#Power of love

[neverenoughmarauders]

Lily's meaningless sacrifice

One thing that irks me is when people suggest that in canon, Lily had any idea that Harry would survive (this is merely a canon post, nothing to do with fanfiction). It irks me, partly because it's just incorrect and that's the sort of person I am. More importantly, however, it irks me because Lily not stepping aside when she had nothing to gain from dying is fundamental to the story.

Let's start with JKR own words from an interview in 2005:

MA: Did she know anything about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry? JKR: No - because as I've tried to make clear in the series, it never happened before. No one ever survived before. And no one, therefore, knew that could happen.

Lily knew nothing about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry. Lily was faced with this choice:

Scenario 1: Steps aside, and Harry is killed.

Scenario 2: Be killed, and Harry is killed.

Scenario 1 is (on the surface) objectively better (unless you're a DE and thus want less muggle-borns around). To Voldemort, it's a simple choice: In both scenarios Harry will die, in one, Lily will survive. In fact, this is what makes a lot of people defend Severus' choice to only ask Voldemort to spare Lily. Severus could not save Harry (and apparently it's totally cool not trying to save others if they bullied you).

Lily could not save Harry.

Lily's choice, as far as she is aware, is not whether to save Harry or not, but whether to save herself. And yet, Lily cannot stand aside. As JKR points out earlier in the interview, what Lily did is not that surprising to us readers ("I don't think any mother would stand aside from their child"). Why? Love. Because, as Dumbledore reminds us on multiple occasions: there are worse things than death - most notably in DH:

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."

Love, and life with and without love is an undercurrent in the story. Lily's sacrifice is meaningless when made, and yet it's the biggest and most understandable expression of love anyone can show someone else. Lily cannot, and does not want to, live in a world where she has witnessed her son being murdered - especially when her husband has been murdered too. A world without Harry and James is no world for Lily Potter.

It is also - bear with me - not that different from what it was like to be in the Order at that time:

[Y]ou weren’t in the Order then, you don’t understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one...

“He — he was taking over everywhere!” gasped Pettigrew. “Wh — what was there to be gained by refusing him?”

The Order operated against the odds and were being picked off one by one. As Peter asks - what was there to be gained by refusing him? What was there to be gained from standing (metaphorically or not) in front of Voldemort's victims? I've said this before and I'll say it again, Sirius' answer is powerful:

“What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed?” said Black, with a terribly fury in his face. “Only innocent lives, Peter!” “You don’t understand!” whined Pettigrew. “He would have killed me, Sirius!” “THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!” roared Black.

Only innocent lives. They weren't fighting this war because they were winning. In fact they were very much losing. But they were fighting because it was right thing to do. Many Order members chose to die, rather than to step aside and let Voldemort take over. Only in their case it didn't make a difference - or at least, it didn't feel like it at the time. Members were murdered, and Voldemort was just getting stronger and stronger.

What was there to be gained by refusing Voldemort?

I firmly believe this is a theme that is repeated throughout the book: not just love and choice, but the obligation to choose what is right, no matter the odds (the irony that this was written by JKR will never be lost on me), and how love is a powerful motivator to do just that. Doing the right thing might seem hopeless in the moment - wasteful even - but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing, or that in the end, it won't add up.

Imagine what Harry felt like at the end of PS/SS when he risked his life to stop Voldemort, only to realise that Voldemort would keep trying to come back:

“Well, Voldemort’s going to try other ways of coming back, isn’t he? I mean, he hasn’t gone, has he?” “No, Harry, he has not. (...) Nevertheless, Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time — and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power.”

Harry Potter isn't about doing the right thing because it will bring you rewards, but because it is the right thing.

“Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”

This speech doesn't sit well with a few people because it sounds like you're asked to remember what happened to someone who did do the right thing (spoiler: he died). But that's not the point, of course. Cedric wasn't killed for doing the right thing or making a hard choice - Dumbledore asks the students to remember Cedric because the enemy is willing to kill innocent people indiscriminately. Standing aside will not be good enough against people like Voldemort. There is, as Dumbledore put it, a need to keep fighting what seems a losing battle. Why? Only innocent lives.

