How would you change Lily's character to make her more consistent or what kind of memories would you add to make her feel more real/less flat?
No, the point is not about adding or removing something, nor is it about Lily having more scenes, if you want a character that sparks the imagination, you can do it in many ways. For example, let's go back to ASOIAF. We have the character of Rhaegar Targaryen; by some, he is remembered as a rapist and kidnapper of young girls; by others, he is remembered as a very intelligent, talented, sensitive guy; by others, a great warrior; by others, a horrible husband responsible for the death of his wife and children. There are many versions of Rhaegar Targaryen, not just one, because there are many points of view. You can create an image of him through all of them, but even if you never get to know what he was really like, you know he was a person with nuances, with light and shadow, even if he never appears in the saga, or if we never see him, or if we never have a single goddamn scene with him, you have a lot to dig into. He is a character that feels human. With Lyanna Stark, a bit the same thing happens; you don't know exactly what idea to have of her, not because she is a character who is already dead, but because there are many versions of her, as many as people who knew her.
Lily could have been like that, but Rowling decides to turn her into a sanctified myth who, more than a real person, seems like a saint, and everyone (including Snape) narratively insists to us that she was a saint, but then what they show us of her is not like that. So, that's where the cognitive dissonance lies. And the same thing happens with James, the problem is not that James was a bully, the problem is the narrative's constant insistence on downplaying his actions, not holding him accountable for them, and insisting that he changed by magic even though we don't see it. And the same thing happens with characters we know, for example with Remus. My problem is not that Remus gets Tonks pregnant and runs away (which is also a problem), it's that even so, the narrative treats him as a good guy even though the man abandoned a girl 13 years younger, pregnant, and that merely coming back fixes everything. No, man, it's not like that, just coming back doesn't fix everything, what kind of bullshit is that?
I mean, Rowling tells you: this one is good, and regardless of his actions, you have to swallow that he is good and that he is morally unimpeachable, period. In the same way that, for example, she completely demonizes Draco, when it is true that Draco is an unbearable child, but then in the last two books he awakens a lot of empathy and it is inevitable that he does so because he is living a drama and he is just a kid. She doesn't understand that her desires cannot take precedence over the narrative without putting more effort into it, that if she wants us not to sympathize with Draco, she has to WORK at making us not do it, and if she wants us to see James as a hero, she has to SHOW us that he was one. These are things that require narrative effort regardless of it only being Harry's POV because the POV excuse and the unreliable narrator excuse is a shitty excuse made by people who don't know how to read and who don't know how to develop or analyze characters. That a narration is biased does not mean that the writer cannot make that narration not jar the reader and make them question if the narrator isn't taking everything out of proportion, for example, that can be done if there is intentionality, just as you can be in a character's POV and show them as unhinged even if the character doesn't realize it. But you have to work at it, the lady didn't work at it because she wasn't interested.
The only thing that should be done with Lily is to humanize her, period, but people don't want to. And Lily's fans who say they accept her flaws are liars, they only accept interpretations of those flaws that are comfortable or convenient for them, but they don't want to accept a true humanization of the character because, in part, they like to project themselves onto that image of a demure girl with character but without going overboard, who had the popular guy chasing her and a man who gave his life to preserve her memory even 20 years after her death. And they don't like complicated women either; they like them complicated within a norm but without going too far. These are people who watch Fleabag and don't feel represented, or people who read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and are bored by it. Those people are Lily Evans' fans-like.
