COS Chapter Seven: "Mudbloods and Murmurs"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

 

* Collin’s really acting like an obsessive stalker here. I wonder if that’s how Harry appeared to Draco in HBP?

* Ron’s malfunctioning wand actually sounds quite dangerous, but nobody thinks it might be a good idea to replace it. Although OTOH having a lax attitude towards safety seems to be one of the few things about the WW that seems consistent throughout the books (they’ll show it again when Percy tries to stop people using dangerous cauldrons), so maybe I should be thankful that it isn’t just one of these things that changes whenever the plot demands.

* I assume that JKR’s just forgotten to mention the try-outs that every Quidditch team apparently does each year.

* I’m just going to tune out while Harry recaps the rules of Quidditch for Collin.

* Everyone’s not bothering to pay attention to Wood’s new tactics. Remember kids, teamwork’s for suckers! You just do what you want to do!

* Wood is still upset over Gryffindor losing last year. Serves him right for being too thick to have a reserve Seeker, IMHO.

* Note how Wood’s first reaction upon seeing Collin is to jump to the conclusion that he’s a Slytherin spy. Not that he’s in any way biased against Slytherin, or anything like that.

* Remember chaps, looking like a troll = evil. Part-giant, OTOH, = misunderstood woobie. Even though trolls don’t really seem much worse than giants.

* There are no girls on the Slytherin team, just to remind everyone that they’re sexist, and therefore evil. JKR hates sexism, which is why she took care to include so many liberated, independent-minded women in the novels.

* Wood’s “spitting with rage” now. Christ, Oliver, calm down, it’s not the end of the world. Maybe the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams could just play a friendly, or something.

* “Aren’t you Lucius Malfoy’s son?” says Fred, looking at Draco with dislike. Remember kids, it’s wrong to judge people based on their family.

* Is it possible to smirk so broadly that your eyes are “reduced to slits”, or is Draco actually grinning with happiness here?

* I don’t think that Malfoy did buy his way onto the team. For a start, Seeker is the most (i.e., only) important position in the game, and I don’t think that flying on better brooms would compensate for having an inferior Seeker. Secondly, he’s on the team for at least three years, when the Slytherins could easily have ditched him as soon as they’d got the brooms. They’d even have had a good excuse after losing that Quidditch match in “The Rogue Bludger”.

* Lucius seemed like quite a harsh, demanding father when we saw him in Borgin and Burke’s, IMHO, so the thought that he’s pleased daddy enough to make him buy new brooms for the team is probably making Draco grin even more.

* I bet he looks adorable in this scene.

* Now I can’t stop thinking of Lauren Lopez in A Very Potter Sequel. “Don’t worry, daddy, you’ll love me after this! I’ll catch that Snitch, mark my words!”

* Just thought it interesting to note that Malfoy wasn’t involved in the conversation until Ron brought him in. It’s not like he was strutting up and down, boasting about his new broom, or anything like that.

* Hermione’s the one who starts with the personal insults. Really, I think that the good [sic] guys are acting worse than the baddies here.

* If the theory that Draco’s really just happy because he’s finally made his daddy proud is right, then implying that he’d just bought his way onto the team is probably one of the most offensive things Hermione could say. Unsurprisingly, he responds with one of the most offensive things that he could say.

* Draco calls Hermione a “Mudblood”, despite the fact that she’s a Muggleborn, and therefore cannot be expected to know what it means, suggesting that either she’s upset him so much he’s not thinking straight, or that he wants to keep face in front of his teammates by responding to her insults, but at the same time doesn’t want to upset her. If the latter, it could be evidence for some kind of D/Hr ship.

* JKR seems to be expecting us to go “ZOMG Draco’s an evil racist!” suggesting that she’s forgotten why exactly it is that racism’s considered so wrong. I don’t think it’s just that you’re looking down on people for the way they were born – if it were, then jokes about stupid blondes would be considered as bad as jokes about stupid black people. Rather, it’s wrong because minorities often suffer from discrimination (and in many cases have suffered from it even more in the relatively recent past), and racist language helps to reinforce and normalise the prejudiced attitudes which lead to such discrimination. Because we haven’t really see people suffering from anti-Muggleborn prejudice, it’s hard to think of “Mudblood” as a particularly serious insult.

* This, BTW, is why I disagree with people who say things like “Rowling uses the Harry Potter books to teach children not to be racist.” If she were really doing that, she’d show how racism affects people’s lives (cf. To Kill a Mockingbird). What she’s actually doing is taking real racism and using it in lieu of actual worldbuilding and characterisation. We already know that racism is wrong, and we think Draco’s a bad person because his use of the term “Mudblood” is superficially similar to real-life examples of racism; we don’t learn about how racism is bad from its effects on HP characters, because it doesn’t really have any.

* Anyway, back to the actual story…

* Once again, the good guys are the first to use force. Why am I not surprised?

* I think it’s sweet the way Flint dives in front of Malfoy to stop him being attacked. The Slytherins often seem to look out for each other the most (see also Lucius patting Snape on the back when he’s first Sorted). Contrast this with the Gryffindors in PS, who refuse to speak to Harry, Hermione, Ron or Neville after they lose some House Points.

* What’s this, one of the good guys has suffered some negative consequences as a result of attacking someone else? Hold on while I go make a note of this in my diary.

* Again with the clothes! Lockhart’s wearing robes of “palest mauve” today. Harry’s really starting to look rather gay now; given JKR’s fondness for stereotypes (viz. the Finnegans) and inability to write a decent romance (chest monster!), I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find her way of showing homosexuality would be having someone spend all their time looking at their crush’s clothes.

* Note how Hagrid doesn’t remonstrate with Ron for trying to curse Malfoy. Clearly he’s a responsible adult and an excellent candidate for a prestigious teaching position.

