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What do James stans find special about him? That guy isn't inspirational at all. Hell, his death couldn't have been more pathetic and useless. What makes him appealing?

At school, he was nothing but a bullying criminal. Harrassing anyone he wanted, sexually assaulting a guy, becoming an illegal animagus, spying on everyone in the castle - stalking as well. What did this guy do to achieve such a level of popularity? Nothing he said was ever funny, either. All his good deeds were a product of his status and recklessness. Welcoming Sirius into his home - not a big deal, he's got all the space for many others. Becoming an animagus for Remus - well, it was illegal, but I suppose a nice gesture. Joining the Order - alright, Peter and Mundungus did that too, and? It only really accounts for his bravery and self-interest, doesn't it? I mean his wife was a muggleborn and he thrived on recklessness left and right. Not a big deal. But what else, really? What do you find so appealing as to suggest he is more sympathetic than Severus Snape - who actually had to struggle in life?

Harry is the only person who came close to truly knowing who Voldemort is. That’s why I ship Harrymort.

Your values usually mirror the values of your closest loved ones. And neither James, Severus or Petunia were particularly kind so the idea of her being this saintly role model doesn't fit the picture.

Hi I have read many of your James posts and so far I agree with all of them. What gets me wondering however is someone like Lily Evans - potrayed as the saintly morally good character - dating someone like James - an entitled bully who kept his jerkish behavior even after he supposedly changed. Who do you think she was? Did she excused James's behavior because she found him attractive and thought she could change him? Or that he would change for her? Was she downplaying his faults because she fell in love? Or was she simply too naive? I cannot believe a person who would marry a person with so many faults like James wouldn't also be far off from being jerkish themselves. And what about her relationship with Severus? Was she as attached to him as he was? Why was she friends with him for so long if she was excusing his prejudice for years? I'm so conflicted about her. The author implies she is something but the text kind of goes against that. As someone who is pro snape and knows Lily was a big part of his life what do you think about her, her motives, actions or relationships? I love your opinions a lot btw never stop sharing them😄

I looove to talk about Lily because her character sucks. And not because of her, but because HOW Rowling portrays her. Sooo.. Lets go! Lily is emblematic of a significant issue in the series: the tendency to use female characters as tools for male development rather than as complex individuals with their own arcs. In Lily’s case, her character functions primarily as a moral barometer—she exists to reflect the “goodness” or “badness” of the men around her. Her choices and relationships with James and Severus are less about her own desires, values, or growth and more about how they impact these two men. This framing does Lily a disservice, stripping her of agency and interiority while simultaneously burdening her with the narrative role of deciding who is worthy and who is not

Rowling’s portrayal of Lily is heavily idealized. She is the perfect mother who sacrifices herself for her son, the brilliant and talented witch who stands out even among her peers, and the moral compass who chooses “good” (James) over “evil” (Severus). This construction paints her as infallible, a paragon of virtue, and the embodiment of love and selflessness. However, this saintly image is rarely interrogated within the text.

The problem lies in the dissonance between how Lily is presented and the decisions she makes. If she is meant to represent moral perfection, her marriage to James —a character whose flaws remain evident even after his supposed redemption—creates a contradiction. James, even as an adult, retains the arrogance and hostility that defined his youth, particularly in his continued disdain for Snape. If Lily was as discerning and principled as the narrative suggests, why would she align herself with someone whose values and behavior contradict the ideal of Gryffindor bravery and fairness?

This contradiction weakens her role as a moral arbiter, making her decisions feel less like the result of her own judgment and more like a narrative convenience to validate James’s redemption. By choosing James, she implicitly forgives or overlooks his past bullying, signaling that his actions were excusable or irrelevant to his worthiness as a partner. This not only diminishes the impact of James’s flaws but also undermines Lily’s supposed moral clarity.

