#flaws in HP

[15hopes]

headcanon james potter has one sided and unspoken (except hissed in midnight conferences on either james or sirius’ bed under cover of muffliato) beef with remus after wolfstar gets together bc no one is good enough for his best friend… even his other best friend

“prongs he’s my boyfriend and frankly he is wonderful please respect our relationship”

“i JUST THINK that if he wants to date you he should be more aware of how incredibly lucky he is. you’re sirius bloody black does he KNOW that?? does he worship you enough?? never mind. i know the answer. he can’t worship you enough.”

“jamie, you were in full support of this union a week ago.”

“i just need him to be aware of how incredible you are. is he aware?”

because even though james loves remus- and he absolutely does! he would kill and die for him! -he did NOT anticipate how jealous he would be of anyone else taking sirius’ attention. or how much disdain he would inherently carry, try as he might, for anyone who didn’t understand sirius on that same molecular level. and remus doesn’t- sirius and remus love each other, are attracted to each other, match in a hundred ways. but they aren’t made from the same cloth the way james and sirius are. he’s protective of sirius- he’s been through a lot, and the mere prospect of someone being in a position where they could hurt him more is maddening. it feels like losing control- and james needs to keep his people safe. it was different with all the girls- sirius was playing them. he was never gone the way he’s gone with remus. he was still james’.

remus has no clue that any of this is happening until james asks sirius who he would save in a fire in a tone just too desperate to be joking.

peter, on the other hand, knows everything, as Lily’s been tutoring him in potions and hearing James’ jealous rants for weeks.

[moonagedaydreamsofrhiannon]

MARAUDERS FANS LET JAMES POTTER BE A LITTLE BIT OF A CUNT PLEASE

[acorviart]

"[x media] you're obsessed with is terrible and flawed and" blah blah BLAH i do not control how the worms steer my brain. the hump of compelling mediocrity finds an easy victim in me every time

[achingless]

Ah, I feel so morally good. My childhood friend is being sexually harassed and humiliated in front of the entire school. But you know what? It's kinda funny. And he said a very bad word to me in the middle of everything. And we've been drifting apart, anyway. So I'll leave and I won't help. And when the sexual harassment evolves to sexual assault, I still won't go back to help. And when I hear about it tomorrow from the entire school gossiping and tittering and pointing at the boy, I won't do anything. And when he comes to apologise for calling me a bad word, I won't forgive him. Because it wasn't right. Because he's being groomed into joining a malevolent cult. And when his bully comes to tell me he's changed, well, I'll date him. Because he's not being groomed into a cult. I'm so morally good.

/s.

Lilly Evans. The moral compass, everybody.

[castlenjoyer]

um. here he is . my guy . obsessed with him

[fafodill]

The books positioning several of the Gryffindors as inherently morally superior when they’re just morally lucky has always been an under-discussed part of the narrative.

Yep.

I would have loved seeing other gryffindors DE apart from Peter. Or from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. That's where jkr writing is overly simplistic - which is okay for the first books but as it grew darker, nuances would have been appreciated. This being said, there's a lot to say about gryffindors characters with the Maraudeurs generation. You just have to read the text:

James was not a blood supremacist but a huge bully with no excuses for his actions.

Sirius 'rebelled' against his family but as he came from a very fucked up one, exhibited cruelty and a very concerning moral compass ('I'm gonna 'prank' this guy I don't like and possibly get him maimed or killed - using my werewolf friend as a weapon') and refused to take any responsibilities for anything even 15 years later.

Remus didn't step up against his friends - when he clearly disapproved of their behavior - in fear of loosing them.

Peter was deeply power hungry, to the point of switching side and getting his friends murdered.

Lily chose to downplay James's horrendous actions against her childhood friend because she liked him.

... I mean, I don't see a lot of bravery there.

They were in the House we're told is the one of the good guys but if we really read the text, it's really not that clear, is it?

[pangaeaseas]

I do like how Harry and cho's breakup is basically caused by something they have in common, that might have otherwise been a commonality: they are both intensely loyal to their friends, over points of principle--like if Ron or Hermione had been in the same situation as Marietta, I think harry would have backed them, and backed them up to others. So while we've actually seen them displaying plenty of incompatibilities that likely meant the relaitonship wouldn't have lasted anyway, when they break up Cho and Harry are displaying one of the traits they have in common coming into conflict. Loyalty is something harry can admire in a person--until it conflicts with his own deeply held loyalties. Of course I also think that while JKR frames Harry as being in the right, I don't think he is at all--Cho is defending Marietta's morally dubious action, and Harry is doing the exact same thing for a morally dubious action of Hermione's. So the loyalties coming into conflict works for me but I have to read a little outside the canon since I don't think Hermione was totally justified in hexing Marietta, and thus Harry isn't totally justified in supporting her. which is more interesting than him just being right!

