I re-tell thee again and again: I hate the moor

[pauraque_bk]

I can't be the first person to have the idea that Peter was in love with James and jealous of Lily, can I? The thought hit me like a ton of bricks while I was re-reading Othello. Hot damn, I think I've finally got an underlying reason for the betrayal that I can work with, not to mention a structure for this damned Bertha Jorkins story I've had kicking around.

And if drawing parallels between Harry Potter and Shakespeare doesn't put you off, you may be interested in idlerat's insights on HP and Christian allegory here and here.

Comments

[theatresm.livejournal.com]

This raises huge meta-fandom questions: Is it slash if it's a canon pairing? Is it slash if it's canon, but is unrequited or not acted on? Is it slash if *I believe* it's a canon pairing?

Ow. My head hurts.

And thank you for overlooking my typos. Bad enough when they're obvious, but when I write 'develop into something more overt sexuality?', it's time to go to bed whether I'm sleepy or not.

But of course I refuse to.

Can we suggest a parallel between James and Voldemort [::boggles::] -- that both "protected" Peter, but in an unhealthy way?

Oh, I don't see why not. The problem may not be that James' "protection" was unhealthy, but that perhaps Peter was never able to develop an identity apart from James/Marauders. Again, we're back to the idea of arrested development: James is certainly moving on to a "mature" or "grown-up" life -- wife, child, the Order (a job as well?); Sirius and Lupin are also in the Order, presumably working or developing their own interests. Where does this leave Peter?

On the other hand, protection could be unhealthy if it leads to coddling, e.g., Albus and Harry. (I have a harder time justifying this view of a James-Peter relationship, but that's largely because I'm wallowing in Prat!James right now.)

I'm trying to work through the last half of the post but am making no sense at the moment even to myself -- I'm glopping Bertha and rejected chances for redemption, etc, all together, so I'm going to stop and mull over for a while.

[pauraque]

Meta-fandom issues make my head hurt too.

<trekgeek>Slash and slash. What is slash?</trekgeek>

Sirius and Lupin are also in the Order, presumably working or developing their own interests. Where does this leave Peter?

Peter was in the Order too; he's in the photo Moody shows Harry. If Peter was so "useless", one wonders why Dumbledore allowed this. (Maybe he joined the Order *after* Voldemort had already trained him in more advanced magic. Shudder.)

But yeah, your point is taken. Peter clearly felt/feels isolated. He seems to have desperate emotional needs that aren't being met; that much was evident to me the first time I read PoA. He's not a loner; he seeks out connections, and wants to feel like part of a group. But whether he's the lame leg of the Marauders, or Voldemort's fawning slave, he's not connecting with anyone on *equal terms* the way James does with Lily (maybe Remus and Sirius too?). I mean, shit, we're talking about a guy who submitted himself to literally be a *child's pet* for twelve years. One of the creepiest parts of the Shrieking Shack scene, for me, was Peter's hysterical appeal to Ron: "Wasn't I a good pet?"

Okay, at this point I just need to get my thoughts together and write out an essay on all this stuff. It's getting hella crowded in my brain.