Lily’s role mirrors a common, harmful trope: the woman as a moral compass or fixer for flawed men. Her purpose becomes external rather than internal—she isn’t there to pursue her own goals, ideals, or struggles but to serve as a benchmark for others’ morality. It’s as if Lily’s worth as a character is determined solely by her relationships with James and Severus rather than her own journey.

By failing to give Lily meaningful contradictions or flaws, Rowling inadvertently creates a character who feels passive and complicit. Her saintly veneer prevents her from being truly human, as real people are defined by their contradictions, growth, and mistakes. Yet Lily is static, existing only to highlight James’s "redemption" or Severus’s "fall."

This lack of depth reflects a broader issue with how women are often written in male-centric narratives: their stories are secondary, their personalities flattened, and their actions only meaningful in the context of the men they influence. It’s a stark reminder of the gender bias present in the series, where women like Lily, Narcissa, and even Hermione are often used to drive or validate male characters’ arcs rather than having their own fully developed trajectories.

Regarding Lily and Severus relationship, their bond begins in a world where both feel alienated. Severus, growing up in the oppressive and neglectful environment of Spinner’s End, finds in Lily not only a companion but a source of light and warmth that he lacks at home. For Lily, Severus is her first glimpse into the magical world, a realm that she belongs to but doesn’t yet understand. Their friendship is symbiotic in its earliest stages: Severus offers Lily knowledge of her magical identity, while she provides him with acceptance and validation. However, this connection, while powerful in childhood, rests on a fragile foundation—one that fails to evolve as their circumstances and priorities shift. When they arrive at Hogwarts, the cracks in their bond begin to surface. While Lily flourishes socially, Severus becomes increasingly marginalized and becomes a frequent target of James Potter and Sirius Black. This social isolation only deepens his reliance on Lily, but for her, this dependency becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.

It’s important to recognize that Lily’s discomfort isn’t only moral; it’s also social. By the time of their falling out, Lily has fully integrated into the Gryffindor social circle, gaining the admiration of her peers and, most notably, James Potter. Her association with Severus, now firmly positioned as an outsider and a future Death Eater, risks undermining her own social standing. While her final break with Severus is framed as a principled decision, it’s difficult to ignore the role that social dynamics might have played in her choice.

It’s worth considering that Lily’s shift toward James wasn’t necessarily a sudden change of heart but rather the culmination of an attraction that may have existed all along, one rooted in what he represented rather than who he was. James Potter, as the embodiment of magical privilege—a pure-blood, wealthy, socially adored Gryffindor golden boy—offered Lily something that Severus never could: validation within the magical world’s elite.

Though Lily was undoubtedly principled, it’s plausible that, beneath her moral convictions, there was a more human, and yes, superficial, desire for recognition and security in a world that was, for her, both wondrous and alien. Coming from a working-class, Muggle-born background, Lily would have been acutely aware of her outsider status, no matter how talented or well-liked she became. James’s relentless pursuit of her, despite his arrogance and bullying tendencies, may have been flattering in ways that bolstered her sense of belonging. James’s attention wasn’t just personal—it was symbolic. His interest in her, as someone who could have easily chosen a pure-blood witch from his own social echelon, signaled to her and to others that she was not only worthy of respect but desirable within the upper echelons of wizarding society.

This dynamic raises uncomfortable questions about Lily’s character. Could it be that she tolerated James’s antics, not because she believed he would change for her, but because she enjoyed the social validation his affection brought her? Interestingly, this interpretation aligns Lily more closely with her sister Petunia than one might initially expect. Petunia’s marriage to Vernon provided her with the stability and status she craved within the Muggle world. Both sisters may have sought partners who could anchor them in environments where they otherwise felt insecure. For Petunia, that meant latching onto the image of suburban perfection through Vernon. For Lily, it may have meant aligning herself with someone like James, whose wealth, status, and pure-blood background offered her a kind of social and cultural security in the magical world.

