Point in your favor—when discussing heroines during his time as Headmaster at Hogwarts with Hermione, he suggested she might add both Alice Longbottom and Lily Potter to the list. I’d count that as a point in favor of “thrice defying” as membership to the club.
But still, does defying the Dark Lord thrice really put you in the top 3 witches of 40 years, and the top 15 or so witches and wizards? With all the people who died, with Dumbledore’s room full of dead friends, there aren’t others who had done more and risked more?
Lily and James were in hiding. Are they really the best examples of heroes in the last 40 years—two people in hiding from Voldemort?
Dumbledore:
Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them.
Hiding in Godric’s Hollow sounds more like the former than the latter to me.
Unfortunately, even in canon, “thrice defied” occurred offstage, so we don’t know the details. Just to keep it clear, though, the prophecy occurred before the births of Neville and Harry, so well before the deaths of Alice and Lily, so whatever final defiances they had at their deaths are not part of the 3.
Unfortunately, even in canon, “thrice defied” occurred offstage, so we don’t know the details.
Yeah, so I can’t quite contradict you. (Also, I haven’t read all books, and for those I read I wasn’t very careful with the details.)
That said, my understanding was that first Lily and James fought Voldemort before they had Harry, and perhaps for a while afterwards. And presumably fought well, since they survived to do it thrice, and courageously, if they didn’t stop after the first time (which would qualify both as heroes). In contrast, the journalist mentioned at some point was killed, together with his entire family, after simply writing an article. He was possibly brave (or maybe just an optimist), but not quite heroic.
(It’s not perfectly clear, but the wording of the prophecy seems to suggest that they defied V. thrice before H.’s birth, and possibly again afterwards.)
My understanding was that they went into hiding after they learned that Voldie was going after Harry; presumably this was because of the prophecy, but it doesn’t mean they knew it was a trap (if it was). Note that in MoR Dumbledore says he taught Voldie & Co. not to go after families of the Order of the Phoenix just for blackmail—which obviously had to be before his death—which suggests that they went into hiding only because (and after) they knew Voldie had a better reason to go after Harry, the prophecy. But nothing (AFAIK) indicates that they’d be aware that it was a trap (if it was one).
Also, going into hiding is not necessarily selfish or cowardly (i.e., wanting just to protect themselves and their son). If they knew and believed the prophecy they could just be trying to protect the future defeater of Voldie. Everyone was surprised at baby Harry (apparently) destroying Voldemort, including those that knew the prophecy, so their theory must have been that he’d defeat him after he grew up.
Also, going into hiding is not necessarily selfish or cowardly (i.e., wanting just to protect themselves and their son).
But not what I’d call heroic, either.
On the other hand, it would be definitely be heroic to set yourself up as bait for Voldemort on what was fully intended as a suicide mission.
If we go with the theory that Dumbledore was setting a trap for Voldemort, based on a dark ritual, I would think it’s rather important to make sure that Lily fulfills the dark ritual. IN fact, I think this theory requires that Lily and James are in on Dumbledore’s plot, otherwise why not just apparate away? Have port keys set up? At least have Lily and James attack him together?
The prior odds that Lily will just happen to fulfill the terms of a dark ritual seem miniscule, even if we assume that Voldemort had been prepped to give Lily a chance to live.
If it was a plot by Dumbledore to have Lily perform a dark ritual, Dumbledore would tell her to increase the odds that she actually fulfills the ritual. Otherwise he’s spending the lives of two members of the Order for a miniscule chance at killing Voldemort.
IN fact, if Dumbledore is going to do this kind of plot, he’d want to set it up in advance with the people involved, not draft them after he got the ball rolling, so that he could arrange a proper prophecy.
If it was a plot by Dumbledore to have Lily perform a dark ritual.
I’m not quite sure how you got to the dark ritual part. At least, I see no hint of this, nor any indication that Lily would go with it. Even if you’re going with the “love sacrifice as old magic” in canon and calling it “dark” just because it has a sacrifice, I’m not quite sure it would work if you did it with the explicit purpose of stopping Voldie (intent might taint the sacrifice). Dumbledore might create a situation where Lily would sacrifice herself for Harry, because Dumbledore intends to get rid of Voldie, but this (I think) requires that Lily not know about it, so that her intent is pure.
