Hi Anon.

Your viewpoint is a little reductive in my opinion. Firstly James did have to put effort into several things. From becoming an Animagus, to his grades, to being a member of his Quiditch team there are things James has done which would have required effort. And his self-improvement would also have taken some effort on his part. Realising that your behaviour was wrong, not running from that realisation and trying to stop that behaviour is far easier said than done.

But it’s undeniable that James was privileged compared to Snape. He grew up in a financially secure and very loving home. His parents doted on him. And he was very socially competent and handsome.

Then there’s where your characterisation of Snape hits a snag. He did grow up poor. And his home life was troubled at the very least. But talentless doesn’t apply to Snape at all. By all accounts he was comparable to James in terms of raw talent. The kid experimenting with and improving potions on the syllabus for next year isn’t lacking in talent. Nor would talentless describe someone who created their own spells.

But circling back to the spirit of your question I do believe that Snape cuts a more sympathetic figure than James. And part of it is that Snape as a young man is an underdog. While James most definitely is not.

But the most major factor is the amount of time spent on each character in my opinion. Snape features in several scenes every book. James as a living breathing character has three across the entire series. For all of his significance to the plot James pulls less focus than anyone but the most minor of side characters. And that lack of attention in the narrative makes it harder to sympathise with him. He’s pretty well defined under the circumstances but James simply cannot be as fleshed out as Snape with such little focus.

I mean I like James a fair bit. But he is playing disadvantage here. And to be sympathetic with more fans he would have needed considerably more focus in the series.

Here is the text from OOTP:

'How come she married him?' Harry asked miserably. 'She hated him!'

'Nah, she didn't,' said Sirius.

'She started going out with him in seventh year,' said Lupin.

'Once James had deflated his head a bit,' said Sirius.

'And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,' said Lupin.

'Even Snape?' said Harry.

'Well,' said Lupin slowly, 'Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?'

'And my mum was OK with that?'

'She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth,' said Sirius. 'I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?'

Sirius frowned at Harry, who was still looking unconvinced.

'Look,' he said, 'your father was the best friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it.'

'Yeah, OK,' said Harry heavily. 'I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape.'

According to his friends, first they told Harry that James had quit hexing other people for fun, that he had deflated his head, and cited that as proof why Lily decided to date him.

But then when Harry asks, “Even Snape?”

Lupin responds with, “Well, Snape was a special case,” which means no, he didn’t quit hexing Snape. Then proceeds to state that James hexed Snape because Snape cursed him first. And then adds the qualifier that Lily never knew about those little fights because James never told her.

Several things in this exchange seem like excuses, especially because it’s never stated how Lupin and Sirius know what went on between James and Snape. The reader doesn’t know if they were witnesses or were told what occurred by their best friend. Nowhere does Lupin or Sirius say that they SAW Snape curse James first.

Without that it’s basically hearsay. So not hard evidence.

The fact that Lily was kept out of the loop is rather damning, because if James was acting in self-defense then why cover it up?

Secondly, if you consider that the source of these statements are a dead man’s best friends, then you also need to consider that friends are not impartial witnesses for anything. Friends will lie in order to make their friends look good. Or they will exaggerate a friend’s good qualities and downplay their flaws. It’s why you cannot use a friend as a reference for a job.

So with an unreliable source you cannot have hard evidence that James really grew up. That is his friends’ opinion. Who were also defensive as they participated in bullying their classmate, which they admit to but also downplay their impact upon the kid who they victimized.

If you like James and his friends, then you the reader can choose to believe their opinions of him. If you don’t care for James and his friends, then you can choose to say that their opinion is biased and not actual facts.

Since James is dead when the story opens, and there are no scenes written where you see if Lupin was telling the truth about Snape cursing James first, or no scenes where James expresses regret or remorse for his bullying, which would be a clear sign of maturity, then whether or not James really grew up is left to the reader’s interpretation.

Strangely enough there’s some ambiguity here.

For the history JKR wrote for James Potter places him at sixteen at the time of Snape’s Worst Memory. As James was born on the 27th of March 1960 according to Pottermore. He attended Hogwarts from 1971–1978 placing the end of his fifth year when he would have had his OWL’s around May in 1976 (since JKR’s school year at Hogwarts is meant to coincide with British school terms, holidays and exams).

But when Harry confronts Remus Lupin And Sirius Black on the subject of the Memory things are quite different. As once Harry finished explaining we got this quote:

Then Lupin said quietly, “I wouldn’t like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen-”

“I’m fifteen!” said Harry heatedly.

