My manifesto on Lily Evans
We know almost nothing about Lily, and she is the only witch on the Marauders generation that we learn anything about at all.
We know she was Head Girl, in the Slug Club, and died to save her child in some way more powerful than James laying down his life in battle. What was so powerful about this? It’s just written that a mother’s love is powerful, but presumably she must have invoked some ancient magic to give her life to save her son.
Throughout the series, we only see her through the male gaze. Harry only learns about his mother through other people’s memories, and his aunt never describes Lily in any meaningful way. Lily has the most screen time in the movies in Snape’s memories, and we have reason to believe that he would have a particularly twisted perception of her. Hagrid says some positive words about her, and maybe Sirius does as well, but on the whole we learn less about her than about James and what we do depicts her as an ideal of womanhood and motherhood (as described in this fantastic post by juniperpyre)
We know that James and Snape were infatuated with her and that she was a source of antagonism between them. While Snape’s infatuation with her was one of the major determining factors for the rest of his life, it didn’t stop him from joining a fascist terrorist group that dedicated to denying rights to a group she belonged to. It didn’t stop him from bullying her son to the point where he often suspected Snape was trying to kill him. We have to assume that eventually James saw Lily in a more human way than this, but we do not even get his perspective on her because he is dead.
Her own sister only says ANYTHING about her other than that she was a freak, a witch, and good for nothing in the seventh book. What she says? That Voldemort killed her sister. This doesn’t provide new insight into Lily’s character and Petunia’s relationship with her except that Petunia didn't enjoy her death. Great, Petunia is still human despite abusing a child. Doesn't tell us shit about Lily.
Incidentally, we also know that Lily got pregnant as a teenager. (Harry was born six months after she turned 20.) This is not the act of a Head Girl with a bright academic future, full of ambition, her life perfectly planned out and never deviating from the plan. This is the life of a confused girl living in a war and forced to grow up too soon, either by a mistake or through the feeling that it was her only chance at a normal family life with the impending danger of the war.
Lily might have felt isolated even in the Order and married to James. Mary is mentioned as her friend in canon, but we don’t know if Mary joined the Order. We know Lily had to cut herself off from Snape as a friend due to his bigotry and joining a fascist militant group. Yes, Lily was friends with Sirius, their first choice to be their Secret Keeper; we can tell this through their correspondence. But he was primarily James’ friend. They were inseparable at Hogwarts, and when he broke out of Azkaban, he mostly talked to Harry about James and saw James in Harry. Likewise, we know she was friends with Peter enough to trust him as Secret Keeper, but again he was primarily James’ friend. Lily wasn’t an animagus; she wasn’t in the Marauders’ Map, and if she was separated from her other friends and spent her time in the Order with James’ friends, she probably felt left out. She probably felt like she was viewed partially as an extension of James’ life.
Who was she outside of the male gaze? Outside of James’ life? Outside of Snape’s life? I guess that’s for us as fans to describe and write and cherish
