I do NOT own Harry Potter and it's characters. This is just an opinion based book.
As I said in my introduction, I'm covering arguments against James Potter are not true or not necessarily true. Seriously, he's barely even a character, but some people make him out to worse than even Vodlemort and Umbridge.
To be clear: I am NOT trying to paint James as a saint. I know he's not a saint and he had his faults. And I don't deny that he was jerk and a bully and wrong in Snape's Worst Memory. I'm just debunking wrongful arguments against him which are misinterpretations or assumptions.
Another thing: Yes, some of these arguments can be canon compliant, but in the case of those, I'm arguing why they're not NECESSARILY canon (since some people argue they're definitely canon).
Here are the arguments that I'll be debunking in this book:
- He was putting on an act with Lily the whole time (He's only pretending to be good)
- He didn't change - He continued bullying Snape behind Lily's back and lied to her
- He was horrible to Vernon and Petunia/ he broke up Lily's family/ he boasted about his wealth to Vernon/ he's the reason the Dursleys treated Harry horribly
- He hexed/pranked muggle cops/ he baited muggle cops/ he used magic in front of muggle cops
- He wanted to abandon his family to go out for excursions with his cloak
- He's very likely to potentially cheat on Lily
- He's a potential wife-beater/domestic abuser
- He doesn't care about what Lily wants.
- He didn't really change/ there's no evidence that he changed/ people don't change that quickly/ there's no evidence that he's a good person
- I can't interpret James as being bad and still remain canon compliant
- He's prejudiced against poor people/ ugly people and muggles
- He only bullied Snape because Snape was a nerdy, poor working class boy and because he was jealous of Snape's relationship with Lily
- He stalked/harassed and tried to force Lily to go out with him
- He's just like/ worse then/ more cruel than Draco Malfoy and Dudley Dursley/ Dumbledore compares him to Draco/ Rowling draws a parallel between him and Dudley
- He was so arrogant that he thought he could defeat Voldemort wandless/ he chose Sirius/Peter out of cockiness and he caused his family's death
- He was horrible towards Peter and caused Peter to betray him
- He only cared about fame/attention and would have used Harry for his fame if he lived
- He stalked Snape with the Marauders Map and Invisibility Cloak to attack him
- He was only friends with Remus and Peter because they were his dorm-mates and he didn't really care about them/ he mistrusted and abandoned Remus.
- He only saved Snape from the werewolf to save his own skin.
- He stole Lily from Snape
- Other stupid petty arguments
