deathtocapslock | COS Chapter Seven: "Mudbloods and Murmurs"

for-diddled.livejournal.com posting in

* 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.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: The Quidditch Pitch

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

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?

From:

aikaterini.livejournal.com

/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./

Yes, I've seen arguments from anti-D/Hr fans about how Hermione would never marry someone who bullied her friends. Well, how would that be any different from Lily marrying the guy who mercilessly bullied *her* best friend? Sure, Draco's racist while James isn't, but both of them are bullies. And you're right, Lily married James right out of high school, so it's not as if they were dating for several years, grew older and wiser together, and then got married.

/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./

We're *told* that James changed (from Sirius and Remus, no less), but we're never actually *shown* any evidence that he did. Right after Sirius tells Harry that James grew up, he admits that James still hexed Snape behind Lily's back, that Snape was a "special case." And then during the dramatic reveal of the night of the Potters' murder, James runs at Voldemort *without a wand.* Grew up and matured, my foot.

Re: Who are the good guys really?

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com - Date: 2010-10-29 02:29 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

borg-princess.livejournal.com

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?

A+ comment! I shall remember this for any debate in future, because wow, what a brilliant point!

Of course, Snape is a nasty person, he's mean to kids. Even though his whole life is a shitfest, while Dumbledore has all the praise and recognition and power. But I never got how people could say Dumbledore's better when he's the one who let kids get hurt even when he could've stopped it, while Snape's the guy that busted his ass trying to help whenever anyone was in danger.

From:

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!

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

You're correct about Reggie. Regulus Black - a well-connected pureblood - thought that the ultimate aim of Voldemort's was to bring wizards out of hiding to rule over (not massacre, rule) Muggles. He did believe that purebloods would be on top of the hierarchy, but not that non-pureblooded wizards would be totally excluded or outright murdered. And then there's the general attitude in the WW towards how being 'pure' works: after a few generations you become 'pure' again, whereas in Nazi Germany one Jewish grandparent was enough to get you sent to a concentration camp, and in the American South one provable black ancestor made you black no matter the number of generations; so the social hierarchy would not have been as rigidly fixed, the ranks of the 'pure' elite would have been permeable. (I mean, even the DEs, the radicals themselves, were open to HALFBLOODS actually joining up.)

Now, obviously thinking that wizards are better than other people is wrong, wanting to rule them is not the greatest idea to be espousing, and thinking of purebloods as above non-purebloods is also wrong. But it's not quite the same as signing on explicitly with the goal of mass murder or genocide. And if REGULUS BLACK, well-connected pureblood Voldie fanboy, honestly thought this was what Voldemort was all about, why on earth should a poor halfblood from a backwater Muggle milltown with no significant wizarding connections be expected to know any better?

It's not even that he would have expected them to be terribly violent either. We have no verifiable canon evidence (I mean specific incidents one can point to) that the DEs engaged in highly public terrorist-style violence until the very late '70s and early '80s; before that it seems to have been a few strategic disappearances of people in power, nothing against civilians. The Aurors are the ones who commit the first named killings we have (killing DEs), and afterwards the DEs start killing back. Voldemort alone seemed to be the most violent during that time, when he was taking out selected Order members like Marlene (and even he rarely killed children, interestingly enough). I highly doubt that someone joining up back in the mid-70s would have had nearly as grim a picture of the DEs as we get by the time Harry enters the story.

As to Severus: we don't really know his motivation in canon, but we can speculate. Looking for belonging probably played a role - and such cult-like groups often 'love-bomb' new recruits, make them feel a solid part of the group, before they break out the iffy rhetoric. Looking for protection as the Slytherin target of Gryff bullies and their enablers in power, possibly also. If so, he would have been attracted by anyone who set themselves up against the group the Marauders joined and against Dumbles, who left him to their mercy. Wanting to impress Lily (JKR's stated reason)? Well, it works if you buy that Lily was attracted to posturing displays of power (coughJamescough). Disenchantment with the system, love of magic in itself and wanting to go further researching it, there are multiple possible reasons he could have joined up, many of them exactly the sort of thing stupid teenagers get caught by all the time. Plus, Voldie Mach I was apparently much more charming and persuasive than post-Albania Voldie, and he would mirror back to potential recruits what they most wanted (see Bart Cruch Jr.'s story). I could buy a situation in which an on-the-fence Severus - with all those desires for belonging and excellence and magic, and not quite enough information, and maybe a little hatred of Muggles based on personal negative experience - is carefully courted by Malfoy, then comes face to face with Voldie himself in full persuasive mode and is completely wowed...only to wake up after getting the Mark and seeing what it's like on the inside, and going 'ohshitohshit I didn't think it was like this.' He didn't seem very enamored of the DEs when he met with Dumbles afterward, did he?

