Just Another Book About Harry Potter Ships

Jily (James/Lily)

SHIP NAMES: Jily, Lames, Flowerpot, James/Lily, J/L, JP/LE, JP/LP, S.S. Thorn and Buck

THOUGHTS: I had no idea that my opinions about Jily would be so unpopular and incendiary, but the last time I published this chapter, I got a lot of unexpected hate, so just a reminder that this is simply my opinion and that you are free to disagree with me, but PLEASE be polite about it! Remember that there is a human being behind the screen during ship/fan debates like these and treat them the way you would like to be treated. It is NOT okay to harass real-life people over FICTIONAL ships (yes, even the most "problematic" ones — don't harass other people, period! Especially not over something that's fictional! You can judge them in your mind or to your friends all you want, but don't harass or attack them), so please keep this in mind.

Okay, now onto my opinions!

I know that a lot of fans adore this ship, but after I had a discussion almost three years ago now with violet_storm, I began to realize that James and Lily had the kind of relationship that I can't imagine lasting very long. And that's without the fact that the little details we get about them from canon make it seem impossible that they would've gotten together in the first place. I mean, "I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid"? Harry being literally so horrified by seeing memories of his parents interactions that he "simply could not understand how they could have ended up married. Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her into it"? Really? That's the basis for this ship? Big yikes.

I just don't understand. Where is their connection? What is the reasoning for why they got together? Lily thought that James was an "arrogant toerag," and James has always sounded like a rich, spoiled bully to me. I mean, he hexed people for fun, because he was bored — who the hell does that?! He wouldn't take "no" for an answer and continually asked Lily out (god, I hate that trope so much! No means NO! And yes, it is canon that James asked her out multiple times, so please don't come at me saying it's not); he tried to blackmail her into dating him by saying that he would leave Snape alone if she dated him; and then, when that didn't work, he threatened to hex her for telling him to leave Snape alone! Why would James even consider hexing Lily if he actually really liked her?! Also, James was horrible to Snape (and I don't even like Snape! In fact, I'm a Snape hater (a Snater, if you will), and I STILL think James was terrible to him, so don't @ me claiming that I'm critical of James because I like Snape or some bullshit like that). James was a bully. He forced a Scorgify spell into Snape's mouth and then dangled him upside down, exposed his underwear, and threatened to take his underwear off in front of a crowd of people!!! Why does nobody talk about how that's sexual assault??? James literally sexually assaulted Snape and humiliated him in front of a crowd, and fans just brush that off??? What the fuck???

For the record, I want to say that I'm not a Snily shipper, either, because again, I don't even like Snape. BUT, James was still not a good person by any stretch of the imagination. We hear that JaMeS cHaNgEd, but we don't get any proof of this. In fact, he continued to hex Snape on the Down Low™ when Lily wasn't paying attention (and again, this is literally canon, Remus admits to this behavior of James's), so he only claimed to have changed his behavior while still doing the same old asshole things when nobody was looking! Other than his friends' claims that he changed for Lily, we see no concrete reasons as to why James would be appealing to someone as supposedly good and kind-hearted as Lily. It makes zero sense.

Also, for what it's worth, I don't think Lily is the perfect angel that fans (and canon itself) make her out to be, either. For example, when James sexually assaults and humiliates Snape in front of a crowd of people, book five has this to say about Lily's reaction before she speaks up: her "furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile..." What the fuck?! Are you serious?! This is the girl who was very good and kind and wonderful...?

Okay, so maybe (probably, most definitely) James and Lily are not the perfect golden couple that they got the reputation for after they died. But even ignoring the gaps in what people have claimed about the two of them, they got together sometime during their seventh year and then immediately married after graduation and had a child and now you're telling me that they were meant to be and would've stayed together forever??? They hadn't even been dating for a year before they got married! They were 18/19 went Lily got pregnant! Honestly, there is almost no way they would've stayed together and had a stable marriage if they had lived, so poor Harry would've been screwed over with his wish to have a stable happy family any way you look at it. Hell, it's plausible that Lily and James hadn't even meant to get pregnant with Harry, no matter how much they loved him, and that he was an "oops" baby because of how early they married and had him! It's just a mess. JKR is terrible at writing romance, guys.

So...I mean, I'm glad that Harry exists because they got together, but wow, this ship is NOT the fluffy "uwu" relationship that some fans make it out to be. And honestly? I'm just not interested.

P.S. I went over erroneous fan claims in more detail in my "General Harry Potter Opinions: Dislikes" chapter, which I highly recommend reading, but I've noticed that some fans try to claim that Lily was pregnant with her second child when she was murdered (which is a great angsty fan theory, but not backed up by any verifiable JKR quotes) or that Lily reconciled with Snape before her death and made him her child's godfather (also not a verifiable claim). There's a lot of misinformation in this fandom in general, as well as confusion between what's canon and what's fanon/headcanons because of fan claims like these, so please do your research before claiming something is canonical when it actually isn't. After all, it's perfectly okay to have a fanon/headcanon idea that isn't canon. That's what fandom is for! You do you!

RATING: 3/10: I don't ship it, but at least we get Harry and subsequently the entire HP series out of it. That's the only reason I didn't rank it even lower.

FANDOM RANK (AS OF JUNE 2022): #4

Thoughts? Leave 'em in the comments :) And please remember to be respectful when faced with ship opinions that differ from your own! 

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