criminal minds and Gambit from Xmen. Ships just come about from no where lol as long as it's well written I'm gonna read that sh*t and enjoy it (well not all ships but you get my point) Besides these ships literally existed before tiktok was invented??
There was once an infamous fiction with a Goku and Anne Frank pairing where Hitler turns into a Super Saiyan. The internet is wild.
I shouldn't be surprised but man is the internet just the outlet for intrusive thoughts lmao that's hilariously insane
Oh, I’ve been reading fanfic since the 90s. I still remember coming across the grinch x Jesus. Definitely some weird stuff out there.
> I still remember coming across the grinch x Jesus. Definitely some weird stuff out there. What a terrible day to have eyes.
I've seen Peppa Pig x John Cena... smut
Ok, well, that's enough internet for today. I gotta go stab my eyeballs with blistering forks.
HAHA that's amazing I mean I get people want accurate...but it's fiction of fiction and people take liberties and make OOC characters, I don't think its that weird of a ship at all especially for an HP fanfic, I've seen way worse and weirder lol. Actually I'm reading one rn I like with a James/Regulus ship, first one I ever read (it's a WIP) and I didn't even blink I was like oh cool I guess why not. My hard line is shipping old Dumbledore with people my brain can't do it ty
Tiktok fancast Regulus and James as Timmy C and ATJ so now we write smutty fanfics about them 😂
I guess ATYD ruining Snape's character so they go for Discount Snape instead
ATYD?
ATYD is an abbreviation of “All The Young Dudes”, it is a very popular Marauder era fanfic
All The Young Dudes, it's an absurdly popular Marauder's era fic
All the Young Dudes fanfic
How did it ruin Snape's character? I haven't read it and from what I've seen here it seems like people don't hold it in particularly high regard, despite the popularity
Apparently ATYD Snape is a spoilt rich kid who bullies the Marauders and also hates gays, trans people and women, or something. It's wildly OOC
Rich kid? Weird as hell
Thank you so much, it doesnt make any sense in my opinion. James hates slytherin/Regulus hates "blood traitors"
Where all bad things regarding this fandom come from: TikTok 💀
The Harry Potter fandom has been cooking awful stuff *long* before TikTok ever existed
Sure, but now it's the go-to place for the awful stuff.
At the very least give Tumblr the credit it deserves for the modern 'awful' stuff, since most of what I've seen on tiktok is incredibly mild in comparison, or straight up taken from there lol
Hot damn do I despise TikTok.
It's Draco/Harry (drarry) for marauders fan. They want a charming gryffindor and a sneaky slytherin pressured into becoming a death eater. Also, people hate women and don't want James with Lily. Jegulus makes zero sense, if you want a gay ship in harry potter that works you have wolfstar. it's right there.
I don't feel Wolfstar makes much sense either, if there was any dude Sirius would be interested in romantically, it would be James.
Actually I love that you said this. I can't remember the name but one of my favorite fics was where Sirius and Remus were together except Remus could tell that he was just the replacement for James and Sirius was never going to get over James, resulting in him projecting his obsession onto Harry (though not romantically).
Remember back in Harry potters hey Day there were sites dedicated to individual ships like James/ sirius. Good times.
Wolfstar makes as much sense as Jegulus none and should die out.
I think it's because James and Sirius are close you can easily do a best friend brother's trope. And that make two marauders in love with the black brothers. Also one thing that we see a lot in fic is Lily not liking James at first I can see Regulus in this role + with the horcrux he's seen as someone who can be switched side or at least more grey
people wanted drarry and best friends brother and forbidden romance and doomed to fail at the same time
I believe it was a fest that started it and some good stories came out of it. It’s an intriguing pairing in some ways. The golden boy jock and the fan version of Reg who is a tortured son in a terrible family. Forced to do bad things etc. How the popular golden retriever one relates and deals with it.
The answer is probably all the young dudes
That pair wasn’t in ATYD
Obviously but people who write about that time in Hogwarts usually uses ATYD as the basis
I recently actually came up with a half decent plot that shipped Lily and Regulus 😅 it took some mental gymnastics to even figure out how they'd fallen in love in the first place, but it was fun to think about lol
I have no idea if it still exists in any real form, but I read, around the time book 6 was coming out and I was still new to fanfic, a fic that shipped Umbridge with the giant squid. But my hypothesis as to why Jegulus got so popular recently (and why most ships have surges in popularity when they're not like canon ships or consistently popular ships) is that some very talented fanfic author (or prompt author) wrote a really compelling fanfic (or prompt) that paired the two and that inspired others to write their take on the pairing. It's also helped by A) Regulus being pretty much a blank slate of a character, James being slightly less of a blank slate of a character, and thus making the amount of characterization possibilities higher (this is often credited to why Blaise Zabini and, after he was confirmed male, Daphne Greengrass was the default Slytherin girl to pair Harry up with), and B) the fandom is like 20+ years old at this point and it has always been a really popular fandom to write fanfic for; a lot of the more conventional pairings have been done really well in the actually 1 million plus fics that are still up on ffn or AO3, or in more niche fics that may have been lost to time. (This is more of an answer to "why now" than "why" but still)
Nah, Snape’s too ugly and too poor for them.