The emphasis is mine.

Personally I tend to believe the continuity error was on JKR’s part not just Remus forgetting how old James would have been at the time. And back James being fifteen at the time as Harry’s father being sixteen can only be worked out with Word of God information.

NO. Know you why? BECAUSE he is barely a character, he is a background figure, a shadow, a memory. No such exists as ''adult'' James. He died at the age of 21 and we know almost nothing about him. And what we know about him is not very appealing - not for me, (sorry James/Marauders fans). We saw him mainly via the eyes of his bros, or his orphaned son who refused to believe that his daddy may have been an a-hole. As I have said countless times I have a certain level of respect for him (unlike Wolfie he never left his family), but also was rather brawny than brainy, wasn’t he? On the other hand we could get to know Severus through 7 books, so such a comparison (Who was a better man?) is at least unfair.

he bullied him for first 6 years, with not known intensity. We can assume that SWM was the worst of it -> fifth year.

It was probably way, way lighter in first years like mocking, name-calling or tripping him. Generally laughing at his expense and some more or less damaging pranks.

It must have been becoming more frequent and then more less-fun and more-humiliating if they could do what they did in SWM without batting an eye - these kind of ‘fun’ is no much better than wanna-be-DE choice of entertainment.

Which we can guess [degrading muggle born, no murder or torture this is I think for DE real ones] .

After that fifth year, it started to gradually decrease, maybe some maturity got into his head or just shame unconsciously. Don’t read me wrong, he must have, somewhere deep, know it was wrong and maybe just start backing out because of it. He was human after all, not so damaged morally as Sirius, he had loving parents and his morals would twinge at him, maybe through summer he finally got it thanks to Lily’s words? She called him behaving just as bad as Severus using slur to her, which he considered extremely bad.

IT would trigger his conscious from sleeping and he might start backing out. Then, seeing as Lily is more kind to him thanks to this change, he started on to stop completely his pranks, also vicious one toward Snape specially planned. Stayed only mutual hexing without superior motive to humiliate another. Something rivals do - they only becomes this in 7th year, I don’t agree with people saying otherwise.

Shame it did so late.

James was already 16 years old. NOT 15.

See, how biased Remus and Sirius were?? Do we believe that they didn't know how old their so called best friend was at the time? Or, the "he was only 16" excuse would have sounded too pathetic when Harry questioned them about James, considering that wizards are adults at the age of 17?

Exactly that is why I hate when Marauders sympathizers scream and desperately try to prove “But, he changed!!” He changed so much within ONE goddamn year that he suddenly was perfect for Lily and worthy to become a Head Boy.

Did he continue to take part in the werewolf wanderings even after he was appointed a Head Boy? I guess, some actual law breaking should be overlooked …

We don’t know how long they bullied him for, but we know that before they even got to Hogwarts, James and Sirius picked on Sev and gave him an insulting nickname they were still using five years later, so Rowling seems to be implying continuity.

Then there’s the issue of timing. Rowling says James and Sirius bullied Sev “relentlessly”, and Remus and Sirius speak of many occasions when Remus made them feel bad about how they were treating Snape, and many more on which he wishes he had, so we know there were multiple incidents.

In the SWM scene, James speaks of attacking Sev as something which will liven Sirius up, showing that it’s an established pattern. But at the same time, Sev isn’t looking out for them, even though he must have been reminded of them, because he’s just answered a question about a werewolf.

This suggests to me that they had actually left him alone for long enough that he had started to feel safe. That in turn pushes the werewolf incident back towards early in 5th year (although no earlier than Sirius’s 16th birthday on 2nd November). Probably the shock of having nearly killed him or some punishment Sirius received for it, had put them off for a bit.

So we then have the werewolf incident fairly early in 5th year. But if Sirius tried to kill a classmate *without* having a long history of seeing that classmate as subhuman, that would mean that he was truly a homicidal maniac who might kill anyone at any time, which I don’t feel is Rowlng’s intention.

So, I’d say it’s a fair bet that Sirius had been bullying and dehumanising Sev at least since the middle of 4th year, leading up to the attempted murder early in 5th year.

I'm going to assume that for this hypothetical, James lived past the age of 21 and we are not talking about a reanimated corpse.