* I know Hagrid doesn’t like Lockhart, but he really should know better than to undermine him like that in front of his pupils.

* So the jinx on DADA has been in place for what, forty or so years now? And people are only just starting to twig? I know wizards are slow learners, but really…

* Also, couldn’t Dumbledore find ways to either discover how Riddle jinxed the position and undo it somehow, or to get around it, such as hiring two teachers who each teach on alternate years or getting rid of DADA and replacing it with a class which is functionally indistinguishable but has a different name (“battle magic”, perhaps?).

* I think that this scene was one which the film actually did better than the books. Yes, having Hermione getting all upset may not have been fully logical, but it at least made Draco look like a hurtful bully rather than an eccentric crank. It also suggested that someone might have called Hermione that before, hinting at actual day-to-day anti-Muggleborn prejudice, which is more than the books ever managed to do.

* “Maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired.” Wait, is Hagrid glad that Ron got to be on the receiving end in the hope that he’ll be less likely to curse people in future? No, of course not, he’s worrying that Ron might otherwise have got in trouble.

* Hagrid comes across as so judgemental when he says “’Spect Lucius Malfoy would’ve come marchin’ up ter school if yeh’d cursed his son.” Clearly, caring about your children being attacked is a sign of great evil. Good guys know that being randomly hexed is what makes a man out of you.

* Although Lucius doesn’t seem to have done much when Draco was hexed into unconsciousness on the train (twice!), which probably foreshadows the Redeemed!Malfoys situation at the end of DH.

* Hagrid’s been breaking the law to make his pumpkins grow faster. Which couldn’t possibly be dangerous in any way, oh no.

* Suddenly, Draco’s gossip about him getting drunk and setting his bed on fire looks awfully plausible.

* Everybody hates Filch, which is entirely understandable, given all the times he complains about having to clean up the mess children make and, erm, gives them detention for breaking the rules. Yep, entirely understandable.

* So how does Parseltongue work, then? ’Cause surely Lockhart ought to have heard it, even if he didn’t understand what it was saying? Or is it a sort of telepathy? But then Ron managed to speak it in DH…

* Awfully convenient the way the basilisk goes around describing its evil plan to itself, isn’t it? Do basilisks just have really bad memories, and need to keep repeating their plans to themselves in case they forget?

* Part of me can’t help but feel pleased that Ron vomited slugs over that trophy. Maybe next time he’ll think twice before hexing someone. Or not.
 

 

Comments

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I really love your thoughts on the 'racism' in HP.

she’s forgotten why exactly it is that racism’s considered so wrong. I don’t think it’s just that you’re looking down on people for the way they were born – if it were, then jokes about stupid blondes would be considered as bad as jokes about stupid black people. Rather, it’s wrong because minorities often suffer from discrimination, and racist language helps to reinforce and normalise the prejudiced attitudes which lead to such discrimination

Thank you so much for this! I love the way you've pinned it down there- racist comments are objectionable largely because of the way society has discriminated against minorities, and those offensive terms are a way of dehumanizing them so it makes it easier to treat them like inferior beings. It's not just making nasty comments about the way a person was born, because as you pointed out, other things like dumb blonde jokes don't inspire furious debate and rallies and everything. Speaking as a short-sighted person, I got paid out enough for my glasses at school and while annoying, it's nothing on the level of racism because it's not like I'm going to miss out on job opportunities because I wear glasses or whatever.

What I hate is how people revere JKR for incorporating serious themes like racism and slavery and death into her series when it comes off like cheap gimmicks, they're just there to make the books seem really deep and insightful when it's the opposite, because it's not treated in a meaningful manner and people don't respond in realistic ways or the way the world works doesn't jive with these issues she's trying to shove in there. I love this article (When Harry Met Buffy) which describes it as 'Harry Potter uses real-world issues as a cheap way to add colour to an otherwise unconvincing fantasy world'.

Because we haven’t really see people suffering from anti-Muggleborn prejudice, it’s hard to think of “Mudblood” as a particularly serious insult.

ITA. Hermione didn't even know what the word meant at first- she got that it was an insult, obviously, from the tone and context, but it meant absolutely nothing to her. Gosh, I can really feel the prejudice against Muggle-borns, can't you, that she managed to get through a year and a bit without ever realizing there was all this active hatred towards her kind?

Even after she realized what the word meant, it was just a nasty thing that a kid she already hated used to put her down, it had no emotional impact, it didn't make her feel inferior or threatened because it doesn't have the context of a society that's been crapping all over her and keeping her from living up to her potential and barring her from opportunities because of her birth. It'd piss her off that he's throwing such a spurious remark at her- because he has nothing else he can really use against her- but it's not something she'd be insecure about or cry herself to sleep at night over! It's not like she turned up to Hogwarts and people shunned her when they found out she was the daughter of Muggles. Because that would've totally burned, meeting new school-mates who discuss their family lineage, and then when she mentions her dentist parents, all of a sudden these friendly, easygoing kids ostracize her. But no, if anything, it's Hermione distancing herself from her roomies because she despises girly girls.

Was it hurtful? Yeah, there's this ass being mean to her, but I'd say it wasn't any more hurtful than her calling him a twitchy little ferret- and I thought that was bad because it was a teacher that had assaulted him and then it was reinforced by another teacher threatening his safety and humiliated him.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought all the parallels between Slytherin House and the Jews in anti-Semitic literature were a bit... disturbing. In addition to all the stuff you quoted, there's the fact that the Slytherins are portrayed as being simultaneously stupid and incompetent, inherently inferior to the heroes in every way, whilst at the same time being a serious threat to the good guys, who will, if not stopped, destroy the very foundations of wizarding society -- just like lots of minorities have been portrayed throughout history.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

It's really quite ugly. And it makes Rowling's use of pasteded-on-yay Nazi imagery even more offensive. Not only is she using real-world atrocities to bolster her own bad writing without really showing understanding of those real events, she is also portraying the supposed villains according to the same images the *Nazis* used to try to justify their genocide, and that many throughout history have used to justify persecution of the Jews. She turns real history on its head and consequently (although not consciously, I believe) sets up a situation in the Potterverse which the stereotypes are shown as being true, the subjects of the stereotypes bring about their own ostracism, and are in fact the 'real' murderers, filthy criminals harming the pure brave ones. That's icky enough on its own, but when you rematch up the Potterverse players with the real-world groups who respectively 1) were stereotyped this way (Jews) and 2) used these stereotypes (Nazis and their supporters) it just is worlds of wrong.

