I'm not sure there's any way to read the Gospels and not think that Jesus was a tough guy to be around. He was short-tempered and demanding, but they loved and followed him anyway. James, son of Zebedee and brother of John, was one of the three top apostles (along with his brother and Simon Peter) but he is depicted more for his short-comings and lack of understanding than his virtue.
In Luke 9:51-56, James and John offer to call down lightning on a Samaritan town that refused to welcome Jesus, but rebukes them for the suggestion. True, he nicknames them Boanerges (sons of thunder) in Mark 3, but a cool nickname doesn't really make up for coming down hard on them when they're trying to help.
In Mark 10, James and John ask to sit on his right and left side when he comes in glory, but he tells them they don't know what they're asking. [Matthew 20 has their mom ask this, though Jesus questions them anyway rather than their mother.] He then asks, "Can you drink from the cup that I'm about to drink from?" They tell him that they can, of course, so he assures them that they will, even though the spots at his left and right hand are not his to award.
The common interpretation is that the cup is his martyrdom; James is the first of the apostles to be martyred. According to Acts 12, he was beheaded on the orders of Herod Agrippa around AD 44 during a crackdown on Christianity.
The big one for me is Matthew 26 / Mark 14, the vigil in the garden. Jesus takes his top three with him while he prays, just before being busted. They fall asleep, so he scolds them and then goes to pray again. They fall asleep again, and again he checks on them. Then he prays again, they sleep again, and again he scolds them just as Judas arrives with a couple of legionaries to haul him away.
Here's one of the many things I don't get: Jesus has already predicted Judas' betrayal and Peter's triple denial, so surely he knew that the apostles couldn't stay awake all night while he prayed, especially since he wasn't praying beside them. Why scold them for what he knows they won't be able to do?
James was one of the big three, and perhaps he will be seated at the left hand, but if so, he earned it.
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