[chilledcitrus]

Honestly when it comes to the Slytherin’s, Rowling told and told but she rarely showed.

We are supposed to believe that Snape is the awful biased teacher who plays favorites but in practice, We see more evidence of McGonagall and Dumbledore being like that. Unlike Snape, they give unreasonable last minute points, private lessons and letting their favorite students get away with things. Dumbledore even chose to endanger multiple children o

We are supposed to see The Slytherin’s as spoiled, entitled and enabled. But we see more evidence of the Gryffindor’s being the actual spoiled, entitled and enabled ones. In fact, even the most hardcore fans can’t find any evidence of the Slytherin’s being enabled or entitled because we see them getting told off, neglected or denied more often.

We are supposed to believe that the Slytherin’s are the bad guys. But there’s nothing wrong they did that the good guys didn’t do first and in a much less sympathetic way. Even the prejudice, the Good guys did it first.

Agreed. JKR writes as if whatever gryffindor does, slytherin must have done it worse. But if she truly wanted to portray slytherins in a negative light, then she should’ve shown us more instead of simply telling us and expecting readers to agree. Not gonna lie, this type of writing works when the audience is made up of children, since they tend to believe whatever they’re told. But for adults, there’s a much wider range of perception. Sure, there are still many who agree with her portrayal, but there are also plenty who don’t and who aren’t just going to accept her word without actual evidence in canon.

It might be a bit controversial and I know that ideally teachers aren’t supposed to play favorites, but honestly in real life teachers do have favorites so I can accept it if some of Hogwarts teachers show bias. But when the headmaster starts doing it too, that’s where the real imbalance begins because he holds the highest authority in the school. There are plenty of moments when we see Dumbledore clearly favoring gryffindor and giving them more leeway. But aside from that, I do think he still had some sense of fairness, after all he did show a degree of care toward Draco and tried to understand his situation (though it came far too late imo).

But overall, to me, Dumbledore always came off as negligent not just toward slytherin, but toward the other students as well. The fact that he kept hiring incompetent teachers says a lot about how little he actually cared for the student's safety. And despite his supposed favoritism toward Harry, I feel like he neglected him too. The way he left Harry at the Dursleys without checking what kind of treatment he’d receive is quite frustrating. He also praises Harry for his loyalty and willingness to sacrifice himself but never truly supports him emotionally.

And yeah, the good guys did plenty of questionable things but somehow it’s always the slytherins who are made into scapegoats. A lot of people think Draco was the one who introduced prejudice in the books, but they forget that Hagrid was actually the first person that show us the prejudice. He's the one who teach Harry to be wary of slytherin. Hagrid’s bias likely came from resentment over Voldemort and the DEs who were mostly from slytherin but to extend that resentment to children who weren’t even involved in the war is just low.

[thebibutterflyao3]

Every character in a series doesn’t have to be attractive to be likable and not every character has to be likable to be attractive. Regular, average people exist and honestly they need more representation. 🙌

One thing that I admire about many Severus Snape fans is that they embrace his flaws, both physical and personal. He is drawn in fanart exactly as described in the books and is still appreciated by Snape fans.

I wonder how many Marauders fans could manage the same. So often, there is a tendency to rewrite the narrative to make our favorites (James or Remus, usually) into perfect models rather than ordinary, flawed characters that are far more relatable. There’s always room for imagination and creativity, of course, but there is unappreciated beauty in the average person too.

[leelarots]

I've been thinking about the concept of Ushas being imperfect/clumsy when doing science practicals (because all of the deca are kinda losers). And I have ample material on this, so I can project onto her:

Ushas is perfectionist—very much so. But the first time she ever does a titration, she misunderstands the tutor's instructions and does it sloppily. She's brash, very sure of herself, disregarding the fact that as you progress through a titration, you must slow down at the end to get maximum accuracy. When she finds this out, and the tutor says she has to redo it all, Ushas is humiliated, even though it isn't a harsh telling-off. She doesn't cry in front of the classmates—she never would do that—but leaves the classroom looking angry to cry in the bathroom.

I would like to think that Millennia is the only one to notice (in this case, I'd have to make them not lab partners. maybe Rallon snagged her in this case), and after Ushas comes back, she shows her how to do it, walking through every step carefully until Ushas calms down enough to be able to do the last one herself.

and yes. this is based on an experience I had, but my tutor helped me instead, and I did end up crying in front of the class because I'm not quite so stoic as Ushas is. it's chill, my tutor helped me.