I won't go into the portrayal of Muggles, either. Just ick.

I wish JKR would bother to *think*. The first couple of books weren't so bad, she's got to be *capable* of it.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/She turns real history on its head and consequently (although not consciously, I believe) sets up a situation in the Potterverse which the stereotypes are shown as being true, the subjects of the stereotypes bring about their own ostracism,/

That's what a lot of people have been saying about her portrayal of giants and house elves. On the one hand, we're supposed to think that it's wrong to discriminate against them. But on the other hand, we're shown that the stereotypes about them *are* true. House elves, with the exception of Dobby, really do like being slaves. Giants really are wild and brutish. What makes the house elf situation so maddening is that while we see that house elves are treated badly, we're also cautioned that freedom is bad for them, since that's not what they want. Well, then what do they want? Are house elves just a race of brainwashed masochists, perfectly content to have their heads mounted on walls after they die, be mistreated by the Ministry, be slaves with no pay or leave, and be kicked around by their masters?

In DH, the lesson that we're supposed to gather from "Kreacher's Tale" was that Voldemort was mistaken to treat Kreacher badly, that if he hadn't threatened him, he wouldn't have lost his Horcrux. Well, how on earth would Voldemort have known how to treat Kreacher, Hermione? He doesn't care about human beings; you really think that he's going to care about house elves?

Here you have a guy who grew up with Muggles and probably had no idea what a house elf even was before he found out that he was a wizard. Upon entering the wizarding world, no doubt he would asked someone about them, would have had that person tell him that house elves were inferior beings whose sole purpose in life was to be slaves, and then would have seen that person proven right by his first encounter with them. Having seen how people treat their house elves, how the Ministry has never bothered to provide any protections for them, and how nauseatingly subservient house elves are to the point of masochism, how else do you think Voldemort would have regarded them? They're *slaves,* one of the major tenets of slavery is that the enslaved are pieces of property that are easily interchangeable and replaceable. Of course he wouldn't think that getting rid of Kreacher was wrong. Neither would the rest of the wizarding world.

I mean, what's the moral of the story here? It's okay to keep house elves as property just as long as you don't physically hurt them? That message reminds me of the horrible justifications that racists still make about slavery: that there was "good slavery" and "bad slavery." Uh, no, regardless of whether or not the owners hurt their slaves, they're still reprehensible for having slaves at all. And the idea that house elves *want* to be enslaved, that freedom and rights are in fact *repulsive* to them...that idea is just disgusting.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Oh gods yes. The house elf and giant situations are complete ick, I totally agree. This is why I really, really dislike the crapilogue (beyond the bad writing): Harry has killed Voldie, yes, but so many other problems have not been dealt with, or even *recognized,* but "all is well." It just upholds an ideal of covert - rather than *overt* - wizarding supremacy. Benevolent supremacy, of course of course, but wizards are at the end held up as *really better* than non-wizard people, human or otherwise. The moral of the story is that Muggleborns shouldn't be persecuted because *they're really wizards, equal to any other wizard,* not that they shouldn't be persecuted because *they're people and so equal to wizards regardless of ability.*

Obviously Muggleborns shouldn't be persecuted for any reason - nor should any other group. But the *reason* implicit in the way the story is told for *why* they should not be persecuted is very problematic, is what I'm saying.

I once saw an interpretation of the books along the lines of 'clearly Harry is Just Like Christ.' I have problems with how this idea works out in the books, but this review particularly disgusted me, because it stated that one of the major ways Harry is like Christ is his 'dual nature.' Meaning that he grew up like a Muggle, and his mother was Muggleborn, so it was like he was like a Muggle (logic gap there - Lily was still a *witch*) and also a wizard, and this is Just Like Christ because Christ was human and divine! There was even a neat little table, making clear that human=Muggle and wizard=divine.

If wizards are divine, it's only in the style of the Greek gods who had no problem torturing, cheating on each other, and committing various other atrocities against each other and the puny humans they ruled over. Christian-divine? Not so much.

I rather suspect that the sort of mindset-problems like these, together with the massive levels of corruption and cruelty in the WW (dementors anyone? life imprisonment without trial, Aurors authorized to use the Unforgivables rather than arrest?) are precisely what gives rise to so many dark lords.

/rant

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/If wizards are divine, it's only in the style of the Greek gods who had no problem torturing, cheating on each other, and committing various other atrocities against each other and the puny humans they ruled over. Christian-divine? Not so much./

Well, if you want to be cynical, you could say that that sort of behavior is also practiced by God and his followers in the Old Testament. But I digress.

The main problem that I have with the "Harry is just like Jesus" argument is not just because that's a really grand and outlandish statement to make, it's because one of the most important beliefs and ideas that I associate with Jesus is forgiveness. Forgiveness for others' sins, forgiveness for one's enemy.

It's easy to connect Aslan with Jesus because everything fits. Not only is the symbol of a lion, powerful but gentle, a compelling image of Jesus, but all of the events involving Aslan in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" mimic the Gospels. You have Edmund who is a traitor, Aslan who forgives him and volunteers to be sacrificed in his place, the whole scene where Aslan is taunted and humiliated by his enemies that is inspired by the Crucifixion, and then the scene of the Resurrection where Aslan returns, whole and unharmed.

