TBAY: Definitely NOT a Snape Theory (long)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 145429

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at y...> 
wrote:
>
> Hence my previous speculation about two hit lists, which may not 
> have support in canon per se, but I think it is pretty much a given 
> that when Voldemort learned about Prophecy, Lily and James stopped 
> being in his mind just ANY Order Member, which should be killed 
> sometimes, maybe and started being parents of the Chosen One, who 
> should be killed ASAP and right now.
> 
> 
> I did not do the calculations, but I trust your numbers - so out of 
> 22 original members of OOP, 15 lived, so Voldemort killed 
> approximately 33%.
> 
> I think that Lily and James had pretty big chance to be among those 
> 15, no? I mean, they could have been killed or not, but Voldemort 
> would not have paid them any special attention, no more than to 
> others,no?
>

Pippin:
I would think they  had stopped being just any Order members
after they had defied Voldemort three times. Whether they did that
before or after Voldemort knew about the prophecy doesn't matter
very much, except that it would lessen Snape's culpability a bit if
as far as he knew no one had ever done so. Voldemort might have
decided to take up tatting or something, rather than risk creating
the parents of the One. :)

 It diminishes James and Lily's heroism to say that they wouldn't have
voluntarily risked their lives to confront   Voldemort, just as it
diminishes Sirius's heroism to say that he only went to save Harry 
because he had to prove he wasn't a coward. At bottom, Harry's
need to blame Snape is a selfish one: James, Lily, Sirius and
Dumbledore ultimately chose to leave him orphaned rather than 
abandon the fight against Voldemort, and Harry doesn't 
want to deal with that.

Readers of the Discworld series will be familiar with Captain
Carrot's mantra, "Personal is not the same as important." 
I think the same principle is being illustrated here.

Pippin