Well, yeah. Harry pities here--I did mean that. But I mean, Harry's got real fears about being the loser who's picked on. So he reacts to people like Luna and Neville by being the protector, and he'll defend them to anyone who asks, but he doesn't want to be friends with them. He needs a sort of distance--though I suspect that's more JKR's way of seeing things. Harry's cool; of course he's not friends with seriously socially challenged kids. His true place is as the protector of those kids. Exactly like Ginny. She's awesome, because the perfect girl is not a weirdo. But she is the girl the weirdos love because she defends them and doesn't look down on them (unless you think seeing them as victims who need your protection from bullies is looking down on them).
In HBP Harry's amused when he can use Luna to make a statement against polite society with the party, but also uncomfortable when she talks about having no friends. I think if the two of them were really close friends Harry would feel uncomfortable a lot more often. (You realize of course that I don't think Luna does anything casually. Her not having any friends or having only the friends of Harry and Ginny etc seems like something she likes to make clear.)
While James is an asshole (heh), he grows out of it, and this is contrasted with Sirius and Snape in different ways, and of course Lily only wants him when he changes for her (after the whole Shack incident). She's beautiful and kind, and he's been obsessed with her for years, but they had a sort of teasing/sniping thing going on (like R/Hr), except because both of them are more glamorous and pretty, it's more, y'know, dramatic.
Maybe in theory, but when it happened that's totally not what happened. James was an asshole, but Lily liked that. He didn't change that we saw, and she wasn't very kind. Their one scene together she's trying to hide a smile at him at his worse. They came across like everyone else to me--they were pretty much set for who they were when they were 11. Lily is like Ginny. She has her ostentatiously compassionate side (feeling sorry for little Snape for his bad home life and TOTALLY NOT judging him for being ugly and poor/standing up for Luna and comforting random young children during the battle) but this doesn't interfere with enjoying nothing better than a righteous, humiliating smackdown. Lily's talked about as purehearted and righteous but in the actual canon we have of her she's pretty ordinary--I'd put her right on Ginny's level, actually. They're very similar imo.
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In HBP Harry's amused when he can use Luna to make a statement against polite society with the party, but also uncomfortable when she talks about having no friends. I think if the two of them were really close friends Harry would feel uncomfortable a lot more often. (You realize of course that I don't think Luna does anything casually. Her not having any friends or having only the friends of Harry and Ginny etc seems like something she likes to make clear.)
While James is an asshole (heh), he grows out of it, and this is contrasted with Sirius and Snape in different ways, and of course Lily only wants him when he changes for her (after the whole Shack incident). She's beautiful and kind, and he's been obsessed with her for years, but they had a sort of teasing/sniping thing going on (like R/Hr), except because both of them are more glamorous and pretty, it's more, y'know, dramatic.
Maybe in theory, but when it happened that's totally not what happened. James was an asshole, but Lily liked that. He didn't change that we saw, and she wasn't very kind. Their one scene together she's trying to hide a smile at him at his worse. They came across like everyone else to me--they were pretty much set for who they were when they were 11. Lily is like Ginny. She has her ostentatiously compassionate side (feeling sorry for little Snape for his bad home life and TOTALLY NOT judging him for being ugly and poor/standing up for Luna and comforting random young children during the battle) but this doesn't interfere with enjoying nothing better than a righteous, humiliating smackdown. Lily's talked about as purehearted and righteous but in the actual canon we have of her she's pretty ordinary--I'd put her right on Ginny's level, actually. They're very similar imo.