In DH, Harry does sacrifice himself and he does come back from the dead. Yet who does he sacrifice himself for? Draco? Severus? Bellatrix? Lucius? No, Harry sacrifices himself for his loved ones and for everyone else who is fighting or has lost loved ones in battle. Harry does risk his life by saving Draco in the Room of Requirement, but he doesn't do it because he has forgiven Draco; he does it because it's the right thing to do. There is never a point in the book where Harry forgives his enemies. He does not forgive Peter, Draco, Severus, or even Voldemort. The only gesture he makes to Voldemort in the end is the half-hearted entreaty to feel remorse. The only gesture that he makes to Snape is naming one of his sons after him - and that is years after Snape is dead. Harry never has a confrontation with Draco, Snape, or Peter where they address their enmity and finally reconcile with each other.

And for those who say that for Harry to do any of the aforementioned things would be too sappy, trite, sentimental, and unrealistic, fine. If that's true, then don't compare him to Jesus. Because as unrealistic and sappy as those things may sound, those actions are exactly what Jesus would have done. Above all else, Jesus was a compassionate pacifist. So, I don't know where people are getting the idea that Harry = Jesus, apart from the whole sacrifice and resurrection scenes that we got in DH.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Great comment, I love that argument about the Slytherins you posted. I've always said that the real prejudice in the series was against Slytherins, but people kept going 'but the racism, omg' and yet we never see people with those attitudes discriminate effectively against Muggle-borns, while there are TONS of examples of that prejudice against Slytherins being supported and reinforced and encouraged.

It's like you mention the word 'racism' and people bend over backwards to hate on Slytherins when all we have is Draco calling Hermione 'mudblood', what, twice? And it having zero impact on her? Whereas there's all the times the Slytherins are attacked, there are teachers assaulting them and humiliating them in class, we have kids who turn up on the first day of school and already predisposed to hate them and think them evil...that's way more bigoted than anything else I've seen. Because the attitude is that it's right to hate them for their house, and people buy into it and that's just scary.

How DARE I suggest that people like Young Snape were joining Voldemort in the early seventies the way young Black men joined Malcolm X (not to compare Voldemort with Malcolm, of course, but the sixties and seventies were a time of social unrest and change and not all of it peaceful).

*hugs you* I totally agree- people liken the DEs of Harry's age with DEs of the seventies and I think there's no way you can know for sure, it's not in canon anywhere, that they all signed up to join a Dark murder-torture-rape club. It was probably like the Slug Club, somewhere for the elite and the people with connections or money or talent to hang out and deliver grand speeches and share their vision for their world or rant against other groups who are ruining their world, etc. etc.

But oh no, we're supposed to loathe Snape for hanging out with kids from his own house or those who in the future join the DEs, before they've even done anything, and see the Marauders bullying him as pre-emptive justice. *shakes head*

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/But oh no, we're supposed to loathe Snape for hanging out with kids from his own house or those who in the future join the DEs, before they've even done anything, and see the Marauders bullying him as pre-emptive justice./

I think it's because they equate those budding Death Eaters with neo-Nazi gangs. Lily mentioned that Mulciber did something awful to Mary McDonald, so they reason that the future Death Eaters were already showing signs of being evil. They often ask, "What would you do if one of your friends joined a neo-Nazi gang or a white supremacist gang?"

Well, fortunately that has never happened to me as of yet, but if that were to happen to me, I would indeed be shocked and appalled. The first words out of my mouth would probably be "Are you serious?" And, if I received confirmation that yes, my friend was very serious about joining this gang, my next question would be, "WHY?"

"WHY are you joining this gang? WHY are you doing this? WHY do you think that this is a good idea? These people hate Jews/blacks/etc., do you hate them too? Is that why you're doing this? What's wrong?" Then I would try to listen as he/she tried to answer me. I know that it sounds easy and trite and I know that it probably wouldn't happen that smoothly in real life, but yes, I would try to see where my friend was coming from, to find out what could possibly have caused him/her to consider doing this. People don't just wake up one day and decide to join a racist, terrorist gang out of nowhere.

I don't blame Lily for being upset at Severus for being friends with people who regarded her as inferior, but I can't believe that she didn't even bother to ask him about why he was hanging out with them. If they were supposed to be best friends, then I can't buy that she just thought, "Oh, well, he's a Slytherin, so naturally he'll hang out with his own kind," or "He likes the Dark Arts, so he's automatically evil."

I mean, they knew each other since they were kids, did Lily not stop to consider that maybe Snape's father was an influence on his decision? That the Marauders constantly bullying him was a reason? Or the fact that he had to sleep in the same dormitory with them wouldn't be a reason for him to at least pretend that he agreed with them? Was she really so blind?

People don't always join racist organizations because they're racist themselves, or if they are, racism is not always the primary reason. Oftentimes, there's a social and/or economic reason behind their decision. If Snape hadn't been bullied at school and hadn't had a poor background with a difficult Muggle father, who knows if he would have still joined the Death Eaters. Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn't have.

But still, that's no excuse for James and Sirius bullying him. Bullying is never justified in any situation and Snape's case was no different. If Draco had done the same things to Harry and Ron that James and Sirius did to Snape, he probably would have been even more hated than he already is.

Who are the good guys really?

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Lily mentioned that Mulciber did something awful to Mary McDonald

I wish JKR would have at least hinted at what this evil thing was. Severus states it was for a laugh but we're not lead to really know what it was that Mucliber did to Mary. So we never know if Severus was there or if he was getting the information after the fact.

