Why James Potter and Severus Snape Are Not rivals?
Agree with @nightherald. How could James Potter and Severus Snape be rivals when it was 4 against 1?
Their dynamic wasn’t like how Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were. In the case of those two, they are like rivals because things are more equal between them.
For instance, they each have two sidekicks / friends. Harry has Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger while Draco has Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe.
James Potter has Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. But what about Snape? Who does he have? No one.
We saw in the Snape’s Worst Memory scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, book 5 of the HP series by J.K. Rowling, how he was alone when he was attacked by the Marauders.
No one came to his rescue. They all just watched him get humiliated and hurt.
Lily Evans eventually showed up, but she basically ignored him in favor of spending all that time talking to James. I talk more about this issue here and here.
Most of the time, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew probably didn’t do much more than watch Snape get bullied as we’ve seen in the Snape’s Worst Memory scene.
However, even if Lupin and Peter didn’t get involved, James and Snape still can’t be considered rivals because this is still 2 against 1.
We’ve seen how Severus wasn’t really able to defend himself against the onslaught of James and Sirius’ attacks.
He tries and he manages to injure Potter a bit, but he’s still at a disadvantage. And he’s still the one who ends up in a humiliating position.
Severus was outnumbered and outmatched in that scene. To top it off, he hadn’t even done anything to the Marauders before this happened. He was minding his own business when he was attacked.
In this case, he’s really more like Harry Potter since Draco Malfoy is usually the instigator of their fights. Draco is usually the one who approaches Harry to start a fight with him.
This is similar to how Sirius and James were the ones who started attacking Snape without provocation.
Both Harry and Draco can hold their own against each other since they have their friends to support and help them.
But, while James has his friends by his side, Severus has no one. So his relationship with the Marauders is really more like the bully and the bullied or victim.
What do you all think about this? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below.
Pic sources:
- Lily and Snape pic is by KarlaFrazetty (CC:BY-ND) via deviantArt
- The rest of the pics are from Amazon.com; links shown above
The marauders obviously did some fucked up things to Snape, but can I remind everyone that <i>canonically</i>, James and Severus were <i>rivals</i>. Not just a bully and his victim, as far too many people seem to think.
No, canonically, they were bully and victim. I can list some sources and I will:
When Lily asked why he won’t leave Snape alone in SWM, instead of exonerating himself, he replies, “It’s because he exists, if you know what I mean.”.
Lupin referred to it as “relentless bullying” after SWM.
In The Prince’s Tale, James, in a overt reference to Draco’s words, starts bullying Snape because he expressed enthusiasm for Slytherin.
There are more, but I’ll let you read the books again and find them for yourself, because you need to refresh your memory.
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Originally published on potter-plotholes.tumblr.com.