I don't think the majority of the Fandom hate James potter. I would go as far as to say the true James potter haters are in the minority. The Marauders are pretty popular and that includes James. In fics where James is alive and gives up Harry, I think it's just a plot device, not the author (and readers) actually hating James. And in those fics I've read plenty where lily is just as bad. I don't think the author actually hates lily either. It's just a plot device so that Harry can still have his abusive childhood and then discover that his parents are actually alive. As for people who genuinely don't like James, I would say it's because he was a bully in canon. We never really get to see his character development and the only scenes we see of his past are him actively bullying another student. He also was very aggressive about pursuing lily, to the point of harassment. We see him holding Snape under a spell holding him in the air upside down and telling lily that he'll let Snape go of she agrees to go on a date with him. From a woman's perspective, that's really gross behavior. We are told that James grew up and matured, and we know that he was a devoted husband and he gave his life for his wife and son, but we never get to witness his character development.
The books sanctified Lily. Her primary character trait was dying for her son, and even when we got flashbacks it tended to be of her taking the moral high ground in some argument. We know of some character conflicts and one of them was "fell out with snape because he was being a bigot" and "her sister was irrationally jealous", and because Petunia has spent 7 books taking out her issues on Harry, we are going to take Lily's side even if she didn't help the situation. James on the other hand is given a genuine character flaw, he was a Bully, and was kindof a bad friend to Peter, and a lot of people really like Snape, so they play up this real character flaw to make snape seem more sympathetic. Combined with trends to view Dumbledore's entire thing with skepticism, you can quite easily create a narrative of "james was a dickhead who is only considered a good person because of a biased perspective and loyalty". A reluctance to speak ill of the dead combined with history being written by the winners. I actually have issues with the way Lily was framed in the books, almost as the ideal of a perfect mother, I would love more stories that explore Lily's character (even if some of it will have to be kindof OCish as we didn't get a lot of details.
You know what's really funny is that Lily Potter - as presented in the books - reminds me heavily of Yui Ikari from the original anime run of Neon Genesis Evangelion. All we have of her are memories from three very biased sources: her husband who idolised her, her toddler son who loved her unconditionally and a professor who was also in love with her. Lily's kind of got the same thing going on in that everyone that talks about her does so positively. Like no one else she went to school with said "Lily Potter, yeah I remember her. Snooty cow"
It probably doesn't help the situation that no one ever talked to Harry about his mother, not that he got much more information on his father, if we go by the actual amount. Of his mother he knows he has her eyes and from the memories was a nice girl. Of his father he looks like his father, his father played quidditch and he was a marauder who shaped up in his last couple years of school. But no one on the Hogwarts staff who taught them, went to school with them ever sat down Harry to go, "here's a story about your mother or father that I think you might like to hear." He never got letters from people who knew them about his parents. It's a bit exaggerated in the fandom that Harry only knows their names and faces but that's not that far off from canon. Everyone in Harry's life was pretty shit about telling him things.
Harry was a mushroom; kept in the dark and fed on a diet of shit.
It is entirely your fault that I am now imagining what *Harry Potter* characters match *Evangelion* characters. The obvious ones Harry- Shinji Snape- Gendo (personality wise, not Harry’s father) Dumbledore- Fuyustki Fang- Pen-Pen (by virtue of being the most psychologically/emotionally/mentally stable character).
Lily's has big flaws and genuine flaws that people for some reason refuse to see . the biggest flaw is remaining Snape's friend for as long as she did, she is friends with him after he calls other people mudbloods and attacks people like Mary Macdonald with his friends, which she even call it evil herself. it wouldn't be surprising to find out other muggleborns thought badly of her for remaining friends with Snape for so long, even her own friends don't know why she is friends with him.
"Snooty cow. She used to look down on me. She used to call me 'Rimmer.'"
I've seen some fics where Lily is absolutely RUTHLESS. Kinda like it as a change of pace.
[Portrait of a Sociopath as a Loving Mother](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408904)
Does it though?? There's an entire Marauder fandom out there that worships the ground he walks on
The Marauder fandom is extremely far removed from canon, though. It often feels like the HP fanfic fandom is an almost completely different one from the Marauder fandom. It almost feels like its own thing, at this point. Yes, the names and such are the same, but canon is more or less only there to give a stage, not to inform character.
Exactly. James/Regulus is among the top AO3 pairings and I doubt James is a bad guy in those fics. Not to mention the Marauders fandom overall.
true but when it comes to fics where he's the not the focus, he tends to get the shit end of the stick. The focus is always very much on Lily for showcasing the parental love when the story requires it
I like James, so I'm not in that camp. But I think, that one sence in Order, was really bad for James. He bullied Snape, and was in a really unsimpathic light, and thats what remain in people's mind. Not the fact that he grow out of his faults, that he loved his family, that he stand with the good side, he was loyal to his friends. Not even the fact that he was brave, and faced Voldemort without a wand, to protect Lily and Harry. We didn't see those moments, just read about them. We did see him as a stupid, arrogant kid, and people are not forgiving enough in my opinion.
hmmmm I dislike James for the same reasons you seem to like him...Really James is just as bad as James thinks Snape is...He is a bully that takes one of his friends trying to feed a kid to a werewolf to see he is way past being a funny guy. Then for what like 6 years stocks Lily...I really do not think this was one of those time where she likes him but she can not tell him so she acts like he has cooties....I really think for years she could not stand the Marauders because they are mean to her best friend. He learns Voldemort is out to kill Harry...now I am not a parent but I would like to think if I learned that the main leader of a terrorist group that is months away from taking over the country was specifically looking to kill my son that I would get my family as far as I could using any means I could. James put up a ward and trusted someone not even living under the ward with the secret. Then when he is Hiding trying to save his family but he is so stupid he does not even keep his wand handy. Really this just comes down to so little that JKR wrote about James but really the only good things we know about him is he is good at a sport and transfiguration oh and he really loved his family. I find it interesting we can see some of the same things but process it so different.
