James' And Lily's Deaths

First of all I want to thank parry hotter for posting that website with all of JKR's interviews. That's where I got this from. This may have been something that has been discussed a lot here, but it's something that has been in the back of my head for a while. It concerns why Lily was given the option to live and why James' death didn't protect Lily and Harry.

What are your thoughts?

JKR seems to be saying that there's more to it.
The explanation that Lily's sacrifice gave Harry protection seemed complete and straight-forward to me.
On my own, I would not have thought too hard about why Voldemort would tell her more than once to get out of the way. I thought it seemed like a silly question at first, but they keep asking and JKR gives her cryptic little answers.

So, from what I gather, Lily's death somehow lead to Snape's redemption. Like maybe Voldemort promised to leave Lily out of it as part of his deal with Snape. That's what some people seem to be implying.

The other part of it is, why did it protect Harry at all? We are told that no one has ever survived the Havada Kadavara before, but surely there must have been times when someone chose to sacrifice themselves for someone else. Yet, this didn't give the protection to them, but it did for Harry.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. What deal would he have made with Snape? And is Voldemort really the type of person to keep a promise?

Well, Rowling seems to put emphasis on the fact that Lily was given a choice. She accepted the fact that she was going to die fo her son...I don't think that anyone else had done this before. Avada Kedavra is not an everyday sort of curse. And surely Voldemort didn't give anyone else a choice to live or die...I'd say it's probable that none of the dark wizards before him did, either...

He kept his promise to Wormtail (the hand thing).

That specific combination never happened before.
But the general idea of giving your life to protect someone else is "very old magic." In the graveyard, Voldemort was kicking himself for forgetting it.

And speaking of Lily --
A kid from the neighborhood told me today that
at one point Snape said something to Slughorn about Lily. Whatever he said, it implied a connection, and that Snape was angry when James and Lily got together in their 7th year. Is that familiar to anyone? I don't remember it.

I don't remember anything like that...
I think the Snape/Lily thing is major fannon/fanon (as opposed to canon). I mean, I guess there could be something there, but at this point I don't buy it.

Well, Rowling seems to put emphasis on the fact that Lily was given a choice. She accepted the fact that she was going to die fo her son...I don't think that anyone else had done this before.[/b][/quote]
I find this very hard to believe. That no one in the history of the magical world had ever chosen to save someone else from the Avada Kadavara when they could have saved themselves.

She also said there is more to it.

well i think that what J.K.R. is sayign is that james was goign to die and it didnt matter if it was to save his fammily or not lily chose to die for her son not knowing the porwe she might put into him by doing so and died herself also harry was saved and stoped voldy for a time now that is probley the commen sense of it and most say it the same i have my own oppinons but im not going to share them at the moment cause i hate being proved wrong so im just goign to wait to read the 7th book witch comes out in about a year also any ergon fans it comes out in theater soon and the next movie i think comes out some time next year o well have fun argueing and stuff