So here we go:

It was a brisk, fall day as James Potter walked the cobblestone road down to the cemetery, holding a bouquet of sunflowers he had magically transfiguration from a bundle of weeds that Harry had picked from the garden. His energetic little five-year-old was perched on his godfathers shoulders, chattering away to Sirius.

“…and I'm gonna tell Mommy that I started nursery school and that you and daddy and Uncle Moony are gonna take me trick-or-treating and that I'm gonna be a dragon and-”

“Slow down there, Junior,” Sirius laughed, “Save it all for Mommy.”

James managed a small smile as he reached for the gate to lead them to the cemetery where his beloved wife was put to rest four years before. Sirius reached up to take Harry off of his shoulders, tickling the little boy as he did. Harry’s laughter managed to lift James’s dull mood and once again, made him thankful that he hadn’t lost his little boy in the same attack that had claimed his wife.

He looked ahead as Sirius and Harry played and stopped cold.

There, standing at the grave of Lily Potter, was a thin, hook-nosed man with stringy black hair. James would recognize him anywhere.

Severus Snape.

The last time James saw Snape was at Lily’s funeral. Snape had tried to show up after the funeral service, but James had lingered behind, receiving condolences from what seemed to be every soul in the Wizarding World. He had been shaking Aberforth Dumbledore’s hand when Snape had apparated onto the street. He took in the amount of people still lingering by the gravesite and then quickly disapparated. Aberforth had expressed his surprise that Snape would show his face here when it was he who passed on the prophecy that had caused Voldemort to attack the Potters on Halloween night of 1981.

James felt white-hot anger course through him as he laid eyes on the man who had set the most evil wizard of the century on James’s small son. Though Voldemort was somehow defeated by little Harry, who escaped the Killing curse with just a cut on his forehead, Lily had perished in attack, sacrificing herself for their son. In James’s mind, Snape as good as killed Lily.

“Sirius,” James barked softly, catching the attention of his best friend with his abrupt and cold tone, “Take Harry home.”

Sirius followed James’s gaze and saw Snape kneel down at Lily’s headstone. He gripped Harry tighter.

“James-”

“Go,” James ordered, drawing his wand from his pocket, “Take Harry and go.”

“James, think of Harry. He needs you-”

“I am thinking of Harry,” James said tersely, “Now take him home, Padfoot. This fight is mine.”

He started forward and was relieved when he heard a faint ‘pop’ as Sirius apparated away with Harry. His pace quickened and he fired his first spell.

“Expelliarmus!”

Snape reacted swiftly and dodged the spell, rolling to his feet and drawing his wand on James.

“Potter,” he snarled, glaring.

“Some nerve you have coming here, Snape!” James snapped back, “You got her killed!”

“I got her killed?” Snape questioned, the snarl still on his face, “You let her die!”

“Stupefy!” James shouted, using the same curse that Voldemort had used to stun him the night Lily died. Snape blocked the curse with a shield charm and then wordlessly sent a jet of red light back at James, which James deflected into a nearby headstone, which shattered on impact.

Snape then sent another curse at James, but James recognized the slashing movement and dove out of the way of Snape’s signature move, sectumsempra, a spell James had been on the receiving end of in his seventh year when he started dating Lily. James fired back with a non-verbal diffindo, which was close enough to slice Snape’s black robes.

“Reducto!” Snape shouted back, exploding the headstone that James had taken refuge behind. Bits of stone and dust pelted James, but through the haze, he saw a jet of purple light and dove to his left, narrowly avoiding the curse. Suddenly he had an idea and shot curse after curse at the headstones and the ground, creating a cloud of dust, blinding Snape. Then, James focused on his animagi form.

The great stag stormed through the cloud of dust. Snape wasn’t expecting it and though he tried to dive out of the way, Prongs’s antlers caught Snape’s leg, impaling it. Snape pointed his wand at Prongs and the invisible sword of sectumsempra sliced near the base of the antler, splattering blood as the antler was cleaved from Prongs’s head. The stag galloped into the settling dust cloud and then transformed back into James, who staggered as he clutched his head where there was a deep gash spilling blood onto his robes and the ground.

The dust began to settle. James was on his knees, clutching his head, while Snape was on the ground with an antler sticking out of his thigh. And yet both men still had their wands trained on each other, both men fighting for Lily Potter.

“You…you told Voldemort…” James panted, “You set him on us!”

“You didn’t protect her!” Snape shouted back, “You let her die!”

They fired their spells at the same time.

But neither hit their target.

