Prompt 2 Response

A major theme in the book is that of coming of age. The book spans seven years, and many characters grow up in that time. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville all of these characters and more grow up during the books, but the most relevant coming of age character in my life is James Potter. We don't see him grow up in the novels, and we only get a brief snippet of his teenage years, but we got a scene of one of his worst moments growing up, and from the testimony of characters such as Hagrid and Lupin and Sirius we know that he was a loyal friend and a good person. We see characters mature in many ways, but James matures in a different way. He apparently came from a relatively stable background, but for some reason at some point in his youth he was a conceited bully. In Harry Potter, Rowling creates very likeable characters. We want Harry, Ron, and Hermione to succeed in the novels, and she even sets James and Lilly Potter up to be these great characters. It is not until book five that we see that even though he became a great man he wasn’t always that way.

In my life there was one girl who was especially mean to me in my youth. It was unprovoked, and I didn’t really have any interaction with her until she started saying malicious things about me. I knew who she was, but I had never spoken to her or had class with her. I would say from a specific moment we grew almost into a Snape and James type relationship. We both loathed each other, but she was popular and so I did not retaliate against her remarks in quite the same way as Snape. As sick as it was, I thought if I just took her ridicule maybe one day I could be popular too. To only my closest friends I would reveal my extreme dislike of her, but not quite to the intensity of Snape and James. My sister went to school with her sister, and my sister commented to me one day that her sister was one of the nicest girls in their grade. I had a hard time accepting this as the girl from my grade was as nice as Malfoy.

Rereading book five has really changed my outlook on this. James Potter turned into a reasonable and respectable human being. He might have at one time been a bully, but then he went on to participate in the resistance of one of the worst wizards ever. He very clearly came of age and even though we didn’t see it we know that he matured into a normal human being. I feel that I am ready to forgive my middle school bully. If I had not reread book five this quarter I would not have changed my mind about this. I probably would go on happily hating her for the rest of my life, but because of The Order of the Phoenix I feel that would be wrong, and I feel like I can forgive her. James Potter turned into a great person, so who’s to say she won’t.