[HPforGrownups] Lily's sacrifice

[Lumen Dei]

No: HPFGUIDX 19518

Vicky wrote:
Speaking of Lily's sacrifice, now that Voldy's got some of Harry's blood, does this entitle him to the
same protection Lily afforded Harry?

and Partyperson: 

Okay, somebody posted that they were disappointed that the only reason that Harry survived and defeated Voldemort were because of Lily's sacrificial death. See, that's what I thought for awhile too. 
But then I started thinking about it more in depth--and I concluded that something other than her sacrifice defeated Voldemort. Because Voldemort killed so many people, don't you think that somewhere along 
the line, some mother must have tried to protect their child and died in the process? But no other child got a lightning shaped scar of their forehead and defeated him, right? So I'm thinking Harry must 
have something VERY special about him. Yes, her sacrifice is what saved him and repelled Voldemort. But what defeated him? 


I imagine everyone has their pet theories here, so I will add mine to the pot. 

For me it was no disappointment at all that it was Lily's sacrifice that saved Harry. I was deeply moved when I read that the first time (second, third and fourth times as well). It is tremendously beautiful...the depths of love that belong to a parent. The "moral" content of the books is very high in my opinion, but she often soars into the deepest truths that are the quiddity of human existence, and this is one of them. The love of the mother has always been seen as the most enduring form of love we can hope to find in another person...this side of heaven. Something that has perhaps been obscured by the current accent on women as career persons...perhaps. 

In my HO it seems that JKR goes to great lengths from book to book to stress that it was the sacrifice of the mother that made his Voldemort's curse bounce back and hit him: "My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself..." GoF. What makes Harry special is having been loved: "Love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign....to have been loved so deeply, then though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever." PhilS. It seems to me (no, I don't interpret the books solely as man's search for a father figure in the Freudian sense; perhaps tempted to do so in the Christian sense of God as Father, but not Freudian), that the books deal with what most books do: man's search for happiness...for meaning... and how the writer/reader sees happiness and meaning counts for much of how the book is written and read. Unless I can get my hands on the woman, I cannot give a 100% proof of it, but it seems to me that the "family" as the center of human happiness, our relationships with those we love...having people to love is a major theme of her books, along with the battle between good and evil. To emphasize the family to such an extent is rather counter-culture of her (at least if you live in the Netherlands it is, believe me) but she does do it. GoF is big on this... 

But the blood of Lily in Voldemort's veins... Now my pet theory is that that will be the key to his downfall. Yes, he can now touch Harry, but I don't see any reason to believe that it will give him a sort of protection from another person cursing him... The blood of Lily will somehow work against those Dark Magic transformations that he underwent... He is again mortal be reason of resuming a body.... But I shall have to wait to see if my theory is true.... 

Maria 

L.D.
Harry Potter's Philosopher's Shop -- "Have Wand, Will Wave"
www.geocities.com/lumen_dei



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