Canon is careless enough with details to be hard to use for explanations. For example:
otherwise why not just apparate away?
It does sound weird, but then again if it were that easy even Voldie would have much more trouble killing people than it appears. http://harrypotter.wikia.com/ suggests that for side-along apparition (i.e., for taking someone with you who can’t do it themselves) the “passanger” needs to be a wizard, and might need to have a wand. So maybe they just couldn’t take Harry. Also, Voldie might just have a policy of casting Anti-disapparition jinxes when he attacks, it’s not clear how hard they are to make. Something like this might also explain why someone who’s hunted by Voldemort, even in hiding, doesn’t have with them a dozen intercontinental portkeys, just in case. (In MoR, at least. In canon they probably just didn’t think of it.)
[...] for a miniscule chance at killing Voldemort.
If he’s actually thinking in story terms rather than faking it, he’d likely think it almost certain rather than minuscule.
By the way, there’s quite a bit lore on that site that would be quite interesting if we knew what parts of it applied to MoR, such as some info about Snape and Lily that don’t quite match what Snape says.
In canon, portkeys aren’t affected by disapparation jinxes—or so sayeth some site.
You couldn’t portkey out of Azkaban, so there must be some way to stop them. But probably not a lot, since Quirrell was relying on a few of them after they cleared Azkaban. But yes, I agree that canon is weak here. That’s the benefit of this scenario—it makes a tighter plot that makes sense. They didn’t run because it was a trap.
If he’s actually thinking in story terms rather than faking it, he’d likely think it almost certain rather than minuscule.
Can’t but this one at all. The assumption I’m working under is that it was a plot of Dumbledore’s to destroy Voldemort. Why would thinking like a story mean that Lily would automatically fulfill the conditions of a dark magic ritual? Just because it would be convenient if she did? That just seems like massive wishful thinking on Dumbledore’s part.
I wouldn’t bet on it, it was just my impression that in stories good mothers sacrifice themselves for their babies in such situations—see canon for an obvious example—perhaps more often than in reality.
Two aurors would be most likely to beg for mercy for their child and let themselves be slaughtered instead of fighting back? Harry himself noted the absurdity of thinking that would work, and I believe called it her “final failure as a mother”.
And wouldn’t there be a whole lot of dark rituals going on, if mothers making sacrifices for their children would unknowingly and automatically invoke a dark ritual?
Alice and Frank Longbottom were Aurors, not the Potters. And it was Demented!Harry who thought “final failure as a mother”; Warm!Harry went on to think “He had regained an impossible memory, for all that the Dementor had made him desecrate it”.
It’s my understanding that in this theory, it was Voldemort’s line “I accept the bargain. Yourself to die, and the child to live.” that fulfilled the description of a ritual, not anything Lily did.
At least James was an auror, as testified by Remus, top of page 697. Perhaps not Lily. I’ve seen it concluded from the “thrice defied” that they fought him and lived to tell about it, but I don’t think any of that has happened on stage.
If she didn’t offer it, I don’t see why he would have said what he did out of the blue, or that it would have fulfilled the terms of a dark ritual even if he did, unless by saying that Lily instantly dropped dead. In this case, I see the ritual made by offer and acceptance. Without an offer, there is nothing for him to accept.
The desecration was of his memory, not of his attitude toward it. I took that to mean that Lily actually did not try to cast the killing curse. (Although I personally don’t consider that a desecration of the memory. It seemed quite sensible, if she was not trying to fulfill a dark ritual.)
At least James was an auror, as testified by Remus, top of page 697
Sorry, this doesn’t help at all. ffnet doesn’t have page numbers, and page 697 of the pdf version mentions no such thing. Could you find the quote you’re thinking of in the actual posted chapters, say on hpmor?
I’ve seen it concluded from the “thrice defied” that they fought him and lived to tell about it, but I don’t think any of that has happened on stage.
This is true in canon; neither Lily nor James are Aurors in canon.
In this case, I see the ritual made by offer and acceptance. Without an offer, there is nothing for him to accept.
Rituals do not require consent, they require that someone names that which is to be sacrificed, then that which is to be gained, in that order.
Don’t know that pdf version you’re looking at. I’m looking at the pdf link on the front page of hpmor.com.
pg. 697
James was an Auror, and it was hard for him to look properly imposing with his wand shining like that—”
Interesting for EY to deviate from canon and make him an auror.
