Lily' sacrifice v James' sacrifice WAS: Perfect Lily

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 150086

 

> Renee:
> IIRC, the difference was that Lily was given the  choice to live. 
James
> would have died anyway, but not Lily, if she'd  been prepared to 
stand
> aside and let Voldemort kill Harry. Unlike  James's death, hers was 
not
> inevitable, and that's why it saved  Harry.
>

Alla:

Welll, yes, I know this reason and cannot  wait to find out why Lily 
was valuable to Voldemort. I am sure it will be  interesting. :)

But this is not quite what I was getting at and as I said  maybe JKR 
was not getting at it either and I simply misunderstood.

I  got the impression that Lily sacrifice vs James sacrifice is 
different for  JKR not just because of different outcome the ancient 
magic invoked, but  that James' sacrifice was some how less 
significant, less conscious, less  worthy of respect from the readers 
since James was going to die  anyway.

Am I making any sense? IMO at least in theory James could have  
chosen to RUN from Voldemort instead of standing up and fight. I  
mean,sure  we don't know what occurred in GH in great details, but I  
don't think that it is that unlikely that James could have at least  
dissapparated, you know?

He chose to stand up and fight as a hero and  if he knew that he is 
going to lose against Voldemort, he in my book chose  heroic death in 
order to give his wife and son at least small chance to  escape.

Lily also chose to stand up and fight and to die even if she  could 
not live.

They both CHOSE to do it, IMO.

I just felt  that JKR was diminishing James' actions, putting them 
down in that  interview.

Makes sense or not?



Julie:
It makes sense to me, Alla. Like you, I understand that Voldemort's
intent was to kill James, whereas he was willing to spare Lily if she
didn't get in his way. The biggest question is why Voldemort was
willing to spare Lily, or, conversely, why he was *determined* to  kill
James. I also wonder if James and Lily were aware of this fact, thus
James rushed Voldemort as his only chance (albeit a small one) was  to
kill Voldemort before Voldemort killed him. Or did James simply rush
Voldemort because he was the male, thus determined to shield his
family? (Which is a bit sexist, since why didn't Lily rush Voldemort,
and give James the chance to escape with Harry, but we all still have
that tendency to act within those society-prescribed gender roles.)
 
Anyway, it does seem a bit arbitrary that Lily drew the "choice"  straw
and was given the opportunity to be more noble by virtue of making 
the right choice, while James wasn't given a choice but did the  only
thing available to him--short of trying to run, a truly ignoble  choice.
Though that's basically the same choice Voldemort gave Lily, just 
that her escape was a virtual guarantee.
 
Hmm, I'm still not seeing a lot of difference, beyond semantics. So
maybe the magic is the only thing that makes the difference, and they
were both equally courageous and noble. Seems so to me, anyway!


Julie 



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