I have this theory that Neville is supposed to represent everything that Peter could have been. You know, both of them were the weak link in the friend group, the guy easily influenced. But instead, Rowling made Neville weak to prove the two paths an individual could take. How each of our weaknesses manifest in different ways. Peter’s weakness made him a villain, ultimately worse than Voldemort because he betrayed his friends, while Neville’s weakness made him work harder and in the end made him Harry’s strongest ally.
Harry = James, Ron = Sirius, Hermione = Remus, Neville = Peter, Ginny = Lily, Luna = Snape.
You will notice that none of the six from the old generation survived. The kids each have traits from the old generation but they’re here to fix the past, and thus must survive the series to metaphorically right the past. Some may raise their eyebrows at Luna as Snape, but just as Harry represents James (the popular kid who was good at quidditch, but didn’t become arrogant like his father) or like Peter and Neville (two people who could have been cowards, but Neville rises to life’s challenges) Luna mirrors Snape in being mocked, a pariah, Looney Lovegood and Snivellus. Instead of being resentful, she rose above it, and loved herself regardless.
If you went with Harry to the Ministry of Magic in book 5, you mattered beyond just backing him up against Voldemort. This core six represented the loss and failure of the Marauders generation, and the hopes of a post-Voldemort future.
Holy shit
Ok I see where you’re going with this but no. To offer an alternate reading:
To start out with, Harry isn’t James; beyond basic physical similarity, no one (except Snape, who has a stag-sized chip on his shoulder) who interacts with him at any length and who knew his parents fails to notice that he’s a lot more like Lily. Academically bright but not inclined to overtly draw attention to it except in a few cases where the subject matter particularly interests him, protective of others, feels a bit of an outsider and with a deep need to carve out his place in wizarding society on his own terms and his own merits. None of those are James traits. They’re Lily traits.
James was comfortable enough in his pureblood status and in his wizarding-moderate politics not to engage in a great deal of self-examination; he was brusque and aggressive and show-offish; he professed a deep disgust with “dark” wizards while simultaneously hexing anyone with the poor sense or bad luck to get in his way. He was popular and enjoyed it, while keeping his closest friends nearer and deeper in his confidence than anyone outside the group guessed. That’s not Harry. You know who that is, in Harry’s generation? That’s Ginny.
I’d argue that if anyone is a Peter figure, it’s Ron. A school career of being second best, of being in the shadows, of being told he’s appreciated by his friends but never quite being able to break into the limelight. Of knowing his value to the group but not being certain that the rest of the group knows. Of the nagging certainty that his friends like each other more than they like him, even when that’s obviously untrue to everyone but him. And it’s Ron who was stronger and overcame the pitfalls that destroyed Peter. Ron was able to face up to his own jealousy and resentment and rejoin the friends he’d abandoned before he’d done any real lasting damage; Ron was able to overcome his jealousy even when it was presented to him in too-convincing detail by (a fragment of) Voldemort.
Sirius was James’ equal in the eyes of the school and the faculty, recognized for his own magical and academic excellence. He found his preferred lifestyle incompatible with that of his parents, and by the time he came of age, he’d completely cut ties with them. He was reckless and thoughtless and had very little regard for rules imposed on him by others; he knew just how far on the other side of the law he could tread before it alarmed and disgusted his friends – usually. And yet he was willing to be reined in, most of the time; he loved his chosen family dearly not because he had no one else to love but because he had chosen them. In Harry’s generation, though differing blood status muddles the politics a bit, that role is carried by Hermione.
Luna, I think, is our Remus figure: a lonely kid, used to loneliness and gratified and a little mystified when taken under the wing of a more popular classmate. Both are a little odd and out of touch with their peers because of a traumatic event in early childhood and subsequent social isolation – Remus’s lycantrophy, obviously, but also Luna’s witnessing her mother’s death and being subsequently raised by her father, who was a bit of a pariah in his own right. They both have intimate knowledge of a side of wizarding reality that most witches and wizards consider on an academic level if they think it’s worth understanding at all, and may have their perceptions a little clouded by being too near this esoteric truth. The difference comes in how Luna is comfortable and confident in the value of her weirdness, whereas even when Remus’s “furry little problem” was the justification for the greatest, longest-standing escapade of the marauders, he was never in a position to accept himself.
Which brings us to Neville, and Snape. Both initially find themselves in positions that seem wholly unsuited to living up to their families’ legacy: the half-blood Prince and the near-squib Longbottom. Both spend their early school days on the edges of social groups that occasionally deign to acknowledge them, and are encouraged to think of that as friendship. And then, in their fifth year, they somewhat abruptly come into their own, solidifying allegiances they’d not fully committed to before and finding strength in the ideals of their allies. Neville chose wisely. Snape did not.
Published
Kimchi and Justice 