If we view Lily’s relationship with James through this lens, her character becomes far less idealized and far more human. Rather than being the moral paragon the series portrays, she emerges as a young woman navigating an uncertain world, making choices that are as practical as they are principled. While it’s clear she disapproved of James’s bullying, it’s equally possible that his persistence, confidence, and status were qualities she found increasingly difficult to resist—not because they aligned with her values, but because they appealed to her insecurities.

It’s also worth noting that Lily’s final break with Severus coincided with her growing relationship with James. This timing is telling. Severus, a social outcast from a poor background, represented the antithesis of James. By cutting ties with Severus, Lily not only distanced herself from the moral ambiguities of his choices but also from the social liabilities he represented. Aligning with James, by contrast, placed her firmly within the Gryffindor elite—a position that would have offered her both social protection and personal validation. And this whole perspective is much more interesting than her image as a moral compass for the men around her. Unfortunately, as with many of her characters, Rowling didn’t put any effort into giving us definitive answers; she just insisted on that unhealthy, idealized view of motherhood and the idea that everything is forgiven if you're on the "right" side and rich and popular.

Sorry for the long text, but whenever the topic of Lily comes up, I tend to go on and on, haha.

Hi, one more question!

I read Tomarry fan fiction with time travel, and when they write that Harry is taking Tom from the orphanage, for some reason they write that Harry expects that if he gives the love and care that he was deprived of, then Tom will become a different person. That is, Harry projects himself onto Tom and expects the same reaction from him that Harry himself would have had if he had been taken away from the Dursleys. And also, I do not understand the authors themselves believe that if you give a child (Tom) everything he wants and do not limit him at least somehow, that he will grow up to be a morally better person? Or do they think that Harry is so narrow-minded and does not understand that punishments and rewards are needed for proper upbringing? That it's not enough to just say "don't do this because it's wrong for a moral reason", but to provide a logical explanation that would be based on logic and pragmatism, which would sound clearer to Tom? What do you think about it?

Anyone could write whatever they want, and I'm not going to diss any specific fics or authors. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of Harry going back in time to raise Tom fics because it's just not to my personal taste. So, this isn't the kind of scenario I really think about for Harry's and Tom's characters.

In general, though, I think Harry understands Tom and how he thinks more than fanon often gives him credit for. I also think Tom isn't as evil incarnate as some fanon paints him as. I don't think he's super moral, but I don't think he is especially cruel either.

Like, Tom doesn't do immoral things because he doesn't know what's good and what's evil, he is an intelligent capable adult — he knows very well what he's doing is evil, he just doesn't mind doing evil if he thinks it's necessary.

And he has morals. He regrets needing to kill Snape, he dislikes unnecessary death and bloodshed and actively avoids it in the first war. He doesn't want to kill students in the battle of Hogwarts and calls a ceasefire to let them regroup and treat their injuries to the detriment of his own side. He hates cowardice and treachery. He derides Wormtail because he betrayed his friends, yes, that betrayal helped Voldemort, but Voldemort despises cowardly traitors as a rule and his morals are important to him. He hates pretentious purebloods and he shows this contempt in how he treats his followers. Tom has a moral core all on its own with his shitty upbringing, it's just, kinda messed up and he's a practicality-over-morality kind of person most of the time. I'm saying most because he doesn't allow himself to cheat when trying to kill Harry. He just has to kill Harry properly, in a fair duel, because of his own morals and ideals. I also think Tom would be insulted by the concept of cheating at school, for example.

I mentioned in the past the fact Voldemort's favorite spell is the killing curse kinda shows that he has some twisted sense of morality. I mean, in a world where you can burn and cut and torture people with magic there are so many cruel and painful ways to kill someone, and yet, Voldemort's go-to spell, when he isn't making a point or torturing someone for a specific reason, is Avada Kedavra. The Killing Curse is a painless death, even Voldemort considers it a merciful death. It's quick and painless and efficient. This is the death he gave James and Lily because he respected them and didn't want them to suffer unnecessarily. This is the death he chooses for anyone he doesn't have a specific reason to torture because he is against what he deems as unnecessary cruelty. Snape's death is the only real death that is unnecessarily cruel but I think it has more to do with JKR needing a way for Snape to get Harry the information he needs rather than be accurate to Voldemort's character as he was shown thus far.

