Heroes in the Harry Potter Series

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176368

houyhnhnm wrote:
<snip> A world in which a mother refusing to stand aside and allow her
child to be murdered is such a rare marvel as to invoke magic is a
world in dire need of "simple human love".
> 
Rowena replied:
> 
>   Of course if DD et-al had acted as you wanted - and if it had the
effect you predict - there'd have been no series! ;-)
> 
>   BTW I really don't think self sacrifice on behalf of one's
children need be rare to have magical repurcussions.
>

Carol responds:
I don't think we're meant to see a mother's self-sacrifice or her
instinctive protection of her children as rare. In fact, we see the
unknown German mother make the exact same gesture as Lily did,
spreading her arms to protect her children. In the German mother's
case, as, we must assume, in every other instance when a child has
been killed with an AK (and often, in our own world, with a bullet),
the gesture is futile. In Lily's case alone, the gesture saves the
child's life. The only difference is that Lily (thanks to snape's
request) had a chance to live. LV offers three times to spare her if
she'll only stand aside. Of course, she doesn't, but he could still
have spared her, merely Stunning her. He breaks his word to Snape,
reneges on his implied promise to spare her, and so the Killing Curse
he casts on Harry rebounds on himself. Other mothers have tried to
protect their children and failed, as we see with the German mother.
And other mothers have given their lives so that their children could
live (Mrs. Crouch), only to have the gesture wasted (Barty Jr. returns
the favor by killing his own father and ends up worse than dead).
Narcissa lies to the Dark Lord (admittedly not blocking an AK and
admittedly not looking into Voldie's eyes), placing her son's life
above the Dark Lord's victory. Molly fights and kills Bellatrix to
protect her daughter and her Boggart is the death of a family member.
Even poor Merope loved her son enough to name him after the two men
she loved though neither loved her and to express the hope that he
looked like his father though she lacked the strength or the will to
live. In fact, reading DH, I think that even Mrs. Black loved her sons
and that she was heartbroken by the rebellion of the one and the
mysterious death of the other, perhaps driven to insanity by her
double loss.

I don't think that mother love is depicted as rare. Rather, it's an
important motif in the books (echoed rather oddly by one father,
Xenophilius Lovegood), whose daughter means more to him than his
principles. He would make an interesting comparison/contrast to
Narcissa but I don't have time to explore it now). 

What's rare, indeed unique, about Lily is not her self-sacrificial
love for her child. Most mothers in the WW and the Muggle world would
do as much. (Petunia Dursley would sacrifice herself for Dudley, I'm
certain.) It's the circumstances, the chance to save herself by
standing aside as requested (or ordered) that distinguishes Lily's
sacrifice from that of the German mother or, say, the McKinnons, whose
whole family died in VW1. The German mother and her children are
murdered for no reason because they're there. Marlene McKinnon,
whether she tried to protect her children or not, and surely she did,
would have been murdered anyway, like James. But Lily had a chance to
live and rejected it. Her willing self-sacrifice (and perhaps
Voldemort's broken word) activated a kind of ancient magic not
involved in any other murder by Dark wizards in the history of the WW.

Carol, who sees mother love as the norm in the WW but father love as
weaker and rarer, exemplified primarily by Mr. Weasley and briefly by
James