Besides, I think JKR is a bit twisted in her examples of what is really evil. Okay Severus uses the James/Sirius as examples to defend himself in that scene. Telling Lily what about what they get up to.

Lily claims that who cares about them or what they do because what they do is not evil. Really Lily? JKR again has a twisted sense of what evil really is.

Personally I consider what James did to Severus in the worse memory scene pretty evil. What about Sirius sending Severus to a werewolf? Even if Severus is a jerk both those acts against Severus seem pretty evil to me. Especially considered the worst memory scene seems to be happeing AFTER the werewolf incident. So in terms of timeline, after Severus is made to promise to keep Lupin's secret, James still chooses to publicly humiliate Severus? Wow not only is James a jackass he's a dumb jackass as well.

Really Lily? James and Sirius are just good guys in all this? Above the judgement of doing evil?

Personally I see Sirius and James actions just as evil as anything Mucliber would have done to Mary. Sirius almost got Severus killed and James publicly humiliated and tortured Severus. But thats nothing but laughs right, harmless schoolboy grudge fun right? I call bullshit on JKR's ideas of what evil really is.


I don't blame Lily for being upset at Severus for being friends with people who regarded her as inferior, but I can't believe that she didn't even bother to ask him about why he was hanging out with them.

There is a key sentance in the argument that night when Lily dumped Severus. I don't even think JKR has considered how I would read her sentance.

Lily takes the blame off herself and squarly puts it on other people for why she breaks up with Severus. Lily says (I quote) 'None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you'

What fricking friends Lily?

Severus was supposed to be her best friend, she agreed with him that they were, yet she is taking that and turning it on it's head.

It makes it a whole lot easier to dump someone when you've already got a bunch of 'other friends' who don't mind crapping on the unfavorable friend. It's like Lily effectively took the blame off herself and made the suggestion that everyone else sees Severus as evil so she decided she had to see it that way to. In other words everything everyone else says about you (Severus) is true so it's okay for me (Lily) to give up on you.

Severus was apparently not worth fighting for or worth trying to help. It seems that the determination was made because other people were against him, it meant that it was easier to forget him.

who knows if he would have still joined the Death Eaters. Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn't have.

In an interview JKR says that if Snape had his time to do over again he would not become a Death Eater.

But if you go back to when he was a teenager? Was the choice so easy? James and Sirius joined the Order of the Phoenix, all through school they were considered so cool, so great, so wonderful. They were the 'good guys'. No matter what Severus was back then, does this teenage boy go join the Order of the Phoenix. It seems to me that after Lily dumped him, it just feels like 'they all say I'm evil maybe I am.' And there was nobody there to pull him back, no adult to stop him or help him, no true real friend to keep him from falling into that trap.

Re: Who are the good guys really?

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Especially considered the worst memory scene seems to be happeing AFTER the werewolf incident. So in terms of timeline, after Severus is made to promise to keep Lupin's secret, James still chooses to publicly humiliate Severus? Wow not only is James a jackass he's a dumb jackass as well./

I can never understand why James did that, given that we now know what the timeline was. Why? What was he thinking? Did Dumbledore force Severus to swear an Unbreakable Vow to not tell anyone and James knew about it, and that's why he was so confident that Severus wouldn't tell anyone? Did James know about the magical bond between him and Severus (whatever that really is) that came about after he saved Snape's life, so he thought, "I saved him, so he owes me," or something like that? Or was James so stupidly, ridiculously arrogant that he assumed that Snape wouldn't let the secret slip even while being humiliated?

I mean, what about Remus? What would have happened if Snape had indeed let the secret slip and the whole school had found out that Remus was a werewolf? Sirius reportedly engineered the whole Prank in the first place because Snape wouldn't stop trying to find out about what they were up to with Remus. Wouldn't that have defeated the whole point of the Prank in the first place? Remus would have been expelled, so would James and Sirius, and for what? Just for James to show off to Lily? Just for him to "put Snape in his place?" How thoughtless and self-centered can you be?

/It makes it a whole lot easier to dump someone when you've already got a bunch of 'other friends' who don't mind crapping on the unfavorable friend./

Not to mention that people have already pointed out that *Snape's* friends probably couldn't understand why he even talked to her. Come to think of it, did Lucius know about the Marauders and Lily? In CoS, we were supposed to think that he was being cruel and malicious when he told Harry that his parents were "meddlesome fools" (and it was indeed a cruel, malicious remark to make). Did Lucius know them personally? Did he know how they treated Snape? I wonder.

But back to Lily and Severus, I myself have been in a situation where I've been friends with someone whom my other friends don't like. Again, this friend was not a member of a neo-Nazi group, so it wasn't as bad or extreme as that, but nonetheless, my other friends didn't like her. Did they pressure me to get rid of her? No. Did I ditch her as soon as my friends told me that they didn't like her? No. Because she was my friend and everyone involved understood that. Just like whenever two of my friends have been in an argument and I've been caught in the middle, nobody has tried to persuade me to dump the other friend or has accused me of being "disloyal" for being neutral, or any other childish, tiresome nonsense like that.

If Lily and Severus really were best friends, she should have tried to help him. She should have tried to do her best to dissuade him from joining the budding Death Eaters, or if that wasn't possible, to dissuade him from absorbing their prejudices. If she failed, she failed, but she should have at least *tried.* I'm not saying that it wasn't ultimately Snape's choice to join Voldemort, because it was. It was his responsibility, his decision, his fault. I'm just saying that even though Lily says, "I've been making excuses for you for years," we never actually see her trying to *help* Snape in any way. Or was that her way of helping him: making excuses for him? If so, then she wasn't a good friend.

Re: Who are the good guys really?

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Did Dumbledore force Severus to swear an Unbreakable Vow to not tell anyone and James knew about it, and that's why he was so confident that Severus wouldn't tell anyone?