If it’s true in canon that Lily and James fought Vodemort and lived to tell about it, then I think we should accept that as true here until there is evidence to the contrary, particularly with the “thrice defied” requiring some accounting.
So two wizards, one of them an Auror, and both of them having fought Voldemort before and lived to tell about it.
Which is the better strategy for them when confronting Voldemort? Fight him together, or have one fight separately, and one beg for mercy for their son? Also, just in cost benefit analysis, in one scenario, Voldemort has some chance of defeat, which should count for a lot in that strategy’s potential benefits.
Rituals have got to require more than you say, otherwise every promise of something for something would become a dark ritual. That the foremost Dark Wizard would unknowingly complete a dark ritual all on his is another of the great improbabilities. Prior probability too low.
“Well, let us begin at the beginning. When you were born, James was so happy that he couldn’t touch his wand without it glowing gold, for a whole week. And even after that, whenever he held you, or saw Lily holding you, or just thought of you, it would happen again—”
So, no.
Which is the better strategy for them when confronting Voldemort?
The better strategy is “run (and/or portkey, fly, apparate, floo, etc)”. The fact that they didn’t do this probably has to do with the fact that they were taken completely by surprise in their place of safety.
Rituals have got to require more than you say, otherwise every promise of something for something would become a dark ritual.
And yes, the fact that if rituals could be done accidentally the world would look different is the main argument against this idea. Which is why its proponents have started to come up with conspiracy theories about Dumbledore planning everything, etc.
I think perhaps I wasn’t clear enough: I’m not saying it makes sense, just that Dumbledore could plausibly think it does, and Lily could plausibly have reacted as she’s described to have done, even though that might not be very probable for most reference classes she might be part of in general.
If you’re certain he’s actually completely sane and just pretending to be mad, with a few layers in between, then yes, it would be absurd for him, too. But Eliezer made his behavior sufficiently ambiguous that, even given his successes ( # ) I’m still not sure that he’s not biased to wishful narrative thought, his (apparent) successes explained in part by being powerful enough and in part by luck(**) and not-yet-revealed high-level plots.
Note that several apparently rational and very competent characters—including Harry, Quirell, Amelia Bones and IIRC Moody—appear to believe or suspect this. I’m not saying it is so, but The Author seems to have made it really ambiguous on purpose. Note that we have no view into Dumbledore’s thoughts in any part of the text, so most of the evidence we have the other characters have, too.
(#: He’s an old and powerful wizard who survived at least two great Dark Lords. See Moody’s musings on how hard that is.)
(**: Given magic and that Felix potion, we can’t exclude that luck actually exists in MoR.)
Point in your favor—when discussing heroines during his time as Headmaster at Hogwarts with Hermione, he suggested she might add both Alice Longbottom and Lily Potter to the list. I’d count that as a point in favor of “thrice defying” as membership to the club.
But still, does defying the Dark Lord thrice really put you in the top 3 witches of 40 years, and the top 15 or so witches and wizards? With all the people who died, with Dumbledore’s room full of dead friends, there aren’t others who had done more and risked more?
Lily and James were in hiding. Are they really the best examples of heroes in the last 40 years—two people in hiding from Voldemort?
Dumbledore:
Hiding in Godric’s Hollow sounds more like the former than the latter to me.
Unfortunately, even in canon, “thrice defied” occurred offstage, so we don’t know the details. Just to keep it clear, though, the prophecy occurred before the births of Neville and Harry, so well before the deaths of Alice and Lily, so whatever final defiances they had at their deaths are not part of the 3.
Yeah, so I can’t quite contradict you. (Also, I haven’t read all books, and for those I read I wasn’t very careful with the details.)
That said, my understanding was that first Lily and James fought Voldemort before they had Harry, and perhaps for a while afterwards. And presumably fought well, since they survived to do it thrice, and courageously, if they didn’t stop after the first time (which would qualify both as heroes). In contrast, the journalist mentioned at some point was killed, together with his entire family, after simply writing an article. He was possibly brave (or maybe just an optimist), but not quite heroic.
(It’s not perfectly clear, but the wording of the prophecy seems to suggest that they defied V. thrice before H.’s birth, and possibly again afterwards.)