From:

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!

From:

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.

From:

karentheunicorn.livejournal.com

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?

Yea, don't forget Lily fights off a smile in that moment when Severus' legs and underpants are exposed. Why was she going to smile? I thought she was so good...sooooo noble, etc. etc.

Plus we don't get to see how far the scene actually goes. When Harry is pulled out of that scene by adult Severus, James shouts who wants to see me take off his (Severus) underpants.

Did someone put a stop to it? Did Severus get help from anyone?

Notice that the only person who seems to have come to help him was Lily. I don't see where any Slytherins came to his rescue. In fact would it not be interesting to note Severus could have shouted the mudblood comment both due to his humiliation and because of 'who' was watching. It was stated to be a crowd.

Shouldn't there have been some Slytherins out there.

Besides that, there has to be a lot of male pride involved, forgetting all the House rivalry stuff and muggle/mudblood stuff. He was a male, what is it like for a boy to have to be saved by a girl? It tends to make them feel weak and James even promoted that notion by saying sarcastically that it was good (Evans) was there to save him (Severus)

Add all those things added up together and Lily wasn't able to see how the humiliation would have continued and instead just dumps him? Even the Slytherins watching would have looked at it as Severus got saved by a Gryffindor, but not only a Griff but a female no less.

It was a no win situation. No matter what Severus did or said in those moments he had to live with that scar of public humiliation forever, even taking Lily out of it still makes it bad.

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

Things do get very interesting when you start adding up who knew what when and realize that Severus not only never opened his mouth about Remus during his years at Hogwarts, but also must have kept mum about it *the entire time he was a DE* - when he had no pressing motivation not to use this weapon other than a basic sense of decency, and would probably have benefited from deploying it. Imagine the mischief Voldie could have made had he known that one of Dumbledore's major supporters was a werewolf, and that Dumbledore himself had 1) secretly placed all of Hogwarts at risk from that werewolf for seven years, 2) covered up an attempted murder against a student in which the same werewolf and his friends (also DD supporters) were involved, and 3) failed to update the security around the werewolf even after learning that at least two students had gotten past it without trouble.

Now, in fanfic you'll often see Dumbles putting a spell on Severus to make him keep silent...but in canon Severus has no difficulty at all spilling the secret once he decides to do it, and there is not a single hint that Dumbledore had to (or had reason to) remove any previously-cast silencing spell. Occam's razor states that Severus therefore could have told, and dealt a major blow to Dumbledore's organization, but did not.

I think this indirectly supports the reading that once inside the DEs Severus was not so enthralled with them as to actually want to see them win anymore. Either that, or that he *did* want it, and wanted to hurt Dumbles' organization too perhaps, but could not justify to himself ruining the life even of an enemy without direct provocation (recall his words to Sirius in PoA: even at the height of his frenzy he refrains from actually casting anything harmful, and repeats, "Give me a reason, and I will do it.")

From:

From:

oryx_leucoryx - Date: 2010-10-31 08:54 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

aikaterini.livejournal.com

/I used to quite like the Ferret!Draco scene, because I thought it was good to see the evil bully get his comeuppance./

Those are the same reactions that I had, too. The GoF movie sort of fixes this by having Moody bounce Draco up and down but never have him actually hit the ground. Moody does, to the amusement and squick of the fandom, levitate Draco into Goyle's pants, but never actually physically hurts him. And it's funny how nobody keeps in mind that it was really Barty Crouch Jr. who was doing this. None of the students, Harry included, ever reflect on the fact that it was a Death Eater who was teaching the class they loved so much, who turned Draco into a ferret.