I don't think there was an unbreakable vow but what does it really say about James/Sirius/Dumbledore? How did Dumbledore handle the situation, that is what I would love to know, how he dealt with Severus or more how he dealt with Sirius and James.

And the fact that JKR is showing it happened before the worse memory scene - maybe that wasn't her intention but by how the events fall in the prince's tale Lily is still talking to Severus and makes the accusation of James saving him. So it sure as hell seems like it was before the worst memory event.

We get that James hates Severus and vise/versa - but what about James/Sirius being best friends with remus Remus? It just seems so shallow and thoughtless - and yet Severus still kept the secret or at least seemed to. We don't have any evidence that Remus was kicked out of school or expelled for being a werwolf. It wasn't till POA that it seems he was publicly outed.

What does it say about Sirius, not even the part about trying to get Severus hurt or killed. The part that Sirius was willing to allow his friend Remus to be the tool. These are the good guys? Really?

Okay find, we get that fans and even JKR and even Dumbledore might say they were young and stupid. But is what Sirius did any more wreckless and stupid than Severus joining up with the Death Eaters?


Or was James so stupidly, ridiculously arrogant that he assumed that Snape wouldn't let the secret slip even while being humiliated?

The be fair, we don't know what Severus did in school we haven't totally been shown everything. We know that Sirius says Severus didn't miss an opportunity to curse James.

BUT, being that even the young before prison Sirius seems capable of doing very irrational thoughtless things I'm not sure how much I can trust his word entirely on the James/Severus conflict. Especially because Sirius and even Lupin seem bias.

Lupin even complains about himself that he never stood up to his friends but it still comes across as not a big deal when Harry was telling them what he saw in the pensive.

If it was just school boy pranks, harmless teasing, jokes I might not have as much of an issue and be more ready to agree with the 'good guys', but the werewolf stuff seems far worse than just a joke.

The abuse we were shown in the worst memory don't seem like something I would like to witness my friend being subjected to. No matter what Severus would have become, if I had been his friend and I had witnessed James do that to someone. I don't think I could reasonably decided a couple years later, to marry the guy and have his child.

Though we're told James went through a big miraculous change in 7th year - I just seriously doubt I'd be able to think of him as date material.
I just don't get why we're supposed to think James was so special or great or even remotely smart.

If Lily and Severus really were best friends, she should have tried to help him.

I really hope JKR will at some point clear this up becuase we don't see in canon that it happened. We don't even see anything in the Prince's tale to show us that they had that much contact after the end of 5ht year.

I know that JKR say something like Severus was attracted to loathsome people and loathsome acts, or she said something like that in reguards to a question about the Lily/Severus stuff.

I'm just curious how she thinks Severus' character is any different from lets say...Dumbledore? Wasn't he as a teenager and young adult aiming to take over the world and thus got his sister killed in the process.

What I can't figure out is why lots of fans still see Dumbledore as being better than Severus?

Hell, How is Severus any different from James and Lily, who decided to go with Peter?

Re: Who are the good guys really?

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Remus would have been expelled, so would James and Sirius, and for what?

As bad as what Sirius was trying to do to Severus -- at the very least, severely maim him and possibly be turned into a werewolf, at worst actually get killed -- I don't think people consider how much of an asshole Sirius was being to his allegedly good friend Remus.

As you say, at the very least Remus would have gotten expelled; but if Remus had actually killed Severus, then presumably Remus would have received a death sentence himself.

To me, Sirius' thinking was seriously screwed up -- his attitude towards Severus' well-being as a result of the "prank" to me borders on a DE mindset. But his total disregard for the outcome of his FRIEND to me borders on the psychotic!

Re: Who are the good guys really?

[oryx_leucoryx]

I wish JKR would have at least hinted at what this evil thing was. Severus states it was for a laugh but we're not lead to really know what it was that Mucliber did to Mary. So we never know if Severus was there or if he was getting the information after the fact.

Lily asked him if he *heard* what Mulciber did to Mary, which means Lily knew Severus wasn't there. Now Severus thinks it's funny, while Lily thinks it was evil. Both of them agree it was dark magic. It seems Lily learned in Gryffindor House, where James, the hater of all things Dark (except werewolves, and anything he didn't know was Dark) was in a socially dominant position, that Dark Magic was evil, and anything that didn't look evil couldn't possibly be Dark Magic. Whereas Severus in Slytherin sees the Dark/non-Dark classification as orthogonal to the fun/evil one. Knowing the sort of things that pass for 'fun' at Hogwarts I tend to agree. What does it matter if a spell has the definition of Dark or not, compared to whether it hurts people and how badly it does so? Does it make a difference if you bleed to death from a Dark spell like Sectumsempra, from one of the twins' 'sweets' or from being cut up by a shard of glass? If it turns out that, say, Mufliato was a Dark spell, would it suddenly be less useful?

I think Lily lost interest in Severus quite a while before their break-up. She just made it official after SWM.

Re: Who are the good guys really?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I suspect she'd been trying to shed him since about 3rd year when she was taking on the head role among the group of girls, and the rest of them considered that if she was "cool" she needed to hang around with the "cool" boys not some odd little geek who wasn't even popular in his own house.

It's like they were afraid she'd catch geek cooties and give them to the rest of them.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

They often ask, "What would you do if one of your friends joined a neo-Nazi gang or a white supremacist gang?"

But, what's the time-line here? What are the DEs doing in the early to mid-1970s? Would it have been like joining a neo-Nazi group where their sentiments are known? Or would it be more like joining up with the Black Panthers or the Nation of Islam (like Malcolm) in the early to mid-1960s?