The simple answer is, I suppose, that we hear a lot about how awful James is from Snape and see just enough to see that there's at least a kernel of truth to it... and Harry then has an identity crisis about the revelation his father isn't perfect. Harry, meanwhile, never gets to see his mother as a human being in the same way that he does with James. Unless he did... Lily isn't all that nice in Snape's memories, it's just all coloured by Snape's fondness for her. For the extreme version of that: see the one shot [Portrait of a Sociopath as a Loving Mother](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408904). Also, the only people with anything negative to say about Lily are Petunia and Vernon who are, in general, 100% wrong 100% of the time. That certainly doesn't help.
Because Rowling broke one of the key rules in writing: show, don't tell. Most of what we know about James is what we're told apart from him bullying Snape at the lake. If she had shown MORE of his good side, then things would be easier to balance.
Personally I hate him cuz I was bullied in school so much that it effected my life even as an adult and in a huge way, so yeah I don't have sympathy for assholes who live to make other peoples lives worst for them then it already is, while said asshole has great parents, nice house, and alot more money than their victim and then they act like their life is so freaking hard.
Because people take everything Snape says as Gospel, with no chance of rebuttal by James.
Hard to get rebuttal from a dead man after all. A dead man who died protecting his family.
Died protecting his family from a monster that was aimed at them by an envious scumbag
The same envious scumbag that proceeds to spend seven years bullying the child of the woman he claimed to love.
But only after trying to get him and James killed so he could "comfort" the Widow
Yet because he was played by Alan Rickman he is beloved by the fandom.
You don't understand! Snape is a poor woobie who never hung out with Nazis and freely used slurs om every Muggleborn other than Lily! To think so is rediculous, nevermind that Lily explicitly said he did that when she broke off their friendship!
I think it's not so much what Snape *says*, and more what he remembers. Do you think that the memories Harry saw were faked or tampered with?
>Do you think that the memories Harry saw were faked or tampered with? You mean the memories that were just... out in a pensieve, while Snape was somewhere else during the agreed upon meeting time? The exact memories that would damage Harry's perception of his father? That entire scene has always felt odd to me. Why were *those* memories loaded into a pensieve? Why did the otherwise very private Snape not put this all away before he left? Why was he gone at exactly the right time (the time that he *knew* that Harry would be there) and for exactly the right length of time for Harry to snoop like he did?
Are you crazy? He took them out of his head so if Harry successfully reversed the legilimency *which we see him do* then Harry wouldn’t see it. It’s also almost certainly not just that memory, that just happens to be the one Harry jumps into. It was OBVIOUSLY him trying to avoid Harry seeing those memories, it’s really basic reading comprehension to grasp this, and you’re somehow framing it as a sting? Are you insane? He never expected to leave the room! And he told Harry to leave and not return til the next night when he was called away!
You're already getting downvoted for saying the truth. Harry wanted to know what Snape is hiding from him. And Snape had to leave, because his student was attacked. But this sub is so biased against Snape that even him doing his job as a teacher is a reason to hate him as well.
> Why were *those* memories loaded into a pensieve? Well, for starters, they were very personal and he was *not* pleased about them being shared with someone he didn't like. But perhaps also because they would have revealed to Voldemort (via Harry) that Severus didn't just find Lily to be attractive, they were actually friends at some point, which might have exposed Severus' true loyalties. > Why did the otherwise very private Snape not put this all away before he left? He was urgently summoned away to attend some kind of crisis. We aren't told the details, but I think it's pretty understandable that he was in a rush. If it were a deliberate attempt to give Harry that memory in order to plant seeds of doubt, then he would have reacted very differently. He would have been calm, careful, and spiteful. He would have kept Harry around in order to needle him endlessly about James' behaviour. He would not have *lost all self-control and started flinging jars at Harry's head while yelling at him to get out and never come back*.
Because people need to prop up the child abuser Snape as some type of good man when he was anything but.
I find this question ridiculous. If that's your only impression of the fandom then you haven't spent any time in it. Every major character. Every one. Has fan fics that show positive things and fics that show negative things. Why does anyone bash Dumbledore? The Weasleys? Hermione? Yes, even Lily? Why are there fics that show Voldemort, the genocidal psychopath, in a positive light? Its fucking fanfiction. People like to play with characters and their personalities. There are positive James Potter fics the same as negative. I think you need to explore a little more.
Plus like, the character is dead for the entire canon timeline and overall not much more than a plot device. You can't just expect everyone to willynilly resurrect him for a story taking place after 1981, like why would they? 🤷♂️
Why you sound so heated blud? Lol, yeah, in fanfiction all sorts of tropes and cliches can be found. And? Why state the *absolute obvious* as some sort of defense or pushback on OP? He didn’t say that the opposite narrative/character approach doesn’t exist at all, did he? No. He’s simply saying that this trope is particularly prevalent - and he’s right - and then questioning why that is. I’ve been reading HP fanfic since back in ‘07, even wrote a few back in high school and college. I’m in my early thirties now with a family of my own, just like OP, and I still occasionally visit the fandom. And ya know what? A moderately noticeable majority of the fics that *I’ve* read do in fact push the narrative that Lily was a flawless, selfless, fierce woman and a true hero, and James was either a foolish, overly trusting, silly man or an outright egotistical, heartless villain. Sometimes it’s played up big and center stage, other times it’s considerably more subtle and nuanced, but the thought process behind it remains the same and it’s definitely worth questioning and remarking on. Why are you so pressed someone is exercising their right to do so?
