Would Lily have been spared?

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 42174

Darrin wrote:
> Obviously, for plot purposes, you need Harry's mother sacrificing for 
> him to make the story go. BUT, if we find out Lily was to be spared 
> for some reason, it strikes me as a real FLINT problem. 
> 
> Darrin
> -- first time I've ever used FLINT in a post

The return of metathinking, I see. As the well-known oposer of 
metathinking as a way to explore the books, I thought I should throw in 
my input. There are two ways out of this FLINT, that I can see.

1) Voldemort was not planning to kill Lily: He did, in fact, for some 
reason of his own we have not been told, plan to let Lily live. If this 
was the case, there is no FLINT: V wanted her out of the way, and she 
managed to get in the way.

2) Voldemort was planning to kill Lily. He just let her for dessert out 
of sheer cruelty, or simply because he wasn't sure he had enough energy 
left to AK twice, and he selected Harry (It turns out that he did, in 
fact, have enough, but that's another story).

Don't be so quick to assign "plot device" FLINT to this situation. It's 
too early in the books for it to be forced (i.e. I don't think that JKR 
rushed her way through this; it's more likely that she planned it VERY 
carefully, being THE biggest moment in Harry's life so far). The 
trouble is, we just have too little information (in fact, when 
the-celluloid-thing-that-must-not-be-named gives more information on it 
than the four books put toghether, you can get an idea of just how 
little we know about what happened that fateful night).

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, who's favourite hp-related hobby is to find plausible 
explanations to so-called "FLINTS".