My understanding was that they went into hiding after they learned that Voldie was going after Harry; presumably this was because of the prophecy, but it doesn’t mean they knew it was a trap (if it was). Note that in MoR Dumbledore says he taught Voldie & Co. not to go after families of the Order of the Phoenix just for blackmail—which obviously had to be before his death—which suggests that they went into hiding only because (and after) they knew Voldie had a better reason to go after Harry, the prophecy. But nothing (AFAIK) indicates that they’d be aware that it was a trap (if it was one).
Also, going into hiding is not necessarily selfish or cowardly (i.e., wanting just to protect themselves and their son). If they knew and believed the prophecy they could just be trying to protect the future defeater of Voldie. Everyone was surprised at baby Harry (apparently) destroying Voldemort, including those that knew the prophecy, so their theory must have been that he’d defeat him after he grew up.
But not what I’d call heroic, either.
On the other hand, it would be definitely be heroic to set yourself up as bait for Voldemort on what was fully intended as a suicide mission.
If we go with the theory that Dumbledore was setting a trap for Voldemort, based on a dark ritual, I would think it’s rather important to make sure that Lily fulfills the dark ritual. IN fact, I think this theory requires that Lily and James are in on Dumbledore’s plot, otherwise why not just apparate away? Have port keys set up? At least have Lily and James attack him together?
The prior odds that Lily will just happen to fulfill the terms of a dark ritual seem miniscule, even if we assume that Voldemort had been prepped to give Lily a chance to live.
If it was a plot by Dumbledore to have Lily perform a dark ritual, Dumbledore would tell her to increase the odds that she actually fulfills the ritual. Otherwise he’s spending the lives of two members of the Order for a miniscule chance at killing Voldemort.
IN fact, if Dumbledore is going to do this kind of plot, he’d want to set it up in advance with the people involved, not draft them after he got the ball rolling, so that he could arrange a proper prophecy.
I’m not quite sure how you got to the dark ritual part. At least, I see no hint of this, nor any indication that Lily would go with it. Even if you’re going with the “love sacrifice as old magic” in canon and calling it “dark” just because it has a sacrifice, I’m not quite sure it would work if you did it with the explicit purpose of stopping Voldie (intent might taint the sacrifice). Dumbledore might create a situation where Lily would sacrifice herself for Harry, because Dumbledore intends to get rid of Voldie, but this (I think) requires that Lily not know about it, so that her intent is pure.
Canon is careless enough with details to be hard to use for explanations. For example:
It does sound weird, but then again if it were that easy even Voldie would have much more trouble killing people than it appears. http://harrypotter.wikia.com/ suggests that for side-along apparition (i.e., for taking someone with you who can’t do it themselves) the “passanger” needs to be a wizard, and might need to have a wand. So maybe they just couldn’t take Harry. Also, Voldie might just have a policy of casting Anti-disapparition jinxes when he attacks, it’s not clear how hard they are to make. Something like this might also explain why someone who’s hunted by Voldemort, even in hiding, doesn’t have with them a dozen intercontinental portkeys, just in case. (In MoR, at least. In canon they probably just didn’t think of it.)
If he’s actually thinking in story terms rather than faking it, he’d likely think it almost certain rather than minuscule.
Why did you link there rather than here?
Mental hiccup. It’s 2AM here :)
By the way, there’s quite a bit lore on that site that would be quite interesting if we knew what parts of it applied to MoR, such as some info about Snape and Lily that don’t quite match what Snape says.
In canon, portkeys aren’t affected by disapparation jinxes—or so sayeth some site.
You couldn’t portkey out of Azkaban, so there must be some way to stop them. But probably not a lot, since Quirrell was relying on a few of them after they cleared Azkaban. But yes, I agree that canon is weak here. That’s the benefit of this scenario—it makes a tighter plot that makes sense. They didn’t run because it was a trap.
Can’t but this one at all. The assumption I’m working under is that it was a plot of Dumbledore’s to destroy Voldemort. Why would thinking like a story mean that Lily would automatically fulfill the conditions of a dark magic ritual? Just because it would be convenient if she did? That just seems like massive wishful thinking on Dumbledore’s part.
I wouldn’t bet on it, it was just my impression that in stories good mothers sacrifice themselves for their babies in such situations—see canon for an obvious example—perhaps more often than in reality.