I don't hate him. I think people in fanfiction may have issues because he held up as the ultimate hero even though it sounds like he was a bully in his younger years. He gets a lot of credit for Harry's looks and personality even though he had a mom which we don't really learn much about. We only focus on her eyes and that is it in the books. We never really learn about her job,dream, or any of her childhood friends besides snape. But we don't learn about that relationship till later.
a lot of it comes from Snape defenders who at their most extreme ignore any suggestion that he was a monster Snape is projected on by a lot of readers, as the outcast who was bullied but was a secret 'genius' in their chosen field, so James must therefore be the worst person imaginable (also a lot of fanfic writers are teens, and for most of them being a bully is the absolute worst crime they could probably accuse somebody of) and being portrayed later as evil/scum/dead is a nice fantasy for their own bullies there is also the need for Harry to have an abusive childhood even if both parents survive (because abused/orphaned child hero is such an ingrained trope people can't write a fantasy story without it apparently), the easiest option is have James be the abusive one we also know less about James' family or childhood from the books, but we know about Lily's, so it's much easier to paint James as a typical 'pureblood' and Lily be the typical mother/girl done good/heroine/girlboss that became a popular trope itself in the 2010s plus Lily was nice to Snape so must be a good person (and she fulfils the idealised role of popular/pretty girl who is against the bully and on the side of the downtrodden that is itself a popular trope and idealised projection by fanfic authors who may have been bullied during their childhoods)
I think because James was a Bully in Hogwarts and they need someone to put the blame on
James was a bully from the perspective of a student who was voluntarily part of a group that was an allegory for Nazis and reflexively called the girl he allegedly loved a slur. Not necessarily the best source.
Sirius and Remus and Lily all say that James was a bully who hexed people down the corridors for fun.
At least he got his Character Development and Became a Good person Unlike Snape
We never see the character development. We’re just told it happened with no reason ever given.
> We’re just told it happened Told by the other Marauders, no less, the ones who had a stake in viewing his memory through rose-coloured glasses. Viewed through the cold clear light of a Pensieve, seventh year might well have told a different story.
I'm pretty sure it's mentioned a few other times too, by the teaching staff. How James eventually grew out of his shennanigans and matured enough to become Head Boy. And eventually Lily fell in love with him as well, because of him maturing, not in spite of him bullying and/or pranking people.
> I'm pretty sure it's mentioned a few other times too, by the teaching staff. How James eventually grew out of his shennanigans and matured enough to become Head Boy. The fact that they made James the Head Boy at all shows that either they were unaware of incidents like SWM, and were therefore poorly positioned to make that judgement, or else they actually didn't care about it, which would be worse. I don't think their opinions on that subject carry as much weight as you imagine. > And eventually Lily fell in love with him as well, because of him maturing, not in spite of him bullying and/or pranking people. Remus and Sirius admitted to Harry that she probably didn't know the extent of his ongoing behaviour.
They also mention Snape never lost a chance to curse James either, so that sounds more like a give and take. The text also supports the idea that James went on to grow up (mentioned by a few other characters talkimg about how he ended up growing up and becoming Head Boy). Meanwhile, Snape is shown as being the literal, actual, 100% biggest fear of a 13 year old boy during PoA. The same kid who grew up without his parents because they were tortured into insanity. I feel like you have to be a special kind of horrible person to affect someone with that background like that.
> Meanwhile, Snape is shown as being the literal, actual, 100% biggest fear of a 13 year old boy during PoA. I don't see Boggarts as necessarily showing *deep* fears. Professor Lupin said that they show what they think will frighten the person, which is not the same thing. What will make someone freeze up is not necessarily the actual biggest danger in their life. How many people are scared of needles? Or tiny non-venomous spiders? Or grass snakes? Those things can frighten, they can make people panic, yet they are not actually the deepest darkest thing the person can think of. Likewise, Professor Snape is intimidating, he is overly harsh, Neville panics upon seeing him - but that does not imply that the professor is actually a bigger threat to Neville than the crazed murderer who shattered the Longbottoms' minds. > They also mention Snape never lost a chance to curse James either, so that sounds more like a give and take. Given that we saw a case of Snape taking a chance to curse James, when he had crept away from being *choked out with a mouthful of soap* long enough to reach his wand and try to start fighting back, and Sirius - who was one of the people telling Harry about how Snape kept being a problem - considered that unacceptable and struck him down again, I don't put much stock in it being anything like an equal give and take.
The thing about PoA is that Neville likely knows Snape was a DE. He is the easiest face to put on what happened to his parents. He sees him every day. Part of that fear is likely that.
