In the books its established early that Voldemort wanted the Potters to join him, and they refused; it is even stated by Rowling to be one of the ways they defied him.
Thing is that Mrs Potter was a muggle born; and hence the very last person Voldemorts philosophy would let join.
So? All Voldemort really cares about is power an immortality - I’m sure he believes in muggle inferiority, but his emphasis on that as a philosophy is more a recruiting and legitimizing tool than anything else. If breaking with that doctrine will give him useful people, and he can still keep the anti-muggle crowd in line, why not do it?
This is a man who splintered his own soul for immortality and power. He isn’t squeamish.
And remember that Voldemort was half Muggle himself. Consistency was not his one of his strong points.
QFT. And remember that two boys could have fit the parameters of the prophecy, detailing the one who could vanquish the dark lord. Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Neville was full blooded, i.e., born to a very powerful couple of wizards, in a long line of pure blooded wizards. Harry was more like 3/4’s wizard (mom was a muggle, but had magic). Voldemort was himself, only half.
But for whatever reason, he believed Harry to be the boy in the prophecy. What he did not realize is that either could be… because he did not hear the entire prophecy. By attacking either (and he chose Harry), he would mark them as his equal, thereby giving them the tools they needed to “vanquish” him. Clearly he thought Lily and James had something to them.
Whether hubris or not, Voldemort obviously didn’t think THAT MUCH of Lily, as he at least intimated that she need not die when he came to kill Harry. He killed James outright, afterall. I can’t imaging creating a fiercer enemy than the mother of the child you just murdered. :dubious:
He considered sparing her as a boon to Snape, who had asked for her. Yes, like a trophy or a prize. ::spits on the ground.::
He owed Snapes a favor for tipping him off to the prophecy in the first place - IIRC there’s a Pensieve memory of Snapes’ of when Voldemort is about to go and pay the Potters a visit, and remarks how for his (Snapes’) sake he will offer Lily a chance to live, even though “I don’t understand your fascination for this Mudblood woman” (or something to that effect).
By that time the Potters had already declared their allegiance, but if James Potter (who was, in fact, from a very old Wizarding family - how else do they end up with That Cloak) had accepted the invitation to join the Death Eaters way back, one can assume that Lily would have been granted some kind of immunity from Muggleborn persecution - whether through “false papers” or simply explicit exemption by fiat.
Ted Tonks certainly was not in the Second War protected by explicit exemption despite being married to a woman from a very old bloodline and indeed the woman we see in the Ministry being interrogated was in fact married to a pureblood.
As it is the Harry Potter wiki attributes this to her abilities being enough for Voldy to overlook her heritage; was this ever stated in the books or by Rowling, or even was it ever said that a highly talented muggle born could join the Death Eaters?
Most likely the entire pureblood thing mattered little to Voldy. It was a tool to gather up and manipulate those who would fall for his particular brand of charms. If mudbloods had somehow become necessary to immortality and power, then Voldy would have declared them friends of the cause without hesitation.
LV and Snape both had muggle fathers, don’t forget.
Is it really any odder than a short, dark haired guy with a Jewish grandmother declaring that only tall blonds were racially pure and that everyone with Jewish heritage had to be wiped off the face of the Earth?
Yeah, yeah, I know, Godwin’s law, but Hitler isn’t always a bad comparison.
I was thinking of more modern examples here in the U.S., involving certain moral stands, but since this is Cafe Society, will leave the specifics to the reader’s discretion. At any rate, Voldy certainly seems the type to happily distract his followers with nonsense he doesn’t believe in himself.
Lily Potter is the Dead Mommy Mary Sue of Harry Potter.
Everyone loved her. She was the best at everything. Blah blah blah.
Is it? I really don’t remember this. Not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t remember anything about the Potters receiving an invitation to join the Death Eaters and there doesn’t seem to be anything about this in the Harry Potter Wiki.
I’m sure Voldemort would have preferred to have the Potters with him than against him, but it was my impression that they “defied” him by actively working against him rather than keeping their heads down like many other witches and wizards.
For the same reason he kept Snape around. Lily was a powerful witch, her charm making ability would be useful. Voldemort would kill her, just like he did Snape, whenever it suited him. It might even have been nice to keep a few mudbloods around, as information on muggles. If, once Voldemort took complete control, the wizarding would was discovered, he’d need someone to dominate the muggles in his name – he can’t kill us all. Remember, when Voldemort achieves ultimate power, things are going to be a lot different, by default. A new would order. Maybe he planned to drop the whole wizards in hiding theme. Or perhaps I’m channeling the movies too much.
Hagrid says that the Potters were asked to join by Voldemort in the first book.
Not exactly. At least not by my reading:
Hagrid was speculating as to why Voldemort showed up at the Potter house, and the possibilities that occur to him were that either Voldy was there to try to recruit Harry’s parents, or that he was there to kill them. He actually says that no previous attempt at recruitment had been made, and–with the advantage of having read the later books–we know that that wasn’t the goal at Godric’s Hollow, either. The real goal was to kill Harry; his parents were merely in the way.
So, we have Hagrid’s statement that Voldemort never tried to recruit them before, and we know that his speculation about the night the Potters were murdered is incorrect (except insofar as you consider Voldemort’s offer to spare Lily for Snape’s sake an attempt to “recruit” her). That seems to rule out him asking them to join up.
JKR was pretty straight when she said that they had been offered and refused.
That’s odd, though, because the only mention of anything like that in Philosopher’s Stone is that quote from Hagrid above. And that quote makes it clear that they weren’t asked to join Voldemort: Hagrid wonders if maybe he was planning to persuade them that night, but he hadn’t tried before. And we all know that he wasn’t trying to persuade them at all.
Rowling might have intended to establish that, but she didn’t.
But it’s still a good question. He would have left Lily alive for Snape, for a while at least, and James was a pureblood and a bit of a bastard so would have been Voldemort’s type anyway.
I don’t doubt that she said it, nor do I doubt that she intended that, but the text doesn’t support it. What Hagrid said actually contradicts it, though he’s admittedly an unreliable narrator. The only other time I can find where it’s mentioned in the book is in Harry’s confrontation with Voldemort at the end, and all Voldy says about it is: “…but your mother needn’t have died…she was trying to protect you…”
I’d call it a slip. Either she intended Hagrid’s narrative to establish it, but didn’t quite write it that way, or her memory of it was a bit fuzzy during the interview, and she conflated something she intended with something she actually wrote. After all, the interview took place ten years after the book was published, and I doubt she’s re-read it as often as many of her fans; it would be easy enough to mix up several draft versions of those lines with the published one after that much time. It doesn’t really matter to the story, either way. The Potters had defied Voldemort enough to make themselves a target; they were members of the Order, after all. They had established themselves as his enemies sufficiently without a specific rejection.
I’m sure he would have been pleased to have them on his side–psychopath that he was, all that would have mattered was that they were useful to him–but that clearly wasn’t in the cards. Since they weren’t going to be useful to him, and they were in his way, he killed them. My interpretation is that he only offered to spare Lily because she would have given him another hold on Snape; she was just another string to tie onto one of his puppets.
Didn’t the Prophecy say that the Boy would be born to parents who had defied Lord Voldemort three times? Whne Dumbledore explained the Prophecy to Harry, he said that both the Longbottoms and the Potters qualified, so depending on what values of “defy” you use, this could be interpreted as rebuffing invitations.