Or might it even have been like joining up with the original Nazi party in the early 1930s before they publicly became the Nazis we look back on today? There was a lot that was wrong with the post-WWI Germany and the Nazis were just one group who were actively speaking out against those wrongs. Hitler was thought of highly enough to be voted in as vice-chancellor. Maybe the entire country had their heads in the sand but maybe they were only noticing the parts of the rhetoric they wanted to hear. There were fans who stayed fans but, there were also a lot of people who were trapped and dismayed once they found out what their leader and his party were really like. There were some who agreed with the sentiments but not with the methods. Some were put in danger, some others put themselves in danger to combat their own regime while a lot of people were just plain scared and hoping it would be over with. Who can fathom, even now, the depths of the Holocaust and other atrocities? It's like being engulfed with a tsunami. Imagine trying to comprehend that before it happened or became known.

So to liken the 1970s DE wannabes to neo-Nazi groups is, IMO, disingenuous as it doesn't seem to match the common knowledge of the time...

Not to mention, thinking about even the worst we're shown of the DEs in power, nothing comes close to approximating what actually happened with the Nazis.

Joining the Death Eaters

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

But, what's the time-line here? What are the DEs doing in the early to mid-1970s?

Isn't there evidence to support that Sirius brother did not really know what he was getting into and had a serious change of heart on the whole situation?

It doesn't belittle what they did, but lets look at it from the perspective of being 16 years old and a stupid teenager. If someone like Severus got into it, is it safe to guess he really wasn't 100% into it at the age of 16-20. That even when he might have had second thoughts about it, that it was too late to back out.

We know that you don't leave the Death Eaters and Voldemort willingly. So is it safe to assume that even if he did have second thoughts after getting the Dark Mark it was too late for him to be able to say no thanks.

Severus was no more special than the next DE, Voldie killed him just as easily as an enemy. And I doubt Voldie would have had second thoughts has a younger Severus tried to get out.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Lily mentioned that Mulciber did something awful to Mary McDonald

TRIED. He tried to do something awful to her, the horror of which is never explained. He doesn't even get to be a competent baddie, FFS.

And this whole Dark Arts thing is bogus- it's code for 'these guys are evil, even though the good guys inflict just as much pain and humiliation, but they use Light spells, so remember, hate the first group, not the latter'.

Because seriously- exposing Snape's underwear? Hoisting him upside and leaving him choking on bubbles? Turning Draco into a ferret and hurling him into walls? Any number of things the Twins did (especially with Montague, who ended up brain-dead, apparently). That's all PERFECTLY FINE because none of it was 'Dark'. God, talk about double-standard.

I don't blame Lily for being upset at Severus for being friends with people who regarded her as inferior, but I can't believe that she didn't even bother to ask him about why he was hanging out with them

But they're his House-mates! I don't get what she expected him to do! Kids are under so much pressure to fit in, and anyone who's different gets picked on, so what did she want him to do? Be a saint and resist and try to convert them all to a new way of thinking?

Besides, she tells him that her friends don't understand why she hangs out with him, basically, that they don't like him, so tit-for-tat. I don't like the way racism automatically trumps all forms of prejudice- people don't approve of Snape and Lily's friendship 'coz she's Muggle-born, omg, evil. People don't approve of Snape and Lily's friendship 'coz he's Slytherin, well, duh!

That the Marauders constantly bullying him was a reason? Or the fact that he had to sleep in the same dormitory with them wouldn't be a reason for him to at least pretend that he agreed with them?

EXACTLY. He already has the hatred of Gryffindors and is persecuted by a group of four in particular. Is he supposed to isolate himself from his own house, when they could offer him protection? I thought it was so gutsy of him to camp outside her dorm to apologize- you never see any of the heroes being that brave.

If Draco had done the same things to Harry and Ron that James and Sirius did to Snape, he probably would have been even more hated than he already is.

IKR? People hate him just for being bashed up every time he opens his mouth to sneer at them- imagine the response if he was allowed to actually humiliate Harry in front of his peers the way the Marauders did!

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Because seriously- exposing Snape's underwear? Hoisting him upside and leaving him choking on bubbles? Turning Draco into a ferret and hurling him into walls? Any number of things the Twins did (especially with Montague, who ended up brain-dead, apparently). That's all PERFECTLY FINE because none of it was 'Dark'. God, talk about double-standard."

I used to quite like the Ferret!Draco scene, because I thought it was good to see the evil bully get his comeuppance. Then I actually started to use my critical thinking facilities on HP, and realised that no, it wasn't alright. Not at all. Turning Draco into a ferret and then bouncing him against the floor and ceiling is like the muggle equivalent of grabbing hold of him and slamming him repeatedly against the wall, with his best friends watching. I must say I admire Draco for only shaking after this scene; if someone had done that to my fourteen-year-old self, I'd probably have burst into tears.

As for SWM... Really, what the hell was Lily thinking in going out with James? He's just publicly humiliated her supposed best friend, and she finds that funny? And really, couldn't she have been just a little bit more understanding of Snape's "Mudblood" comment? I mean, the guy's just been totally humiliated in public, so he probably wasn't thinking straight -- and then, he practically camps outside her room to say sorry, and she won't even listen to him? And then she has the utter cheek to try and make herself out to be the victim here ("Oh, poor me, having to constantly answer my friends' questions about why I hang out with you!").

Really, I don't know what Snape saw in her. I'm glad he didn't get her, though: it was probably kinder for him to keep his idealised version of her than have to find out what a git she was.

SWM does make me question why James was made Head Boy, though. Even if he improved himself during his sixth year, there must surely have been other people who'd been model students from their first year -- why not choose one of them?

It's quite surprising that Snape didn't let slip that Lupin was a werewolf. Maybe it was because Lupin didn't actually do anything to him, and so he didn't want to ruin his life. If so, that would probably make Snape the most moral character of the series. (Not that that would be hard, mind you.)