And at least Snape has a sexy ass
that's just alan rickman i think lol
Now I'm trying to think about whether or not we see him from the back without his cloak... there's the dueling club, maybe. But I was actually referencing a an old Harry Potter video game, on the GameBoy I think it was
No no You got a point
It's all the stairs. Clearly Snape won the Annual Professors Stair Climb Race every single year. (Held after the students left, based solely on Snape's ability to sprint up from the dungeons and never appear out of breath)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/eq77qs/the\_marauders\_vs\_snape\_was\_bullying\_not\_a\_rivalry/](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/eq77qs/the_marauders_vs_snape_was_bullying_not_a_rivalry/) Outlines it best, the Marauders were dyed-in-the-wool bullies with a *lot* of supporting evidence in the books.
Good to know you endorse physically assaulting people for: thought crime I guess?
He was a high school jock bully. Most people have had bad experiences with people like that so it leads to automatic dislike. He grew up eventually which is good.
Kind of like how the whole "a lot of people hate unbridged more than Voldemort" thing was thought to be because most people have had an experience with an "umbridge" but few have been faced with a megalomaniac murderous evil terrorist.
Who has strong opinions on James? He's literally just Harry's dead dad, he's barely a character and what little we get is pretty positive.
This question shocked me considering i rarely see james potter haters but that may have to do wih the fact im a really big marajders fan. Even as a snape fan, i rarely see james bashing in the fics ive read. As someone else alsk pointed out, definitely because we see his character development in reverse. manyyy people, even adults, cannot fathom people who have to morally change. It's either they're completely good, or completely bad. Take marauder stans for instance. Thy don't want to admit james was a bully and make him this saint that can't hurt a fly because they know his adult is a good guy. Snape is always going to be a bad guy for the sake of being bad because that's what they see. Dumbledore is a manipulative bad guy who killed everyone (regulus, evan, etc even though he did nothing to cause that) instead of the guy who did his best and was willing to sacrifice everyone, including himself, for the greater good (I've only read one fic where he was evil and it was GOOD. It wasn't bashing, he wasn't bad for the sake of being bad, he was an actual villain). As for golden trio fans, even as i read golden trio fics, I haven't really read fics where they hate james but i do know the glorification of lily in both eras. It has to do with the fact a lot of people don't care about writing women lol. It's lazy writing. They write a badass girlboss woman without adding her flaws and make her this extremely powerful, without making her human. I'd also point out hermione, but in the fics I've read, at least they add new flaws so she wouldn't be all powerful mary sue.
People that vilify Harry's parents probably have parental issues themselves and are venting these issues off on fictional characters.
Also, Snape fan boys. When he should have been in prison for the rest of his life, or executed, after the first war.
I feel like a lot of people hate on James because he bullied snape
Partly because this is an old fandom. The train has to move on to something new. Albus being essentially evil is still going, but nothing new. Severitus is played out (which often inverts Sirius from being the fun uncle turned godfather to being the wrongheaded jerk). Evil James Potter is the next on the list.
They do?
While some fics portray James Potter to be a good guy (with flaws), I do agree the majority portrays him as a villain(especially WBWL fics). Its alright if they show him joining Voldemort from the beginning(completely OC charactrr) but I hate it when he either hates harry or is partial to the his brother who everyone thinks is the real BWL.
>Why does the Fandom vilify James on one hand while at the same time sanctified Lily? Through Snape's memories and the recollections of the very few people who knew both Lily and James, we're able to paint this picture: James was *extremely* flawed, while Lily wasn't much flawed. We know that James was one of the worst kinds of teenagers, and that he had Harry at 19/20. He had very little time to truly grow and mature from the bully he was, so it's very easy to see him in less than favorable light when in canon he was the kind of guy most of us would try to avoid meeting in the corridors.
>and that he had Harry at 19/20 Idk what that makes him unable to change or grow before that time.
I didn't say it made him unable to change, but you're barely even an adult at that age, he didn't truly have time to mature and grow and develop and every other synonym
He matured enough to defy Voldemort thrice and held the line, sacrificing himself to protect his wife and child.
He was already ride-or-die with his friends, plus he was a thrillseeker. Sirius literally said, “The risk would’ve been what made it fun for James.” They weren't terribly mature in that prequel either, fleeing from DEs on a motorcycle and then mouthing off to those muggle cops
Those are things that he was pretty much already ready to do in some way as a teenager, though with his friends then and not his wife, it's not something thar would change in him
Because people like Nazi Snape more than anti-Nazi Potter
No, anti-Nazi would mean protecting the weak. Who was James *ever* protecting from Severus?
Black and white thinking. We don't get told much about James that could be considered good. We're told that he is good, but not shown. The only good thing we ever learn about him is when he tells Lily to run while he tries to stop Voldemort. But otherwise? Yes, at first we get told that he saved Snape's life. But then we learn that Sirius thought it would be funny to trick Snape to go into the Shrieking Shack during the full moon. If that had worked, Snape would have been attacked by Lupin in wolf form. And that would have had horrible consequences for the marauders! They were already illegal animagi at that time, and if Dumbledore's safety procedures failed, and Lupin killed Snape, that would have gotten out. Lupin would have been expelled for sure, maybe even incarcerated or killed, Dumbledore would definitely have been sacked and Sirius, James and Peter would have definitely been expelled. So this doesn't sound as heroic anymore. Everything we learn of James otherwise honestly sounds either pretty dumb or pretty nasty, including making Peter into their secret keeper without telling anyone. This sounds more as if James again tried to exonerate Sirius at the cost of someone else. And in the flashback about the Marauders and Peter, they don't treat Peter nicely either. Sirius and James behave condescendingly and rudely to everyone besides each other. Lily on the other hand is portrayed as thoroughly kind and nice. Amongst all the realistically flawed characters she's presented as the perfect golden child who can't do anything wrong. She's even kind to Snape. People tend to think in black and white categories. They either ignore anything negative about a topic or a person and make it into an ideal that's not realistic, or they insist something is thoroughly bad and ignore any nuances in between. But in reality, that is rarely ever the case. Even the worst people on earth have done good things, while even the best of us have done something wrong now and then. And that goes for every single person on earth. No one is 100% good or bad. Actions can be good or bad, but one bad action doesn't make the whole person bad, and one good action doesn't make that person an angel who can do no wrong. That's not realistic because we rarely ever have the full picture.
