I think the charm was envoked by Lily's self sacrifice. Voldemort had no intention of killing her, and it was her choice that she would die to protect harry. Did she know that she was using ancient and extremely powerful magic? Maybe, but we have no way of knowing that.

 

That wasn't the choice that was presented to Lily in her final moment. The choice was to either give up Harry or not. She didn't choose to die protecting Harry but chose not to give him up to the Dark Lord.

Now that I've mentioned it, there wasn't even such a thing as self-sacrifice in that scene. Why does JKR insist that it was self-sacrifice anyway?

 

"Stand aside you silly girl."

I believe that's the point at which Lily does not stand aside and so dies, where she could have lived.

 

Still that doesn't make her death as a self-sacrifice.

 

Giving your life to save another when you could have lived?

If that isn't sacrifice, then I don't know what is.

 

Did she know that giving up her life would allow Harry to live?

She didn't. That couldn't be called self-sacrifice.

 

It's not about knowing what the results will be. It's all about the meaning.

As they say, it's the thought that counts.

Harry survived his encounter with Voldemort in DH. Yet it still counted as self-sacrifice, because he thought that he was going to his death. He inteded to die.

And so, magic recognised it as self-sacrifice, even though no actual sacrifice was made, and everyone was protected from Voldemort.

 

If it's all about the gestures behind the actions then Lily's death wasn't self-sacrifice. Her last action was of defiance. She just wouldn't give Harry up.

 

All the aurors who have gone willingly into battle, and given their lifes for the cause of good, could have "walked away" instead.

It still seems awful iffy to me.

 

But the aurors, as you said, went into battle.

Harry and Lily both refused to defend themselves. They gave themselves up willingly.

And, in the words of Dumbledore, that makes all the difference.

 

I dunno, Taure, are you playing devil's advocate here? No offence intended if you just see it that way, but you're doing an uncannily good job at representing what the author seems to have had in mind. Insofar, your analysis is of course - most likely - spot-on.

The author's interpretation isn't really relevant however. At the end of the day, the books have to speak for themselves. And the concept of self-sacrifice they present is at best unclear, at worst disturbing. We have three prominent examples of people who let themselves be killed without fighting back: Harry, Lily and Dumbledore. Contrary to the author's opinion, I don't think that Lily had much of a choice: it was between watching her baby being killed and dying alongside (or rather: beforehand?). Harry had been led to believe he needed to die in order to take Voldemort along (that's the only truly altruistic self-sacrifice in the books imho, though it is slightly tainted by the fact that he was only 17 and had been manipulated into reaching this frame of mind for a long time). Dumbledore's death was a perversion of the idea of self-sacrifice; it was in essence a form of assisted suicide with the recipient not giving a damn about the assistant's (Snape's) soul or the needs of the defenders of his castle at the moment it happened. It's revolting.

Where's the example of a self-sacrifice where someone died fighting, knowing for sure that s/he won't make it out alive? And I mean an example with a positive outcome for someone else. There's none in the books as far as I can remember. On the contrary, most deaths among the fighting people seem random and/or pointless. Given the importance of the idea of self-sacrifice in the novels, this is significant.

We only ever learn how the Order members from Moody's photograph in OotP were slaughtered one after the other, never what they achieved in return. Sirius at least died fighting, but the circumstances imply that it was partially his fault for being reckless. Moody's death is the result of a stupid scheme Dumbledore's portrait cooked up in order to make Snape look good in front of Voldemort (which has to be the single most important strategical asset in the fight against the Death Eaters for sure; taking the author's word for it). Tonks and Lupin in the final battle - a side-note ... All those deaths only serve the purpose of upping the body-count in the narrative. They are portrayed in an unsympathetic, off-hand manner. The most meaningful death in the whole books is Dobby's, as he was at least struck while doing something productive.

On the whole, the concept of sacrifice is rather underdeveloped imho. It kind of seems like the degree of bravery is measured by the degree of pointlessness of the death, with Magic itself somehow jumping in to set the eternal balance straight by rewarding the most utterly pointless deaths with inexplicable all-powerful side-effects.

 

James Potter. Although "fighting" is a bit of an overstatement.

 

Maybe the whole sacrifice thing was an arcane ritual or something planned ahead of time by Lily and Dumbledore? And the trigger/finishing touch was the act of sacrifice? That would explain why Harry survived after the sacrifice, and countless other children didn't.

I don't see how anyone can argue that it wasn't a sacrifice. "Take me instead" sounds pretty sacrificial to me.

 

"Take me instead" is the OFFER of a trade. Voldemort was unwilling to accept a trade and told her to stand aside.

At that point in time she had 3 options:
a) Draw her wand and fight
b) Remain standing in front of her child without actually fighting.
c) stepping aside.

According to JKR b) is a sacrifice since she went to her death willingly.

Personally i do not see the difference in her intent compared to James potters intent. Both went to their death willingly, he chose to try to delay voldemort, and in the end that was the only thing she could have hoped for as well.

JKR took a different position and actually argued that position pretty well, so i can accept that.

In all honesty i believe that out of the 3 options i offered most mothers would go for option a and hope for a miracle. Even the best fighter can die due to a stupid factor of luck if it strikes at the wrong/right time. To stare death in the face unarmed and willingly like JKR requires, needs a conviction i doubt many people have.

 

Of course most mothers would go for option A and hope for a miracle, Slasheh. Hell, unless there's something severely wrong - or they think that there's going to be some Deus Ex Machina effect that will save their child - just about all mothers would choose option A.

Why? Because C is ridiculous; no mother short of someone that dislikes their kid enough to want him/her dead - and thus would be perfectly willing to commit the act themselves - would ever choose option C.

Option B? The only way a mother would ever choose option B over option A is if they know that there would be some sort of crazy Deus Ex Machina effect that would save their kid. Beyond that? Option B can be alternately - and easily - worded as Suicide. There's just no reason for it; nothing good would come from option B. Your child will die, and so will you, unless, again, there's a Deus Ex Machina effect.

 

I still don't buy JKR's argument for Option B being sacrifice. Option B is like resigning both the mother and the child's fate to death. If you look at it closely, Options B and C are not very much unlike. The only difference is that the mother lives in Option C. Effectively, Lily just gave up Harry to Voldemort but chose to die with him. Does that ,even in the remotest sense, sound like sacrifice to any of you?

 

Her words were:

"Take me instead"

Not:

"Take me, then go on to kill my baby too."

 

If I remember correctly neither Lily nor James had their wands when Voldemort attacked. So it leaves only B or C options for her. And she choses B, hoping (vainly) that there is chance that Voldemort kill her instead of her son. This is sound stupid (bacause we know that Voldemort would have never done this), but she could not not to try. JKR said every mother would have done that, but only Lily actually had the choice (thanks to Snape). This is how understood this.

 

You remember incorrectly, Dasha.

 

Exactly my point. He didn't achieve anything.

There are other ways to fight than using a wand. Trying to disarm the attacker or trying to break his wand come to mind. That's a muggle method that Voldemort might not have expected.

I've thought for a long time that Voldemort inadvertently entered into a binding magical contract with Lily because of this exchange and that that was the reason the AK on Harry backfired. It'd have been a much more satisfactory explanation for the whole mess imho.