Both spells had been deflected by the white-haired wizard now standing between them.

“P-Professor,” James stammered.

“Headmaster,” Snape managed to get out.

“Mr Black contacted me,” Dumbledore explained, “It seems that he was correctly concerned that the two of you would fight to the death.”

“Headmaster, I was attacked-”

“He killed my wife!” James cut across Snape.

“That is enough,” Dumbledore boomed with authority, “Come.”

He levitated both James and Snape and had them follow him into the church. Once there, he let both men down and then used a patronus to send a message. Then he used healing spells on both Snape and James to staunch the bleeding of their wounds. He was barely finished when Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts matron, apparated into the church with a large bag tucked under her arm. She focused first on Snape, magically removing the antler and then mending his leg. Then she focused on James. While she was able to stop the bleeding, she was not able to heal the gash on his head.

“It will leave a scar, I’m afraid,” she fussed.

“I’ll match my son,” James muttered, hatefully eyeing up Snape.

“That will be all, Poppy,” Dumbledore dismissed her, “Thank you.”

“Now,” he said, turning back to the young men before him, “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

—

Sorry for the “Dumbledore ex machina” to the duel, but in this scenario, both live. We need a spy, Snape, and Harry needs a dad, James. I suppose if both Harry and Lily died in Voldemort’s attack, both men would duel to kill, though in that scenario, I would wager James would win given he would have more motivation to kill as he would have less to lose.

James was an attractive Gryffindor who suffered less from any real deficits and more from his sheer number of strengths. He was smart, brave, headstrong, talented, faithful to his friends, and, above all, he was capable of growth and change. All he needed was just a soupçon of humility.

Snape, in addition to having called Lily a racial slur (a bit of a turn off), was also socially incompetent, physically unimpressive, politically fascistic and absolutely lacking in charm. It didn’t help that he experimented with dark magic in his off-hours and made no real effort to woo her at all.

When you make an enemy of aesthetic, you become a stranger to desire.

Snape went over to the dark side. He grew to hate muggles and mudbloods and was quite a prodigy when it came to the dark arts.

James, on the other hand, was the opposite in nature. Not taking himself too seriously and being an adorable ass, it works (or at least my friends and partners have been kind enough to tell me so)

Lily did like Snape as a friend, but was never attracted to him. One plausible reason being, the stories and rumors surrounding the residence of Snape's at Spinner's End. Lily and Petunia knew that Snape's home wasn't a particularly peaceful one and that it eventually trickled down to Snape's persona.

Mmmmmmmm … … … , whatttt????

Snape was many things, EXCEPT two: coward and talentless. This is what even his enemies and rivals admit and go (or get sent) to him to get help (Sirius says he was more accomplished than seniors at Hogwartz when he just arrived - which, with hard work or not - isn't something a talentless child could do, and we see Dumbledore ask him to brew wolsbane potion for Remus, teach Harry Occlumency and sends him to spy on Voldemort, etc. Dear Quoran, a spy CAN'T be less than *extremely* talented!!!). Let alone the fact that he was the The Half Blood Prince. Let alone how the duel that happened between three (at least two of which highly accomplished) professors and him. He didn't want to hurt any of them, they wanted him KILLED. None of them could touch him. Of course one may say he fled … but … what exactly should've he done? Stayed and fought them to where? To when? Why??? To get them injured or killed or to get killed eventually?

Or perhaps by the word “talent" you just meant being a handsome popular rich Griffindore who consistently got away with all the bullying he did around the school, and could flirt a claimed-to-be noble girl with such high moral standards (!!!) and successfully got her in the end. If so, I just can't agree with you more. Now we can go on and see what other Quorans write to answer this question.

This question was a bad idea. All you'll manage to do is annoy James's defenders and to give an opportunity to the James' haters to vomit hatred. After reading your answer, I understood your intention, but it's useless. James' haters are the type to use arguments like "if you don't agree with me, you're in denial!". You can't argue with them. Especially those with the toxic and dangerous mentality that victims never get revenge. According to their crappy logic, rape victims who resist and take revenge are not in fact victims.

Unfortunately, the evidence that says James got better is left up to readers to interpret. So those who assume the worst of James may decide that he remained the same asshole until his death. Seriously, these questions bore me more and more. I don't know how you haters manage to thrive in all this negativity.

If I may offer some advice: ignore the James' haters. Block them or mute them if you want. It will be better for your mental health.