On the plus side, Hagrid taunts Draco in GOF for the ferret incident, during which Malfoy was totally humiliated, and speaks well of James, who totally humiliated people. So that's one aspect of characterisation that remains consistent throughout the books. Trust Hagrid to get off on people being humiliated.

Wizard World Example of Prejudice

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

In terms of the prejudice and blood status in the Wizard world, I've discussed some of this before but I'll have a go here since people here seem way more willing to read and understand as opposed to attack and destroy.

The Wizard world separated itself from muggles. In fact Hogwarts was sort of founded on the separation of magical and muggle.

But to move forward a little to present day magical world, they use a word like 'muggle' to describe non-magical people yet they get totally bent out of shape when someone gets called a 'mudblood'. A majority of the time the word muggle is used to describe people in a negative sense. How is that really different from calling someone mudblood I want to know. To me it's even worse to do it behind peoples back and talk about them like they're below standard than yelling at them to their face.

Now back to the past, if you start out at the beginning of Hogwarts. They started the whole separation thing because the magical people were apparently being abused by muggles, killed, tortured, whatever.

Now forgive me for making this observation but doesn't Salazar Slytherin seem to have a good reason to be distrustful? You've got a whole group of people deciding they need to start hiding and separating themselves from another group...yet we're going to call Slytherin evil because he doth protest to much?

Okay so maybe Slytherin was a totally jackass, but then can I say all the magical people were as well because they were trying to get away from the muggles to?

So the rest of the houses said, Oh, but let the muggles magical kids in of course. Well excuse me but how does hiding yourself really work if part of the people you're trying to get away from have kids going to your school?

Doesn't it seem logical that Salazar might have been worried the wrong muggle would find out and run his or her mouth. Maybe mention while he/she is having a drink at a pub that his/her son is a wizard and going to a magical school. Wouldn't that be a situation that would have the muggles at arms wanting to go to war against magical poeple?

If they were all trying to get away from muggles then it seems a bit hypocritical to complain that Salazar was the jerk here. It's a double standard isn't it?

That double standard seems to have continued well into the 1990's with Harry's arrival into the magical world. You've had all these centuries of magical people completely separating themselves from muggles. Going so far as to have this international law that says you can't show off your magic to muggles or ever let them know what you are. They've had these hundreds of years to build up these ideas in their children, and grandchildren that we can't let these muggles know about us.

And thats not a license for people like the Malfoy's to exist?

So why the hell is anyone really questioning that people like the Malfoy's because it sounds to me by right they are only following the example the whole community has set for them and following the laws created within the community. NO muggles must know about us.

It isn't as if the Ministry decided to do away with the laws to separate. It isn't as if magical people can walk around freely.

If JKR had set up that kind of situation, then it would make more sense to me. But it seems total ass backward to call it prejudice when the whole community, Including the saintly Weasley family are living a separated/protected/sheltered life from non-magicals. Oh, muggles are okay but we just can't live among them or associate much with them lest they find out what we really are.

The question is why wouldn't magical people have a prejudice against muggles if they're told they have to stay away from them and are not allowed to be themselves?

Re: Wizard World Example of Prejudice

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/So the rest of the houses said, Oh, but let the muggles magical kids in of course. Well excuse me but how does hiding yourself really work if part of the people you're trying to get away from have kids going to your school?/

It really is a difficult situation. The Ministry has a Statute of Secrecy that forbids wizards and witches from revealing themselves to Muggles, yet they permit the Muggle parents of Muggle-borns to know about the wizarding world and even enter it with their children. How do they keep the parents from revealing their existence to other Muggles? Do they threaten them with magic? Obliviate them at regular intervals? Do they just take it for granted that other Muggles won't believe the parents? "We can't let the Muggles know about us, but we'll make an exception for you because your kid's magical." Exactly how does that work?

Re: Wizard World Example of Prejudice

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Yes. And the general wizarding attitude towards Muggles is thoroughly bigoted (Arther being at the benevolent but condescending end of the spectrum, the DEs at the open hatred end). In fact, this bigotry is built into the WW's existence because - even though several *centuries* have gone by, the default opinion of Muggles by wizards is that they are at once inferior and supremely dangerous - to the point that wizards feel they have perfect justification for mind-wiping Muggles constantly, to keep themselves hidden. Nobody seems to have sat back and thought 'I wonder if all Muggles really are murderous magic-hating brutes...the PM doesn't seem to have ever tried to destroy us, I wonder if it would be possible to somehow open a dialog with the Muggles and eventually stop this idiot secrecy business that causes so many problems' Nope. I'm not saying it would *necessarily* work out perfectly, but wizards don't even seem to have grasped that Muggles 1) might actually not all try to kill them on sight, and 2) have a *right* to know about something that affects them!

Re: Wizard World Example of Prejudice

[oryx_leucoryx]

The centuries issue isn't surprising to me. Almost 500 years after the expulsion of Jews from Spain my father came across people whose immediate reaction to finding out he was Jewish was to wonder where his horns went.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Hermione didn't even know what the word meant at first- she got that it was an insult, obviously, from the tone and context, but it meant absolutely nothing to her. Gosh, I can really feel the prejudice against Muggle-borns, can't you, that she managed to get through a year and a bit without ever realizing there was all this active hatred towards her kind?"

Yeah, it does make it hard to believe that there's all this bigotry against them. It's like if Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird had never heard the term "nigger" before Bob Ewell used it on him, and had to go and ask someone what it meant.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Now there's a book that shows how racism and prejudice affects people.

Look, it's not that I expect every book to be a triumph of insightful commentary into our society and stripping away the layers of prejudice and whatever, but it annoys me when JKR is given all this credit for her books combating racism when it's treated in such an inconsequential manner, that the character supposed to be the target of all this racial inequality doesn't even register it.

It's hardly anything like that woman who was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white woman. When has Hermione been discriminated against because of her Muggle-born heritage?