Tanuki wrote:Now tell me, with everything else we know about James... and the things we learned about him after the scene. Why did one chapter make so many people hate him? Were you expecting perfection? He's only human for pete's sake
I think completely turning on James after seeing one side of the story--completely turning on anyone knowing half the story--is really unfair. I think it does show James to be human...none of them (the Marauders or Snape) are really deserving of hero-worship...and no one is perfect. That's not an excuse, just a mere fact that we are all capable of good and evil. That being said...
We saw SNAPE'S worst memory...not James' worst memory or Sirius's worst memory. Since it was Snape's, naturually, we were going to see a time when Snape was truly humiliated and what he thought of that, maybe colored somewhat by his feelings of humilation at the time. I'm not at all saying it was at all right or that I enjoyed reading about that side of James, but at the same time, I expected it to be bad...it was Snape's worst memory after all. For all we know, Snape's BEST memory is the same situation...only with Snape humiliating James...or someone else. The point is, we just don't know...that's the first time we've seen "first-hand" (so to speak) Harry's parents and their friends at school, and we're not even sure the memory was entirely objective.
I'm not saying two wrongs make a right or that Snape deserved bullying, but like I said, we saw one perspective and that perspective was coming from a person who considered that a bad memory, thereby giving it an subjective slant. Not doubting it happened, but recognizing it could appeared worse than it was, and if nothing else, we're missing a lot of information surrounding that event (what had happened before and after that event). For all we know, Snape jinxed James a week before humilating in front of the Slytherins. What we saw was one episode between the five of them during seven years at Hogwarts...I have to agree with Tanuki in regards to it being extreme to go from idolizing James to hating him based on one one-sided episode. In a similar vein, it would be like assuming there isn't anything good about Snape or assuming he deserved all the abuse he got. I really doubt it's that clean-cut...life rarely is.
There's more to this story, and frankly, I find it makes for more interesting characters. After all, from what has been written thus far, we know James had to undergo a serious transformation in the two years after that episode to go on to be Head Boy AND marry Lily. Didn't Dumbledore say it is our choices, rather than our abilities, that make us who we are? I like Snape as a character because he's fascinating, and I even feel some pity towards him because it's obvious he's had a hard life (I'm guessing the man shouting at the woman was his father shouting at his mother, which had to be awful), however, he's in his 30s and choosing to take out his bitterness on a child, while related to an old enemy, didn't come to Hogwarts to do anything to Snape. Sirius and James are obviously not perfect, but then again, neither is Snape...and of course, when we got to see them all together, they were all at that lovely and truly kind-hearted age of fifteen...
shock. horror. 