[lines-in-limbo]

Lily is absolutely flirting in Snape’s Worst Memory - but I think this is one scene that has dated the series and is easily overlooked if the reader is not a Brit of a certain age. Lily and James are bantering in that scene in the way that Beatrice and Benedick do in Much Ado About Nothing or the way that Elizabeth and Darcy have crazy sexual tension while she’s telling him that she hates him and that he’s the last person on earth she’d ever marry.

People don’t see it now because James’ approach has so many red flags that are widely acknowledged as red flags in 2024 that they see Lily’s responses as genuine disgust and dislike, instead of her getting drawn into his game because she’s interested. But it was obvious in 2003 what JKR was going for here. The implication is that Snape lashes out at her *because* he sees her half smile and her flirtatiousness in this moment, and properly realises for the first time that his ‘best friend’ is totally into the guy tormenting him in front of half the school.

None of this is to say that Lily wasn’t a) completely right to terminate the friendship and b) wasn’t overall a very decent person. But she’s supposed to be a pretty shit friend here - put any one of the trio in Lily’s shoes and imagine their response to the same situation and it becomes clear that her half assed, rather impersonal defence was indeed intended to be half assed. Now of course this is directed by JKR needing to keep the connection between Snape and Lily secret until the very end, but she makes this work retrospectively from a characterisation perspective in the Prince’s Tale by depicting a Snape who is difficult to be friends with and who doesn’t recognise what true friendship *should* be because he’s never had it, and a humanised (not a saint) Lily who’s been quietly realigning herself away from her difficult friend for a very long time without making it crystal clear to him what she’s doing. It doesn’t make her bad, it makes her a very normal 15 year old pretty, popular girl with all the positive traits that entails (confidence, vivaciousness, fearlessness) as well as the negative (thoughtlessness, a lack of empathy towards those less socially adept).

Thank you for your message, anon. 

I understand where you’re coming from, and while some people interpret the scene as flirting or as "laying the groundwork for their eventual romance," especially when viewed through the lens of classical literature and 'enemies to lovers' tropes, I see it differently. For me, attraction doesn’t automatically equal flirting. I do recognize subtle cues in Lily’s behavior that suggest she might be physically attracted to James, and yes, there’s some tension, but I wouldn’t categorize that as flirting. To me, flirting is intentional—a deliberate way to say, "Hey, I’m interested in you; let’s date.” That’s not what’s happening here. While Lily may have had some attraction to James, her intention certainly wasn’t to express that to him, particularly because his bullying and arrogance were significant turn-offs. This is consistent with the fact that she only began dating James in their seventh year when he supposedly "deflated" his ego and stopped bullying others. She valued the growth she saw in him, which made him someone she could consider dating at that point. (Whether he genuinely matured is another discussion, but I won’t delve into that here.)

I don’t deny that Lily’s conflicting feelings toward James might have influenced her defense of Snape to some extent, but to call her defense completely “half-assed" because she was supposedly “flirting” with James seems like a stretch. (Honestly, I’m considering posting the whole scene because it feels like people may have forgotten what actually happened or have only skimmed it.)

From an external perspective, Lily’s defense might appear somewhat weak or insufficient, especially given the severity of the situation. However, it's crucial to understand that this perception does not fully capture the complexity of Lily’s internal experience. Lily’s primary goal was to stop the bullying by publicly insulting and embarrassing James. She’s clearly trying to de-escalate the situation by first shouting at them, and when that doesn’t work, she takes out her wand, ready to escalate things if necessary. While it may not have been the most forceful defense, it was still a defense, and it clearly demonstrated her disapproval of their behavior. Initially, it even seemed effective, as James did perform the countercurse to the full body-bind curse. However, after Snape called Lily a Mudblood, she left, and James and Sirius resumed bullying him.

From an internal perspective, in my view, the primary factor influencing Lily’s defense was the state of her deteriorating friendship with Snape. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts and reblogs, their friendship was strained, and she likely had conflicting feelings about him. As you pointed out, she was gradually distancing herself from him due to his behavior. After years of standing by Snape, excusing his actions, and pretending everything was fine, Lily likely felt frustrated and betrayed. She was torn between her past loyalty to him and her current disapproval, making it challenging for her to respond more forcefully. While I do wish she’d done more (and she certainly could have), her feelings are understandable given everything that had transpired between them.

Regarding the notion that Snape noticed any "flirting," I respectfully disagree. Snape didn’t lash out at Lily because he saw her "flirting" with James or noticed any subtle expression. His focus was on defending himself from Sirius and James. Additionally, he wouldn’t have seen her expression since his robes were hanging over his head while he was suspended upside down:

"James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants."