Eddit: I apologize to any Snape fans who might feel targeted by my response. I make a distinction between haters (who caricaturize the object of their hatred) and those who dislike a character but don't feel the need to see them in the worst possible light.

She didn’t, not really. The end of her friendship with Snape and the inception of her romantic relationship with James occurred two years apart and had very little to do with one another. She didn’t end that friendship because she liked James better; she couldn’t stand James at that point, but more importantly, she ended it because Snape called her a slur after she spent years defending his fascination with the Dark Arts/Voldemort’s followers and her choice to remain friends with him to her other friends. She didn’t start dating James to spite Snape; she started dating him because, presumably, she liked who he was with his ego a bit more in check.

Interestingly enough I actually wrote a series where this happened. Voldemort was defeated by both of them plus Sirius and Remus and Regulus and Lily. It’s called Irresistible Chemistry. They don’t start out as friends at all but things change and they gradually become friends. James becomes an Auror along with Sirius, Remus a teacher and Severus is a Light spy and teacher along with Lily and Reg. The three were spies before they left school on Dumbledore’s orders. And they all work together to bring down Voldemort.

And Harry does get born along with a daughter for Severus, Sirius also has a daughter, and Reg a son. Then a new prophecy unfolds for them at the books end with a new villain or villains for the new generation to fight.

Unlike many people I don't think that jealousy over Lily was a big factor for Severus, at least as an adult. This is just in the imaginations of some teenage fans who have watched too much Twilight and for whom everything has to be about sex. Snape never even contacted Lily after she ended the friendship and later has no problem with calling her “Lily Potter”. He also still despises Sirius even though he has never dated Lily.

I believe that it's mostly because of the “relentless bullying” James and Sirius subjected him to. He was a poor and abused child who wanted to find a home at Hogwarts but he just went from one nightmare to another. We see that the bullying was exceptionally cruel and designed to make him feel helpless and worthless and even included a potential sexual assault in front of dozens of other students. They even gave him a demeaning and dehumanising nickname (Snivellus). So Severus has every right to hate their guts even 20 years later.

So i repeat that I don't believe that Lily had much to do with it.

He starts verbally mocking and jibing him on the train, from a socially and physically stronger position. He gives him a derogatory nickname, Snivellus, which is similar to “sniveling” and linguistically connects him to emotion and weakness. He and his friend are too wealthy, pureblood aristocrats from rich families; Snape is a poor half- blood kid who is best friends with a girl. So immediately James has the advantage, and he uses it, not to awkwardly offer friendship in a mildly entitled way, a la Draco, but immediately to degrade, to demean, to control.

Would you find that charming?

Later, he saves Severus only to continue persecuting him. It is deeply upsetting to be indebted to a person who hurts you - gives them an edge morally as well as socially, which would hurt worse for an ethically sensitive person such as Snape who ultimately rises to great heroism. Of course, saving someone from a harm which your own illegal, dangerous activities made a likely risk isn’t very heroic, but with everyone including James making him cover up that part of the situation, it would still be miserable and confusing. His own experience of victimization was forgotten or even portrayed as something he should have been thankful for. If my friend’s best friend risked your life recklessly, say by keeping you in proximity to a wild raging horse, and then saved you at the last minute and guilted you about the need to feel grateful about this, would you be happy about this? Or conflicted and upset?

I suspect the latter.

Later, James continues persecuting him only he ups the ante. The next scene we see of them, he strips his pants (a minor sexual assault), forcibly chokes him (a form of torture), and continues to verbally demean and humiliate him. When he tries to fight back, he tells him he is in the wrong for cursing, even though that didn’t hurt anybody. The message is that anything he does to defend himself is somehow wrong - while any action of James’, even if it does hurt him quite badly, or even risk injury and death for Snape (as does the choking - which could lead to respiratory arrest, and James is trying to stop the one person offering aid in this scene) - it is acceptable.

So they are essentially treating him as subhuman, and denying him any and all chance fo redress, even through the most minor form such as by cursing at this awful behavior. From Snape’s perspective, what exactly is there to like?

Yet when put to the test, he still tries to save him; and eventually dedicated his life to saving the man’s son, and even gave it.

Huh.

Maybe he didn’t hate him so much.

Maybe he hated the way he was treated, and how it was allowed to continue.

Apparently even greasy half-blood Princes who fall in with the wrong crowd (sound familiar?) have feelings, which need and deserve to be respected.

Imagine that.