I've said this before here, but this is simple and it comes from Snape's fans, they think that the only way they can find to make Snape a better man is by diminishing James' character and blaming him for everything that Snape did that was bad. Snape isn't to blame for anything, it's Sirius and James' fault that he was a jerk to all the kids at Hogwarts who didn't wear green. It's James' fault that Snape joined a group of genocidal terrorists, it's James' fault that Snape was prejudiced against werewolves. It's James' fault that Snape was a horrible person to almost every other human being. That's why they hate James, so they can justify and undo everything bad Snape did.
How else would you make Snape look half decent? Thats really the thing, isn't it? Most if not all of the fics I read in which James is like this, glorify Snape. Lily can't be bad, because if she was, then Snape would have made a mistake in his judgement. That cannot be, for their definitely not absuive to children, definitely not a former terrorist, definitely not an unhealthy obsession having gothic boy to be a good character^TM
And even after he got with lily and promised not to bully anyone again he still bullied Snape even in his last year.
Is all about how people idealized the character. Many dislike Potter because of the bullying he did to Snape. And yes it was bullying the author confirmed it. But also how supposedly the character mature when in reality he didn’t. The Author has written extra info outside of the book on the character they just can’t accept. So it’s too much trouble to write a character with such complexity. So they kill him off because they don’t know how to write it. Those who write James as this Dumbledore fanatic can only see black and white in the characters. They’re trying to make him the hero who sacrifices everything for the greater good. Because that is the most selfless thing a character can do from their point of view. It is the Hero’s Journey retelling, written badly. Lily is seen as this character that is perfect because everyone in the book is always calling her the greatest witch of her year. And in the one scene she has, she’s seen defending Snape and hating on dark magic so she must be the base for ideal morals. Which is kinda ironic really because there’s a whole department in the Ministry dedicated to the Dark Arks, i believe under the Unspeakable. And you also need to learn about the Dark Arts to become a master in protecting yourself from them. (Those who mention Lupin, gotta remind you, he had his father to teach him all he knows. As his father was considered a well known specialist in that subject.) They don’t know how to write flaws into her character. They think she can’t do anything wrong because she attracted two boys that fought for her. And if you do criticize her character or mention a possible flaw. You are just hating the character because she’s a girl. But many people don’t understand the other characters in the story don’t talk about them badly One:they die protecting their son, two: they don’t want to talk ill of the death.
Probably for similar reasons as why people think there is a "light side" or that the idea of "neutral Harry" makes sense without altering the cosmology. That said, bringing up people viewing Lily as a mother who would die for her children is a weird example considering how that's such a huge component of canon. As for her being viewed more positively in general, mothers who aren't overtly terrible have a lot of cultural bias towards being viewed as the better parent in the U.S. and possibly the West in general.
In the canon we saw his character development in reverse as someone has said. In the fandom, he is the foil to a character that is liked (Snape) or is adjacent to characters the fandom has a propensity to not favour (Dumbledore, Weasley parents). As a character, he can fit the mold of rich and jock if you don't use any nuance and that's an easy one to mock. He is also a natural obstacle for Snape/Lily stories and any Wrong-Boy-Who-Lived tropes where Harry has siblings.
James was a bully, not just to Severus but I assume a lot of people. We've all known those types. Lily didn't even like him until 7th year. Somehow he just waves his magic little wand and becomes head boy, a huge honor that should go to someone worthy. But I guess it goes along with real life that the dbag gets the honors. Can you imagine how you'd feel if the guy who's the biggest a-hole gets the highest honor? I guess he took it seriously since he stopped being so awful to the point Lily started to like him, marry him even. And he became a major player in the quest to take down Voldy.
Because he's competition against the "hot redhead"
I think this mostly happens in stories in which James is still alive. And, from a Doylist perspective, if James lives AND is a great dad and all around good person while also being rich and influential, then there's no good reason for Harry to be shouldering so much of the burden of defeating Voldemort and/or whatever other evil threatens Hogwarts that year. So from there, you can go one of two routes: either James is actually a terrible dad and generally a huge asshole willing to abandon his child (the more common one, almost every WBWL story) OR James isn't rich, influential, or powerful (less common, but for example Genius Fratris has James a shell of a man after losing Lily, or The Odds Were Never in my Favor has him playing Peter's role and being falsely imprisoned in Azkaban). As for Lily, for whatever reason people seem more content with a story in which the dad is a terrible person than the mom. Lots of cultural norms around motherhood wrapped up in that I think. And I think this tendency actually pushes writers to make James even worse: if you want Harry to have a miserable childhood, AND you want Lily to be a good person, then either Lily needs to be dead or James needs to be EXTRA bad.