Both James and Lily die that evening because they are unwilling to let Voldemort near their innocent son as long as there is breath in their bodies. James had no choice (this irks me because he did, he could have run away - he could have not fought Voldemort in the Order to being with. They all had a choice, but not the point). Lily had a choice. And she chose, like many had before her, to fight what seemed like a losing battle. She died, not knowing that she had saved her son. Her sacrifice was meaningless - like so many before her - and yet her sacrifice changed the world.

In the end, by choosing to do what was right, she was granted the wish she most desired: Her son lived.

[anthurak]

You know one of the main reasons we should see polycules in fantasy stories? Consider settings where the ‘Power of Love’ is a real, tangible force.

Now just imagine the POWER a fully realized polycule could have.

Like we’ve seen just how much power can be generated by the love between a hero and a love-interest.

Now imagine if we take the love between the heroine and her GF, then add onto that the love between the heroine and her rival-turned-lover, AND the love between the rival and the aforementioned GF who are estranged childhood friends who have finally admitted their long-repressed feelings for each other.

Just turning a couple into a throuple potentially TRIPLES the number of potential love-generating links.

And that’s just with three people in a polycule.

A four-person polycule? That’s SIX times the potential power.

A five-person polycule is TEN times the power.

A six-person is FIFTEEN times.

You can see how this can get nutty VERY quickly.

Heck, imagine if in such a setting, the idea of polycules is initially ridiculed out of some belief that ‘love’ is some finite resource and a polycule is merely dividing up that power.

Only for the protag-polycule to prove this notion DEVASTATINGLY wrong.

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

‘Beside the one you have waited for to be mated with…’.

I’m a huge champion of Stede and the power of his emotions. With that in mind, I feel it’s Stede’s emotional state and gender-nonconforming reactions which partly save his life in 109.

He tells Ed initially he will accept the firing squad, that the ‘bill has come due’. It’s a strange declaration because Stede certainly doesn’t deserve such punishment for leaving his family, and Stede also knows he didn’t mean to kill Nigel. But this is Stede’s self-loathing talking rather than a belief in natural justice.

It might also be an attempt at ‘correct’ masculinity. Stede’s initial speech contains overused tropes, things he believes he should say as a man waiting to die. After all, he doesn’t want to appear ‘weak-hearted’ or ‘lily-livered.’ We get noble platitudes of deserving this fate and facing the music: ‘It’s time, Ed.’ Never mind this is what a man’s work looks like; rather, this is what a man’s death looks like: silent, stoic, accepting. Plus big boys don’t cry.

And if Stede had stood silently and taken his execution, I’m not always sure Ed would’ve intervened despite his own heartbreak. I don’t think Ed (or Izzy) would’ve seen another sunrise, but I don’t feel Ed would’ve taken away Stede’s agency.

But then Stede declares he wants to live after all. This is major character growth. There is a ‘Do you want to live?’ through-line from the Pilot’s passively suicidal that’s-a-tough-question Stede, to 103 gut-stabbed Stede, appearing rather resigned to his fate whilst standing on the barrel, to this Stede whose position is very different and very clear.

We cut to Stede in a blindfold. He’s crying ‘I don’t wanna die’; and if you listen carefully, when it cuts to Ed, Stede cries out, ‘The bill hasn’t come due.’* Within minutes he is reneging on his previous words. Faced with death now, Stede’s instincts tell him he has something to stay alive for. And big boys do, in fact, cry - which might prove very powerful.

Meanwhile, other than the deserved punch, Ed seems oblivious to Izzy’s presence. Ed’s psychology is entirely tuned to Stede’s. And I feel it’s Stede’s uninhibited, emotional state, which pierces the workings of Ed’s mind in a way it’s never been before; and that causes Ed to find the answer, to shout, ‘Act of Grace.’

It’s a reciprocity, the neurology between lifemates. It’s primal, you can see it in Ed’s face: Stede lives in his synapses. Stede cries out; Ed finds a way to save him.

And it works both ways. When Ed is the one who needs saving, banging his hand like an SOS, Stede finds the words instinctively, nurtures Ed back from the brink. There’s a synchronicity in how they hold each other’s lives in their hands.