The more likely reason for his outburst was that he felt humiliated and emasculated by James, especially when James said, "Lucky Evans was here Snivellus —,” as he let Snape down. That likely exacerbated Snape’s embarrassment, leading him to lash out with, "I don’t need help from a filthy little Mudblood like her." It seems like he was trying to regain some dignity, and the slur slipped out in a moment of anger and shame.

All in all, you’re right—Lily isn’t a saint; no one is. And while I’m not eager to compliment JKR the TERF, I do think she did a good job of humanizing her characters. Lily isn’t as fleshed out compared to other minor characters like James, and I do wish we’d seen more of her flaws. That said, her response to the situation, while somewhat imperfect, reflects the complexities of her character, which makes her more relatable and human.

While we may not completely agree, I appreciate your interpretation and opinion, anon. Thank you for sharing your perspective. 💫

*As a side note, I want to clarify that I’m not trying to excuse Lily for not defending Snape more effectively; I’m simply trying to view the situation from her perspective, as I do with other characters when analyzing them. Additionally, I want to emphasize that I’m not hating on Snape. Some people have taken my posts and reblogs about Lily as an excuse to criticize Snape, but that’s not my intention at all. I clearly identify as a "Snape defender" in my bio. Just because I’m exploring Lily’s perspective in SWM doesn’t mean I don’t also understand Snape’s situation. I have other posts dedicated to him on my blog.

[lilywalkers]

“all we know about james potter—” gonna stop you right there bc actually !!! we know a lot from canon. whether you choose to use it or discard it is up to you, but we do actually know things about him (and the other marauders) !!!

[hypokeimena]

i'm so curious about if you would provide any more context and info about the hp fascism essay, it sounds fascinating

i've posted about it before but i don't really wanna talk about it in too much detail publicly before the essay goes up, bc the posts frequently circulate out of my immediate circle and like. given the everything about jkr i am not interested in people taking me out of context or like, telling me off for still posting about hp, or whatever. also i have a mental illness where i can't talk about stuff i'm working on in detail until it's done. and this is a very long-term project that i've been picking at for years at this point and which has been percolating for even longer.

long story short is that i have always been fascinated by hp fandom's inability to balance the very obvious what-if of harry sorting into slytherin with the also very obvious fact that slytherin is full of genocidal fascists. it doesn't so much have to do with what's in the books as it does what gets noticed, used, exaggerated, justified by fans, in order to have people coming up with the same "compromises" and "solutions" to the tensions in the series - me & my cowriter julia fromcollege are interested in how fandom creates "desire paths" to cover the shortest distance between canon and what fic writers care about, and those can be very consistent across a fandom (including in work by many fic authors who consider themselves thoughtful and progressive!) -- and many of those desire paths end up treading some pretty treacherous ground.

edit: also this is not academic work, which means it's been on the back burner! it's for fun. because. i do think this is fun. i like to be a hater for a good cause.

[sunnysaystuff]

going on anti posts specifically tagged anti posts to argue with op is sooo not cool . by the way

[fafodill]

have you ever imagined snape as a gen z? i always had this creeping wonder of what the dynamics would've been if the marauders' era was to be set as them being gen z 😭

Well I'm not in the Maraudeur fandom but... isn't this what they are doing with the fanon? (of course in their stories Severus is a rapist-stalker-nazi-eating-babies-monster)

To answer your question I've never tried to imagine him as a Gen Z because I wouldn't even be ABLE to. To me Gen Z is like looking at a foggy scenery: some parts I see and understand, other are super vague or too distant to me (because I'm a confused Millennial). But most importantly I can't because him being Gen Z would completely change his whole life so it wouldn't be the same character, y'know? Being born in 1960, living in the slums is part of his DNA. Same for all other Maraudeur-era characters.

[pangaeaseas]

one interesting thing i've noticed is that JKR's terminology changes a LOT over the course of the series as she does worldbuilding between the books. rn i'm thinking of the phrase 'Dark Side' which is in common parlance for the first four books to describe Voldemort's followers, from characters as diverse as Ron and Hagrid. It's also a phrase that launched a thousand 'Dark/Light magic is a real thing and Dark Magic is oppressed' fics despite being pretty clearly jettisoned after book 4. And why is it jettisoned? Well, the term 'Death Eaters' is introduced in book 4, as is the Dark Mark. There's even a helpful conversation where Harry gets the term Death Eater explained to him by Bill Weasley. So it seems like when JKR needed to develop Voldemort's followers more after having left them as vague background except for when plot-relevant for the first few books due to Voldemort's return, she also introduced a new term for them. Death Eaters takes over from Dark Side--it's also a much more specific term that refers to people who have the Dark Mark as opposed to just 'followers and sympathizers of Voldemort'. But it means that stuff like Ron talking about Lucius Malfoy having been on the Dark Side rather than being a Death Eater sounds strange on reread.