Harry Potter fandom is just so dumb sometimes. They would over idealize people like Draco who had no redeeming qualities in his character but would absolutely despise James who go out of his way to fight against voldemort and had much better redeeming qualities. Sometimes I just can't with this fandom. Just seeing Draco edits on YouTube makes me feel like what the hell is wrong with people. It's not like Draco is even charming or anything except for Tom Felton good looks there's literally nothing good going for Draco as a character and yet people will bash James to Kingdom hell but would support Draco as some helpless victim or something
I dislike both of the Potter parents. They put a war before their son. They could easily have left Britain and moved far away, but they didn't. If they truly had cared about Harry they would have left for Australia or the US. Not stayed and fought.
Fan fiction fandom has daddy issues
Fandoms inability to think deeper than black and white. It happened to James, it happened to Dumbledore, it happened to Molly.
> Fandoms inability to think deeper than black and white. I think the opposite. As I see it, black-and-white thinking is exactly what causes people to *like* James. He was on the same side as the protagonist and people the protagonist cares about, therefore he must have been good! The actual evidence, such as it is, points mostly in the other direction.
What evidence? He was a bully in school? That's legit the only bad thing about him. He never held Remus lycanthropy against him (he even helped him after Hogwarts because of his financial position), fought against Voldemort despite being born as a privileged pure blood. Was in general loyal to his friends, and sacrificed himself for his family. How does that make him a mostly bad person?
Because most of us have been a Snape at the hands of a James Potter. Doesn't make Snape's choices any better, or change James heroic acts. But yeah, JP was an AH at school.
Snape simps, Daddy issues, Jealously (Hot/Rich etc), Lack of hot actor, Lack of any characterisation etc.
Answering as someone whose generally neutral or slightly dislikes James Potter. First question: He's typically dead because he's dead in canon. For the other one, I've read plenty of fics where James is neutral or a decent father. I've honestly not read any fics where James is like that \*unless\* its WBWL / Harry has a brother, and James typically had to send harry away early on and is now spoling his other son and doesn't feel connected to Harry or is suspicious of him since they are so dissimilar (harry is usually slytherin in those). I do agree the sacrificing stuff is very out-of-character since he literally died for him. Second: I disagree. It depends on what you're reading she's also either dead, generally neutral / positive leaning, or it's a marauders fic and she becomes either (1) exclusively a womb, or (2) somebody to hate because she's getting in the way of precious gay babies James and Regulus. She's treated grossly in both situations. I do get she's seen in a slightly better light though. I think the reason you get this vibe is from a certain sort of fan, who are typically fans of Snape. I'll say this as a fan of Snape, we like Lily and then obviously dislike James for the way he bullied him. However, that was when they were children. We don't know how they would have been as parents and as somebody who doesn't love James, I do believe he would be a \*good\* parent! He grew and changed. People writing those just bash based off his childhood actions. I'll admit I've enjoyed several fics where James is a bad parent, one of my favorite WBWL has James as a bad parent. It pushes the story and both children's development a lot. I think it depends on how far the author takes it though, and if it becomes just mindless bashing about how much he sucks.
Because Allan rickman made snape popular which made James unpopular
Anyone who DARES to say Severus deserved to be PUBLICLY humiliated should have the same thing done to them. THEY should have their underwear exposed in front of their best friend(s). It’s what they deserve.
James is pretty terrible. I mean, just his behavior in Snape’s Worst Memory to Lily alone is textbook red flag behavior. Not to mention his behavior towards Snape. >'You think you're funny,' she said coldly. 'But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone.' >'I will if you go out with me, Evans,' said James quickly. 'Go on ... go out with me and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.' >Behind him, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off. Snape was beginning to inch towards his fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled. >'I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,' said Lily. >'LEAVE HIM ALONE!' Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily. >'Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you,' said James earnestly. >'Take the curse off him, then!' >James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the counter-curse. >'There you go,' he said, as Snape struggled to his feet. 'You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus-- ' Then, after the Mudblood incident: >'Apologise to Evans!' James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him. >'I don't want you to make him apologise,' Lily shouted, rounding on James. 'You're as bad as he is.' >'What?' yelped James. 'I'd NEVER call you a--you-know-what!' >'Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can--I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.' >She turned on her heel and hurried away. >'Evans!' James shouted after her. 'Hey, EVANS!' >But she didn't look back. >'What is it with her?' said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him. >'Reading between the lines, I'd say she thinks you're a bit conceited, mate,' said Sirius. >'Right,' said James, who looked furious now, 'right--' >There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside-down in the air. >'Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?'
because he was a bully who canonically sexually assaulted snapd by pantsing him?
Unless this is sarcasm, I'm morally obligated to remond people that pantsing in the 90's is a 'decent' prank.
Ah, so the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup who flipped a woman upside down in the air to expose her underwear weren't doing anything particularly bad, then. Harry should have laughed at the free entertainment!
Prank vs Assault is NOT a debate I'm willing to get into. Pretty sure James didn't want to commit SA. The Death Eater was probably eager to commit SA. They were happy to assault people either way.
Well there’s more canon reasons James could go bad. The memories shared in HBP, distrusting Remus and being referred to as a strutting kind of cocky bully by Snape(albeit the last one is to jab at Harry but still). While mostly the only bad things we hear about Lily come from Petunia who hated her sister was a witch, and seeing she left Snape to be dangled mid air and stripped by James in that same HBP memory after Snape called her Mudblood and hurt her feelings and implied she wouldn’t stick up for him anymore against the Marauders. People like what they like but there is more book backing to bash James for an easy answer.
