Snapedom

There was one comment I wanted to pull out from the recent Lily threads for separate discussion.

I’m glad Hwyla pointed out that Lily almost had to have been a prefect in SWM. I’d been wanting someone to bring that up.

Warning: Lily-bashing ahead. At least I can't come up with any way to have Lily look good in SWM if she's really a prefect as well as Snape's supposed best friend.

( Is it credible )

Here’s another thing I’d like to drag out from the depths of Sailorum’s Snily post-and-commentary for independent attention.

Most often, when I read something by someone with a viewpoint strongly different from mine, it clarifies my understanding of how they view (or misinterpret—evil grin) canon, but it has a hard time altering MY view. But sometimes someone offers an insight that just reverses things for me.

The insight that Lily almost certainly was a prefect in SWM altered my perceptions of her behavior very negatively.

However, one of Sailorum’s responses to a comment has the exact opposite effect on my view of Lily in the Mulciber/Potter argument. Like 00sevvie and others, I’d felt Lily to be cold and distant in that scene, not responding like a true friend, for not expressing overt sympathy and horror over her supposed best friend’s near-murder (and for thinking Mulciber’s failed prank, whatever it was, on a par with death-by-werewolf).

But I see now that I was falling into the old trap of assuming that what I knew, a character knew, and judging them on the basis of my knowledge. (Just like all the fen who think that OF COURSE Snape knew all along that the Dark Lord was an Evul sociopath—I mean, it’s obvious in retrospect, right? How could Sev not have known at 15 that this Dark Lord wizard was Bad News?) I’ve been committing that same sin with Lily.

( For here’s )