Like, he has some weird sense of morality, and even with the evil things he does, like murder, he knows they are bad and he does so anyway. Sometimes, he does so regretfully, in the most merciful way he can, and other times, when he hates someone, he relishes in it. It's not about not understanding good and evil or not knowing what morals are, it's about caring about morals less than about whatever goal he wants to accomplish, and sometimes that goal is to humiliate the crap out of Lucius Malfoy, or to showcase how great he is and be dramatic about it. But the fact he has his twisted morals and considers himself merciful is part of what makes him so interesting to me.

Hinny wasn’t an epic romance. It wasn’t meant to be at the time. It fits Harry perfectly not to fall in love and develop a close romantic bond with someone during a time when he was grieving Sirius and had tons of responsibilities on his shoulders. After reading the books again, I have realized that Harry didn’t actually like Ginny for who she was but merely for what she represented. She provided comfort and a hopeful future. She was a distraction, just like stalking Draco was a distraction. That doesn’t mean Ginny and Harry didn’t mature and develop genuine love as adults, but it was not like that during the war. It was a teenage, shallow, physical distraction based on hormones and the need for comfort/sense of normalcy. At least for Harry. I’m not sure about Ginny.

Yes! Leaving will do nothing progressive. Of course I understand those who do, for their personal and mental well being, but I love the HP world and I want the fandom to be a better place and to advocate for trans rights and make the fans as much different from the author as it's possible. So I will always stay.

i find the “don’t even THINK about anything even remotely related to harry potter, because that’s aiding and abetting jkr’s terf agenda” is giving abstinence only sex education vibes

Yeah it's stupid. And it's not confined to Harry Potter. There's this whole idea that there are the Bad Problematic TM works that must never be engaged with and the Good Virtuous works that are approved reading. And nope. Good people can write bad stuff. Bad people can write good stuff. Problematic works can still be meaningful and enjoyable. The key is to think and read critically. I love Shakespeare. It doesn't mean I agree with all the 1600s attitudes that color the works.

I also think too many people try to engage in bullying online by calling it "activism" so they can indulge in their basest desires while avoiding the work of doing any real actual activism.

Bigotry will always exist. Even if we banned all thoughts of Harry Potter it wouldn't end transphobia or make trans people safer. What WOULD help trans people is enacting tough laws that protect their rights and penalize discrimination and also educating people about trans issues and promoting inclusiveness so that over time society becomes more accepting. But all that takes work and is about actually helping people. And for some people that isn't the true goal.

I dislike the characterizations that are common in all (or 99%) of wolfstar fics. Their dynamic and relationship are significantly altered just to make them more palatable and workable. Their core personalities suffer in the process as well.

Is this a safe space to say I'm lowk starting to heavily dislike wolfstar

So, last night I got to thinking what I want Snape in my interpretation to look like, so please take this offering with my thought process

And after that I also made a rough sketch for a fun idea with a late night sneaking around that I l've got, so here's that as well

"Detention, Potter."

Im so obsessed with Shauna Shipman and her obsession with consuming Jackie. Her boyfriend, her life, her body. Shauna doesn't even believe in the Wilderness. The girls don't even need to resort to cannibalism anymore, she's just making them do it so she can relive eating Jackie. It's why later she makes their victims wear Jackie's necklace when they kill them. She literally never moved past losing Jackie. "Do you think Mel has to wear Jackie's clothes when they make out?"

Only Remus is acceptable, although he's also a little bitch. But James, Sirius and Peter can choke on my dildo and die.