@observerssegion my response:
• The sexual assualt happened literally five seconds after she walked off. Did she cross the entire courtyard in five seconds? Did she haul ass into the castle despite "cooly" walking off? Did she NOT hear James yelling to the crowd "who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?" Did she NOT hear the jeers of the crowd, 'cause they undoubtedly jeered, when James took them off? Did she NOT hear about it from the entire school the next day gossiping and ridiculing him? The blame of the SA is entirely on James. But Lily letting it all happen is cruel.
• He lashed out because he was in the middle of being publically humiliated and she almost cracked a smile, suggesting some part of her found the image he made, exposed and humiliated, humerous.
It was wrong to call her that, I get it. I'm saying his words aren't coming from a rational place that actually thinks she's a mudblood. He didn't sit and deliberate her lineage and decide with full conscious and logical thought that she's a mudblood. He was being tormented in front of a crowd. He was backed into a corner. People lash out all the time when they're that weak and say things they don't mean to say. And Severus actually went and apologised to Lily for it. So that proves he didn't mean it.
• What could she have done? Use her wand to cover up Sev? Use her wand to Scourgify James' and Sirius' mouths exactly like they were doing to Sev? Use her wand to cut the ropes binding Sev, or the counter curse to Levicorpus? Tell everybody to leave, tell someone to get a teacher? Literally do anything besides yell useless words at James?
• Lily didn't have to save face. She's a beautiful, Perfect Gryffindor "standing up" to bullies who are hexing an unpopular guy. She has the most noble image you could have. The fact that Sev called her a mudblood doesn't deter from that—SHE'S not the one crawling on the ground coughing out soapsuds, wandless and stammering and flashing her underwear at a crowd of her peers. If a drunk naked guy pissing on the curb yelled a slur at a passerby would the passerby have to retaliate to save face?
Lily is a popular girl with all her grace intact. Severus is the one whose dignity is in shambles in front of a crowd who don't care about his wellbeing to the point of laughing like his indignity is good TV.
• She has to defend herself from the trouserless, friendless, wandless guy with an entire crowd laughing at him and two bullies hexing the shit out of him? Sure buddy.
• It doesn't matter here that Severus spends his time with morally questionable students. Firstly, Remus spends his time with two vicious bullies, one who tried to kill a student and another who sexually assaulted a student. Does that make Remus an attempted murderer and a sexual assaulter? Nope. His friends are. Why does he continue to hang out with them if they're so bad? Because they protect him and accept him, and otherwise Remus would be ostracised. Exactly like with Severus and the pureblood cult he's being seduced into.
Secondly, questionable morality of a MINOR does not excuse PUBLIC humiliation and sexual assault being done to them. No matter who Severus was, no Hogwarts student should have let any of what happened to him in SWM happen, never mind the girl who was his precious childhood friend.
• Why should she stick around if Severus called her a mudblood and James pissed her off? Buddy, James pisses her off for having an enormous head and being a bully to Severus. Lily is morally pissed at him for being a garbage human, not personally pissed at him. She is personally pissed at Severus. That's like saying Harvey Weinstein pisses me off so I won't go help this dude he's harassing because they both piss me off.
If she was as morally upright as she claims to be, she would stick around and stop the bullying, then explode on Severus all she likes. That's what she should've done, but she left Severus to the wolves.
• We don't know if she called teachers? She didn't. She literally said she won't bother helping anymore. If she was going to call a teacher, she would've already when she was yelling at James before Sev said anything.
• "She wasn’t educated about grooming or how cults prey on the vulnerable, she was a teenager." That actually makes sense. I won't fault Lily for not realising Sev was being groomed.
• "Why should she forgive a guy who hangs out with people who want her dead?" She doesn't have to. Maybe she even shouldn't. But she should not have forgiven a privileged pureblood boy who bullied anyone weaker for the kicks and giggles and sexually assaulted her friend and threatened to hex him further if Lily didn't go out with James. She not only forgave James, she married the guy. But she couldn't forgive Severus after he apologised, when he would never in a million years let anyone touch a hair on her head, not even Voldemort himself? Yeah, if someone was that loyal and dedicated to me I would fucking hang out with them.
If you leave your friends to be publically harassed at the mercy of two bullies because they called you a bad name, then I feel extremely bad for your friends. This is coming from someone who's a minorty btw with multiple slurs attached to their race.
DNI with me again please I hate arguing about SWM. Block me if you please. This is presicely why all my posts are tagged "anti-[thing]" and are not tagged "[thing]" because I come to tumblr for sitting in a circle jerk with people who like Snape and hate the Marauders. I don't want to argue with people who like the characters I hate. Love Lily Evans or the Marauders all you want, all power to you. Goodbye.