Secret Public Journal

Severus Snape, a teacher of children, took a 13 YEAR OLD’S PET and TRIED TO POISON IT and then proceeded to PUNISH THE STUDENT because the pet didn’t die

1. When he’s eight years old he decides that freedom means never having to say “Yes Master” or any variation thereof again.

2. Two days later, he starts counting. In one day, he says it 13 times. Kitster says he said it 16 times, and Anakin wonders if that’s worse, or just more of the same.

3. When the Jedi comes, Anakin calls him “sir.” He hates that word, too, but he’s learned the hard way that it’s safer. The Jedi doesn’t correct him.

4. Even so, for a few days after leaving Tatooine he almost believes he’s free. He’s off planet (and that’s where all the freed people go, isn’t it?), and in a starship, and he’s going to be a Jedi. He’s heard a lot of stories about the Jedi, but none of them say they’re slaves.

5. He was wrong, though. He has to call all the Jedi “Master,” and there are rules to follow, and they cut his hair and dress him and tell him where to go and how to behave and what to do. Master Obi-Wan tries to explain the difference, but he can’t see it, so he doesn’t understand.

He chafes, but never too much. He’s always known just how far he can push, and no further.

6. By the time he’s nineteen years old, and in love, he’s said “Yes Master” 22,753 times.

7. Padmé is upset that they have to hide their wedding, that it has to be private and unshareable. She pretends that it doesn’t bother her so much, and in return he pretends that it does bother him, too.

It doesn’t, though. On Tatooine, all slave marriages are like this. He’s always known he would get married this way.

8. He’s going to be a father, and he’s joyful and giddy and terrified. (He’s now said “Yes Master” 35,802 times.)

There’s a corner of his mind that repeats the old Tatooine law like a mantra. Children follow the mother. His child will be free.

9. There’s something to be said, he thinks, for choosing one’s own master. Or at least having the illusion of choice. He’s now said “Yes Master” 35,998 times, and as he kneels before Palpatine, he could almost believe this is what he’s always wanted.

10. Luke is twenty-four years old, whole, and beautiful, and he’s never said “Yes Master” in his life. Vader doesn’t know this empirically, of course, but he knows it all the same. The slave can always recognize the free man.

Dad: Why do you think they do that? Girl: Because the companies who make these try to trick the girls into buying the pink stuff instead of stuff boys want to buy. [x]

Over the course of the books, the people to whom Harry looks up go from static adults to flawed human beings. Most of the time, there’s a distinct turning point. Dumbledore’s moment comes at the end of book 5, Lupin at the beginning of book 7, James in Snape’s Worst Memory. The James moment was particularly important because James ceased to become a perfect martyr father and became a real person with distinct flaws.

And  it bothered me that Lily was never given such a moment.

It’s natural that other characters would romanticize her, and it’s natural that Harry would romanticize her. But she can’t possibly be perfect.

While I can accept that JKR didn’t have a chance to humanize Lily within the books, it frustrates me that so many people in the fandom portray her as this abstract representation of goodness and motherhood and martyrdom.

I’ve seen fics that delve into each of the Marauder’s motivations and experiences in any number of ways, but Lily often remains as blameless and saint-like as she was in canon. 

If we can give the Giant Squid a love interest, then we can give Lily Evans a complex personality.

But too often in fanon, Lily seems to exist to balance out characters like Snape, James, and Petunia. There’s an almost mathematical logic to it. If James is big-headed, then Lily must be gracious, if Petunia is finicky, Lily must be laid-back. Everything negative in James and Petunia is absorbed and inverted.

This is unfair to characters with whom Lily interacts. Petunia is not a very good person, but is it fair to say that the demise of her relationship with Lily is entirely Petunia’s fault? Things are rarely so one-sided. And painting her as the moral savior of James Potter does both James and Lily a disservice.

Lily was not a saint. She was a teenage girl.

Far too often, I hear people arguing Lily/James vs. Lily/Snape in a way that places supreme importance on the importance of James and Snape, while minimizing Lily’s agency. She becomes this inanimate object to be awarded to the person with the most moral fiber.

But no one–not Snape or James or anyone else–”deserves” Lily as a friend or a romantic partner. She’s a human being, not a Quidditch Cup trophy.

It’s damaging and dangerous to reduce Lily to Harry’s perfect mother or Snape’s object of infatuation. Lily is a flawed individual who chose her own path.  She had insecurities, fears, hang ups, and bad habits.  She had hopes and dreams that didn’t involve the men in her life.