What are James Potter's flaws?
10.06.2025 04:09
Living through a civil war, watching people die around, witnessing how it affects his classmates and his best-friend personally, being adored and respected for his talent. All that created a complex :
James Potter had good reasons to not like most of Slytherin house.
Because James is also a teenager, and he has pride, like most people, he doesn’t like to be insulted or attacked.
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Of course the teachers keep giving him detentions, many many of them detentions and punishments, but how could the teachers really understand what’s happening on the ground? it’s not like those enemies are attacking them when the teachers are around, no, the enemies are stalking them and trying to harm his friend Remus, who never hurt or bullied anyone and just wants to have a school education, thank you very much.
So at least someone is doing something.
And it keeps escalating, and no one or nearly no one tells him off.
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And he goes too far, gets a kick out of showing off he is better than his enemy. At this point, the enemy is so loathed and loathsome, he has no empathy for him.
And that’s a feeling he learned on the playground of Hogwarts, to be the biggest bully and not be prey, but to be feared and respected…
Because you can understand James’ anger, not even the Weasley, the ones called the Blood Traitors for marrying muggles were ousted of the “Sacred 28”, and the underlying insult that it was: that The Potter family was lesser than the other magical family.
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So that’s for me James flaws: his lack of discernment as a teenager, letting his frustration and anger overcome his good heart and falling for the scapegoating trap, where you confuse righteousness with personal pride.
Because you can understand James’ dislike, James whose family is infamously pro muggle, with his grandfather Harry Potter, who stood up to the Minister of Magic during WWI, as he rejected the idea of letting civilians muggle die while watching and not intervening and James himself is 100% following those same ideals.
And you don’t need to be a direct witness to the war to be impacted and traumatized, it’s enough to know of what happened to people around you and it’s more than enough to live in the fear of being next, which all of the characters of the books talked about:
And suddenly all those feelings get mixed up in a terrible way, and you are sixteen and just want to get back at them and so to make them pay for real and perceived slights.
Frustration & Righteousness.
Those feelings of frustration are slowly snowballing into something more harmful: scapegoating.
And who do you think you are to call people that!
Because you can understand James’ frustration, James who was only loved and adored by his parents, and he had listen to Sirius talk about how his mother keep insulting him “blood traitor, shame of my blood, and so on about Voldemort’s purge and that’s terrifying”.
No one wants to be called a mudblood: are the Muggleborns suddenly turned into mud golems, beasts with no real human blood and thus undeserving of dignity?
And most people are cheering on to see those people pay too.
And if you feel entitled to call people that, why wouldn’t they be entitled to kick your ass?
well that’s most of bullying issues, their confusion of those two things : fear and respect.
“you left your home not knowing if you had find the dark mark above it and your family dead”.
No one is protesting against his ego, his judgment.
And so, there is the part of James hating the other kid for all those righteous reasons and there is another part of James hating the same kid for all those silly and childish reasons.
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And yes, James Potter’s actions are rooted in frustration against injustice and a feeling of righteousness, after all the people who call muggleborns “mudbloods” and use dark magic are the bad people… shouldn’t they be stopped?
And he is crushing hard on a girl, who doesn’t seem to reciprocate his feelings and is best friends with his enemy.
And most the students, don’t go after him, because maybe they don’t like what he does precisely, but they are not seeing the adults doing anything effective against the enemies, the ones calling them mudbloods.
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And then your enemies do the worst mistake imaginable : they paint themselves with the evil crowd, the evil side.
And still everyone, rightfully, see him as Quidditch Hero. He can bring joy to everyone, and take their mind off nightmares.
He is also immature, jealous and doesn’t really understand boundaries or rather pushes them and also how to deal with those feelings.
The thing is for all of James good heart, things are usually never that simple:
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No one wants to be the prey. And how much do you compromise on your morals to save yourself that humiliation.
But while I cannot condone what he did, I won’t condemn him for it, because for the better or for the worse, James Potter was one of the enemies of Voldemort and one of the victims of Voldemort, a victim of the war, and he was a perfect example of the imperfect victim, he was an awful ass about it, but boy was he not the bad guy.