So, when you say "in this context," does that mean that you do see a difference in bravery in other situations?

What I mean is, I can kinda understand how you would think there is no difference between the jumping-on-a-grenade guy, and the running-onto-a-battlefield guy (even if I still don't agree). But life-threatening situations are not the only times someone's bravery is called upon. What about these two situations: the man who runs onto a battlefield to save a friend, versus the 16 year-old boy from Missouri who gets thrown out of his home for telling his parents he's gay, and moves to New York City to start a new life. Is that not a brave thing to do? Even minus the family situation -- meaning, if the boy was just one of the millions of young people who move from small towns to the big city -- it is still a very brave thing to leave all you've ever known, and move to a huge city to start a new life, knowing full well that you might fail miserably, and end up living in a cardboard box or something. I consider every one of those young people brave. But never in a million years would I consider them as brave as somebody who runs out onto a battlefield, or indeed, anyone who faces any life-threatening situation.

Would you agree there is a difference? Or does your theory only apply to life-threatening situations?

To be honest Linnea, I think describing the circumstances under which I feel that a comparison can be made in terms of 'brave, braver, bravest' would only confuse matters here (it deals with duty.) But for purposes of this conversation, I feel all of those who risked there lives were "brave". I don't try to compare their bravery as everyone faced a different set of circumstances and they were all different people. So for me the decision to be brave was an equal one.

I also agree with you that people make brave decisions of the type you gave in your example, but again, I cannot compare that to someone who runs into a burning building (also a brave decision) - the circumstances are completely different. It is simply nonsensical and unfair to me to suggest that someone is making a "braver" decision than another person, when the other person was never called upon to make that decision.

Do you disagree that one brave deed can be braver than a different brave deed, or that one person who performs a brave deed can be braver than another person who performs different brave deed?

I can understand how you can't compare two brave people if their brave acts are different, cos you dont know what each would do if they were in the exact same situation as the other. But I dont understand how two brave acts can't be compared and one said to be braver than another. Nobody's saying that if one person's act is braver than anothers, then one of those people is braver than the other.

Lily's sacrifice requiring more bravery than James' doesn't mean she was a braver person, just like if Harry's sacrifice took more bravery than Lily's or James' doesn't mean he was braver then either of them.