Gaaaaah. Brainhurt.

I'd love to see what some of your ideas are for just how Lily went from treating Snape so harshly and talking back to James, to being the stereotypical "saintly mother" at the end of her life. There's something about her personality that doesn't add up.

I'm far from thinking the writing in HP is particularly skilled, but there's nothing I can see in this argument that is a dichotomy. The implication here is that children who speak harshly to other children will grow up into mothers who dislike their own children. WTF. Which, btw, is supposed to be the "bad" part here: that an outspoken girl grew up into a "passive" mother who actually actively dies for her child ("passive" would be cowering in a corner and watching Voldemort kill him, thankyou), or that a girl who was meeeen to Severus grew up into a self-sacrificing and well-remembered woman?