[HPforGrownups] Why LV must kill Harry?

GulPlum hpfgu at plum.cream.org
Thu Oct 10 19:43:04 UTC 2002


No: HPFGUIDX 45181

At 16:12 10/10/02 +0000, Debbie McLain wrote:

>What is everyone's opinion on "Why must LV kill Harry" when he was
>only one-year old? It seems to me in the canon, unless I interpreted
>it wrong, that LV's intention was to kill Harry all along, not
>necessarily the parents. As heard by Harry in PoA, James tries to
>stop LV, trying to let Lily escape with Harry.

Like you, I've not looked through the archives, mainly because I assume 
that there are as many theories as there are people on this list; I 
generally avoid discussing this topic, as it's one of the Big Mysteries (if 
not THE Big Mystery) at the heart of the series, and all guesses are as 
valid as all others.

These range from "Harry is the Heir of Gryffindor" through "the Potters 
were using Harry in magical experiments to fight Voldemort" to "Trelawney's 
First Prediction said that Harry would cause Voldemort's downfall" (none of 
which are mutually exclusive, I would point out) and presumably many 
others. At different times I subscribe to any or all of them, but generally 
I expect that the one most likely to be true is the Trelawney's First 
Prediction one (JKR has said that it's important and there must be a very 
good reason she's not told us what it was), although I can't make my mind 
up just what the First Prediction actually said.

>I know all are in agreement about Lily letting herself die to protect
>Harry, but didn't James do the same?

Not in the same way. As I've said before, on this list and others, the 
unique point about Lily's death is that Voldemort very specifically and 
deliberately wasn't interested in killing her. He actually was prepared to 
spare her, having killed her husband and preparing to kill her son. 
Contrast this with the order to "kill the spare" in GoF: Voldemort really 
doesn't care whom he kills and seems to think nothing of casting an "extra" 
AK or two. Yet there was something about his intent to kill James and Harry 
which put Lily into a different category. Yes, I know there are theories 
that Voldemort had a thing for Lily and specifically wanted to save her (as 
in, some people would suggest that he was prepared to actively defend her 
for reasons of his own), but I don't subscribe to those. For me, the 
important thing for him at that time was to kill James and the baby Potter. 
Lily was extraneous to his needs and he simply didn't think about her.

It is Lily's refusal to accept Voldemort's bargain which created the 
"sacrifice", which I personally feel was all that was needed to save Harry. 
James was a deliberate target and thus wasn't in a position to offer 
himself as a sacrifice.

Of course, we're back to square one: why did Voldemort want to kill James 
and Harry? :-) As far as I'm concerned, there is something special about 
the Potter bloodline, but what that is remains to be seen.

--
GulPlum, absolutely sure that this subject has cropped up several times 
before but can't find anything in the HPFGU mega-FAQ about it...





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