Why didn't Lily have to die?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 93457

> Carol:
> <<<What *I* don't understand is how he could have thought that *any*
> mother would stand aside and let him kill her baby.>>>
> 
> JoAnna:
> It's because Voldemort knows absolutely nothing about love, or the
> power of love.  <snipped quotes>
>
> Of course it wouldn't occur to him that Lily would die to save her
> child; he does not and cannot understand what power love can wield. 
> I'm convinced that the tool Harry will use to vanquish Voldemort
will be connected to his love or his capacity for love, since this is
a recurring theme in the books (especially due to the emphasis that
love is the  power that Harry has - the "power the Dark Lord knows
not" spoken of in the prophecy).


Carol:
Yes, I'm very much aware that LV can't comprehend either love or
emotion in general and I'm familiar with the quotes you cited and
their implications. As I said in the part of my post that you snipped:

"Maybe all those years as a bodiless spirit possessing snakes and rats
robbed him of any knowledge of human psychology. In his view, there's
no good or evil, only the desire for power, so maybe love and other
human emotions are beyond the scope of his understanding. Mercy also
would be beyond his comprehension. I think he was merely focusing on
his goal and what he wanted was to get her out of his way so he could
commit the murder he had come to commit."

But still, on an intellectual level, he should understand that mothers
in general will protect their babies. Even the animal mothers he must
have seen in the wild will fight for their young, if not from love
then from a natural instinct that he could interpret as something
mechanical or selfish but nevertheless undeniable real. It seems
incredibly dense to expect any mother to just step aside so he could
kill her child, or to see such a gesture as "silly." And of course I
don't expect him to comprehend that she was not only trying to save
harry; she was offering himself as a victim in his place. As I said in
another post (93444), he had no inkling that her self-sacrifice would
activate the "old magic" (or charm) that protected Harry.

I'm not absolutely convinced that love is the power that the Dark Lord
knows not, but of course I'm aware of that interpretation of the
prophecy and the unopenable door in the DoM. However, that's not the
point of my post. All I was saying is that, however devoid LV is of
love himself, however much he holds it in contempt, it's strange that
he would be so ignorant of human psychology as to expect any mother to
stand aside and let him kill her child.

Carol