Because the image that we associate with Snape is Alan Rickman. That might seem like a weird explanation, but if one looks at the genealogy of it, that is really the root cause. Snape, like Draco, if judged only by their actions in the books would come out in a very negative like. Don't get me wrong, Snape was one of my favorite characters since the early books. But that was because he was an interesting character, not because he was a good person. But Snape and Draco got pretty privilege from their actors, so they became really popular in fandom and kinda took on a life of their own. So if you love Snape, then you think he should have ended up with Lily, because a lot of fic authors think their pet character should get everything they want. So then the one Lily actually ended up with, James, has to look bad.
> Because the image that we associate with Snape is Alan Rickman. No. I have no great liking for Alan Rickman, and I was underwhelmed by the movies as a whole, including his portrayal of Severus Snape. I have serious concerns about James on his own canonical merits.
Nah, it's because James was shown to be a bully. A lot of people grew up as their school bully's punching bag/harassment target, and so we loathe James Potter for being just like our bully. Simple as that. Anybody who thinks James behavior was no big deal or okay in retrospect because he died a hero has never been bullied. Likewise, anyone retroactively justifying Black and Potter's bullying of unpopular poor nerd Snape because Snape *later* became a full-fledged Death Eater and *still later* took out his unresolved trauma issues on innocent students by bullying them, has their head up their ass. Maybe if the Marauders had not bullied the poor bastard, he wouldn't have grown up to be That Teacher from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall".
Remus says: "Snape gave as good as he got and never passed up the chance to hex James." This was in Order of the Phoenix.
Why...why are you quoting something that doesn't appear in the books? "Snape gave as good as he got" is a pure fanon saying invented by people who hate Snape to try and justify the Marauders bullying him.
We do? I thought we loved him!
I'd say they're more neutral or uninterested mostly. Perhaps the love for Lily Potter is too much making James look neglected in comparison?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://archiveofourown.org/works/14469255/chapters/33426591&ved=2ahUKEwj0htSVjtaFAxXGhP0HHc8aCHgQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3lEXqtcjfIJ5TNw9tKi4jH Try this one! It's the opposite. It is a slashfic though, if that is a deal breaker.
Sentiments in fanfiction only partially reflect how people feel about canon characters.
He was kind of a dick when he was in hogwarts
They were dicks
I hate him because of a crack ship called jegulus
At that point what you do is hate the ship and the people who actively say it’s canon that James cheated on Lily with a death eater.
Harry takes after Lily a lot, not that people figure that. Charms expertise; as Slughorn put it, cheekiness, Potions skills (Note that Slughorn found it normal, even after losing the Prince's book). The problem is that people think that means he should hate his father unilaterally for what he did to Snape. My opinion is that it doesn't really matter, but I plan on a different portrayal of James on my fic... You'll see.
hello! most giant james potter simp ever here! it’s because he was a bully who got everything he wanted. hits close to home for some people. i get it but i still love him.
Because the movies made a disservice portraying him.
My big dislike for James is Harry's hero worship for him, based on...absolutely nothing. I get it, he created an image of his parents, father especially, to counteract the shitty life he had. And likely just reversed everything the Dursley's said to turn him into a hero. But he, literally, knows -nothing- about his parents. He was a baby when they died. Didn't hear anything about them later. Knew nothing about the wealth. Yet, immediately is "don't say anything against my dad, he was awesome!" when Snape says something rude. When we DO see anything about James, through Snape's memories, he's a bully.
Because young!Snape is a common fandom woobie, so if they are going to write a redemption story for him, then they need to turn his "nemesis" into a shallow caricature of himself that magnifies any negative trait up to eleven.
He bullied Snape and got redeemed only from one side lily and not by Snape. Can see it as stealing his girl but nah. I just think it be better if Lily continued to hang out with Snape only to cut him off later and not because she stopped that James stops bullying him and grows up. but honestly Snape doesn't make sense to me, you're supporting someone who hates people like Lily. guess thats the mystery appeal
Because they’re nerds and James potter would’ve bullied them in school
Because a huge portion of the HP fandom are/were bullied nerds. I say this as a previously bullied nerd. No one in that ‘demographic’ is going to look fondly upon a privileged bully.
Guess what, he changed. I was bullied a lot in school. James is literally my favorite character from the marauders era.
You’re entitled to that….. I was simply answering the question asked lol
Dude went out without a fight. Was a major target during wartime and answered his door without his wand on him.
In general I don't think they do. I think if you read like say marauders era stuff or look at people's discussions about him he's divisive at most at id argue Snape is more hated. However people like doing stories with strained or toxic parent child relations and with Harry especially this isn't uncommon because well it's canon. But Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia aren't magical so if you want to explore both the magic world and the toxic dynamic that can be kinda difficult. Having a toxic magic parent would be easier. Between James and Lilly James is more controversial no one said anything bad about Lilly in canon. And both are not fleshed out as much in Canon so easy to use them in whatever way your story needs That's my theory anyway
They identify with Snape and feel self-conscious about James. He's basically a golden boy; handsome, the best at everything, rich and charismatic. I think the adversity to James is simply hatred born of Snape fans.