/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./

The thing is, though, if Draco *had* started to earnestly cry, then we probably wouldn't have viewed the scene in such a favorable light. Sure, there would still be people out there who would call him a pansy (the same people who called him a pansy for crying in the bathroom in HBP; yes, heaven forbid a boy actually break down about having to kill someone to save his family, whose surival depends on his success >_<), but the fact that Draco was relatively physically unscathed, and was described as being more humiliated than hurt lessens whatever outrage we may have had.

/He's just publicly humiliated her supposed best friend, and she finds that funny?/

This is why Lily was not Snape's friend. No true friend would react like that. Draco laughs at Harry, Ron, and Hermione whenever they're humiliated or embarrassed and he's a spiteful person for doing so, but Lily smiles when her own *friend* is being bullied and we're supposed to see her as the epitome of virtue?

/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 --/

I read an essay in defense of Lily and the author pointed out that if somebody's friend called them the N-word or a similar racial epithet, that person would have every right to be upset. Also, since it was said in a time of stress and the spur of the moment, the author argued that the insult showed Snape's true anti-Muggle-born prejudices. It's a tricky situation. Remember when Michael Richards, the actor who played Kramer in "Seinfeld," said the N-word after being booed by a group of African-American patrons during a show? Some people argued that he was showing his true racist colors, while other people argued that he was just throwing out the worst fitting insult he could think of because he was angry at them.

/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!")./

That's when I really started to think that she was fickle and shallow. It'd be one thing if she and Snape were dating and he was abusive and her friends were warning her about him. Then I'd think, "Yes, you really should listen to your friends." But that's not the situation here. To me, this scenario sounds more like a case of Lily's "normal" friends not liking Snape because he's weird and he's in Slytherin. Again, if they really were best friends, Lily wouldn't care about what other people thought about him.

And you know what's worse? Lily never addresses the bullying. She *saw* what James was doing with her own eyes, and yet she never brings it up in her argument with Snape. She's ready to rail at him for calling her "Mudblood" and goes on about how he's really a bigot at heart, but she never addresses James' bullying behavior. It's as if it's an insignificant footnote, something not worth being discussed, even though that was the context in which Severus called her "Mudblood." But I guess that if she brought it up, she would be forced to confront her own disgraceful behavior.

From:

majorjune.livejournal.com

To me, this scenario sounds more like a case of Lily's "normal" friends not liking Snape because he's weird and he's in Slytherin.

And really, how is what her Gryffindor friends are saying when they're 15 any different than what her own sister Petunia said when they were nine and eleven?

Lily didn't care about Tuney's opinion back then, why care now?

From:

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but the line of discussion you raised with your point about Severus not revealing Lupin's secret before PoA keeps nagging at me. It made me realize that there is a bigger gap here than the one that I got into below that tells us Severus never told about Lupin even as a DE. So I wrote/ranted a little about it here (http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/275246.html).

Upon examining canon - I am working up a list of why - I think it fairly reasonable to suppose that the DEs/Voldemort must not have known about Remus' condition before PoA, nor therefore about Dumbles' dangerous little charity project and its narrowly-averted consequences.

But this makes no sense.

Why doesn't anyone on Voldemort's side apparently (before PoA) have any idea about Lupin's lycanthropy or the fact that Dumbles had him secretly at Hogwarts as a student? Beyond the fact that Severus never told, I mean. Because there are at least two other sources for this information: Peter, and the Werewolf Registry. Peter's not telling could perhaps be explained by some supposition that he disliked/blamed Remus least out of the other three Marauders (going with the resentful!Peter theory) or actively cared about him (going more with cowardly!Peter) enough not to tell about this right away if he could help it, but Voldie's ignorance of the Registry's contents? Not so easy to explain away.

Please help, someone!

I concentrate in my little ramble linked to mostly on the time up to the end of PoA and Severus' blowing the whistle. It is also strange that after PoA they never tried to do anything with it either...the only explanation I can come up with there is JKR's lack of thought, but it's fun to theorize about the earlier time period.