James is the 17-year-old character in the story told by Taylor Swift’s “august.” The narrator becomes involved with him during a brief summer romance, but James ultimately returns to Betty.
The song is one part of a fictional love triangle on Folklore. “august” presents the unnamed girl’s viewpoint, while “Cardigan” centers on Betty and “Betty” presents James’s perspective.
Swift did not give the narrator a fixed name in the song. She described thinking of the character as Augusta or Augustine, which is why listeners sometimes mistakenly treat Augustine as the character who is explicitly named and aged.