These events are even more compelling between men who were never loved properly by the people who should have done so in their childhoods. They cried out to indifference or worse then, and learned to be silent. They cry out now, and the other half of their soul finds a way to rearrange the stars.

It’s nature’s law. Connections between people who love are powerful.

*stede also says something else afterwards I can never make out - ‘I…?’

Edit - ‘I unconfess’

[beautifulterriblequeen]

The Power of Love

Ethari can't bring Rayla back by himself. His flare of magic doesn't even last more than a few minutes.

But with Runaan holding his hands - and completing a circuit, if you will - he can cast a spell that works properly and lets Rayla stay visible for long enough to complete her ritual.

ergo: Runaan is Ethari's spell battery. Holding hands is part of the ritual, and Runaan's presence - his love - lets Ethari cast more powerful spells than he can alone.

The power of love is literal for Ruthari.

[nomaptomyowntreasure]

power of love cover (Orlando, 3/15/2024)

[healingviawords]

I recently read about the Greek concept of meraki, which is all about leaving parts of yourself in everything you do. Really pouring yourself and self love into it all - from doing your dishes or brushing your teeth to your passion projects or organizing a birthday party for your best friend. It's in making that conscious efffort to really imagine parts of your heart being left in absolutely everything you do. I promise it will make life that much more beautiful.

[uaravsh]

"How do shy people flirt?"

"Eye contact"

[artemlegere]

Miranda - The Tempest

Artist: John William Waterhouse (English, 1849–1917)

Date: 1916

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Private collection

Description

In 1916 Waterhouse submitted three works to the Royal Academy: the group composition A Tale from the Decameron along with two single figure works "I am Half Sick of Shadows," said the Lady of Shalott and Miranda-The Tempest. As the titles suggest, Waterhouse had abandoned classical myths as subjects in favor of medieval and Renaissance narratives, often centering on a woman experiencing a revelation.

The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most romantic plays, written late in his career, circa 1611; its original performance a year later coincided with the wedding of Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of England's James I to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, later King of Bohemia.

As with many of Waterhouse's single-figure pictures of women, Miranda is a legendary, mystical woman withdrawn from the world, her future in peril. Miranda, her expression hidden from the viewer in three quarter profile, becomes a decorative object of dangerous beauty, her body surrounded by the violent bruised blue waves, the broken bits of Ferdinand's ship's mast suggesting the destructive, transformative power of love.

[bringthekingdom]

[chaotictoon]

Show me Love

Animated Girls with love and lust manipulation powers

[girl4music]

Xena has a Power of Queer Love ending too in ways.

The only difference is Xena chooses self-sacrifice instead of survival because of the love she feels or has for others. She chooses what Shadow Weaver or Catra does. Personal sacrifice out of an understanding that the power of love matters more than the love of power and it’s only because she feels like all her evil deeds - whether purposeful or accidental - are too unforgivable, can’t be atoned for in life, and it’s too late for her. It’s certainly not a good ending in the sense that it glorifies her heroism as self-sacrifice/suicide and that can be an extremely dangerous and debilitating message to give viewers, but the sentiment of the whys and hows is realistic from a narrative and thematic point of view.

Xena is no kids TV show. Xena is a Greek tragedy.

So the Power of Love is in Redemptive Love in Xena which - thankfully - is a striking difference in She-Ra.

Adora chooses love and forgiveness for herself just as much as she does for others. So that’s one way where Xena and She-Ra aren’t similar. Which I’m happy about because that would have been far too much for a young audience and it would have overstepped its boundaries.

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

"Minthara is evil!" Yeah, and my sunshine 8 - Intelligence Tiefling Paladin doesn't care. He will rescue her from that tower and make her believe in love and happiness again with the power of friendship and being a good boy. He can help her heal and accept the atrocities because everyone has the power to be better. I support evil women and their sunshine husbands.

[guessimdumb]

The Staple Singers - Power of Love (1968)

Recorded as the Staples were moving to secular music, there's still a strong gospel sound backing Mavis' powerful and gritty vocals. Cool guitar by Pops, as well.

[venolfy]

They always care for each other.