Voldemort & Lily (was: Whose prophecy?)

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 54704

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Troels Forchhammer
<t.forch at m...> wrote:
> At 10:03 02-04-03 +0000, Steve wrote:
> > > Troels continues:
> > >
> > > How many children would have been equally protected throughout
> > > Voldemort's eleven year reign of terror? ...
> > >
> >
> >bboy_mn:
> >Not many I'm thinking. ...
> >
> >While I'm sure kids were killed, we see from the story that adults
> >were killed more often. ... and parents were give little or no 
> >opportunity to protect them.
> 
> GoF-9 'The Dark Mark'
>    "  The floating people were suddenly illuminated as they passed
>     over a burning tent, and Harry recognised one of them - Mr
>     Roberts, the campsite manager. The other three looked as
>     though they might be his wife and children. 
> (p. 108, Bloomsbury)


bboy_mn:

A perfect example to illustrate my point. I never said kids were never
attacked. I dispute how often the circumstances were close enough to
Harry's to open the posibility for the same 'Love Shield' protection.

In the example you sited from GoF and the World Cup, the "parents were
give little or no opportunity to protect them (the kids)". I can see
lots of occurances of situations like this, and situations where kids
were killed, but for the circumstances of Voldemort's attack on Harry
and his family to dupicate themselves, I see that as relatively rare. 

Your other examples confirm what we all know, that DE's and Voldemort
are nasty heartless cruel people, and would have had no reservations
about killing innocent women and children, but they don't confirm the
likelihood of a 'Love Shield' situation occurring.


On the issue of Lily's sacrific and whether Voldemort actually
offerred to spare her, I guess we have to agree to disagree until the
story itself clears up the issue.


But I do think that the sweet sweet irony that I mentioned, is enough
to give some literary purpose to my interpretations. The thing that
Voldemort held in lowest regard, the thing he saw as least important,
ended up being the very thing that destroyed him. Typical evil
overlord mentality, Voldemort is so swept up in his own grand vision
and self-importance that he makes the classic evil overlord mistakes
that time and time again cause his defeat. Evil overlord are alway
hoplessly doomed by their own misguided irrational thinking. 

Think about how many times Voldemort could actually have taken over
the world, if every plan to do so didn't begin with killing Harry. 

> ...edited... 
> 
> Troels


Regarding the value of James sacrifice, I admitted that I can't
disprove your position, but I still say many people would argue for
the value of his sacrific on general principle.

The one segment of canon that was on my mind that hinted at the value
of James sacrific was from 'PoA - Snape's Grudge' USA PB pg 290. This
is not something I'm fanatic about; I just think the value of James
sacrifice is open to debate.

Lupin is speaking-
"Harry, I can not make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would
have thought that what you have heard when the dementors draw near
would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives
to keep you alive. A poor way to repay them -- gambling their
sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks."

Reading HP can be very much like reading the Bible, it's way too easy
to take general statements and read absolute literal meaning into
them. However, Lupin does give value to both Lily and James sacrifice
in protecting Harry. 

Just a few more thoughts.

bboy_mn