Two aurors would be most likely to beg for mercy for their child and let themselves be slaughtered instead of fighting back? Harry himself noted the absurdity of thinking that would work, and I believe called it her “final failure as a mother”.
And wouldn’t there be a whole lot of dark rituals going on, if mothers making sacrifices for their children would unknowingly and automatically invoke a dark ritual?
Alice and Frank Longbottom were Aurors, not the Potters. And it was Demented!Harry who thought “final failure as a mother”; Warm!Harry went on to think “He had regained an impossible memory, for all that the Dementor had made him desecrate it”.
It’s my understanding that in this theory, it was Voldemort’s line “I accept the bargain. Yourself to die, and the child to live.” that fulfilled the description of a ritual, not anything Lily did.
At least James was an auror, as testified by Remus, top of page 697. Perhaps not Lily. I’ve seen it concluded from the “thrice defied” that they fought him and lived to tell about it, but I don’t think any of that has happened on stage.
If she didn’t offer it, I don’t see why he would have said what he did out of the blue, or that it would have fulfilled the terms of a dark ritual even if he did, unless by saying that Lily instantly dropped dead. In this case, I see the ritual made by offer and acceptance. Without an offer, there is nothing for him to accept.
The desecration was of his memory, not of his attitude toward it. I took that to mean that Lily actually did not try to cast the killing curse. (Although I personally don’t consider that a desecration of the memory. It seemed quite sensible, if she was not trying to fulfill a dark ritual.)
Apparently not!
Sorry, this doesn’t help at all. ffnet doesn’t have page numbers, and page 697 of the pdf version mentions no such thing. Could you find the quote you’re thinking of in the actual posted chapters, say on hpmor?
This is true in canon; neither Lily nor James are Aurors in canon.
Rituals do not require consent, they require that someone names that which is to be sacrificed, then that which is to be gained, in that order.
Don’t know that pdf version you’re looking at. I’m looking at the pdf link on the front page of hpmor.com.
pg. 697
Interesting for EY to deviate from canon and make him an auror.
If it’s true in canon that Lily and James fought Vodemort and lived to tell about it, then I think we should accept that as true here until there is evidence to the contrary, particularly with the “thrice defied” requiring some accounting.
So two wizards, one of them an Auror, and both of them having fought Voldemort before and lived to tell about it.
Which is the better strategy for them when confronting Voldemort? Fight him together, or have one fight separately, and one beg for mercy for their son? Also, just in cost benefit analysis, in one scenario, Voldemort has some chance of defeat, which should count for a lot in that strategy’s potential benefits.
Rituals have got to require more than you say, otherwise every promise of something for something would become a dark ritual. That the foremost Dark Wizard would unknowingly complete a dark ritual all on his is another of the great improbabilities. Prior probability too low.
From the current version:
So, no.
The better strategy is “run (and/or portkey, fly, apparate, floo, etc)”. The fact that they didn’t do this probably has to do with the fact that they were taken completely by surprise in their place of safety.
And yes, the fact that if rituals could be done accidentally the world would look different is the main argument against this idea. Which is why its proponents have started to come up with conspiracy theories about Dumbledore planning everything, etc.
I think perhaps I wasn’t clear enough: I’m not saying it makes sense, just that Dumbledore could plausibly think it does, and Lily could plausibly have reacted as she’s described to have done, even though that might not be very probable for most reference classes she might be part of in general.
If you’re certain he’s actually completely sane and just pretending to be mad, with a few layers in between, then yes, it would be absurd for him, too. But Eliezer made his behavior sufficiently ambiguous that, even given his successes ( # ) I’m still not sure that he’s not biased to wishful narrative thought, his (apparent) successes explained in part by being powerful enough and in part by luck(**) and not-yet-revealed high-level plots.
Note that several apparently rational and very competent characters—including Harry, Quirell, Amelia Bones and IIRC Moody—appear to believe or suspect this. I’m not saying it is so, but The Author seems to have made it really ambiguous on purpose. Note that we have no view into Dumbledore’s thoughts in any part of the text, so most of the evidence we have the other characters have, too.
(#: He’s an old and powerful wizard who survived at least two great Dark Lords. See Moody’s musings on how hard that is.)
(**: Given magic and that Felix potion, we can’t exclude that luck actually exists in MoR.)