Servitude

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Madderbrad asked why I was so exercised about the depictions of Harry and the Death Eaters, and it got me to thinking about my increasing sympathy for, not just Slytherins, but Death Eaters in general.

Wait.

I’m feeling sympathy for Death Eaters??

Such sympathy is certainly quite unwarranted in the author’s eyes. So what did JKR write that makes me feel that way? Why have I started to be afflicted by a burning sense that JKR treated her villains unfairly?

WTF is going on in my own mind, that I apparently have started seeing some of the Death Eaters as traumatized victims?

I think it’s that, the more closely I look at them, the clearer becomes their true relationship to Voldemort.

“I am glad to hear that you consider them friends,” said Dumbledore. “I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.”

“You are mistaken,” said Voldemort. (HBP, Chapter 20)

Yes. Dumbledore was mistaken, or rather, imprecise. The English language has a much more exact term than “servant” to describe the relationship that subsists between the Death Eaters and Tom Riddle. It is a relationship in which one party. Tom, has the power of absolute life and death over the others. In which Tom demands absolute obedience, and both claims the right and demonstrates the will to torture or kill his underlings in response to any slightest defiance, disobedience, or failure. To torture or kill, moreover, any of his followers’ dependents. To visit collective punishment upon the group, punishing anyone handy for the failures of others.

Tom’s followers even call Voldemort their “Master.”

The Death Eaters aren’t Tom’s servants.

They are his slaves.


*



It’s Tom’s pleasure sometimes to call them “friends” and to pretend that they follow him out of loyalty, but even mad Bella, who WANTS to believe herself valued by Voldemort for her supreme faithfulness, knows that Tom would kill her in a heartbeat for any failure (witness her terror over the stolen sword).

So of COURSE when I see a group of slaves, driven by someone who makes Simon Legree look like Oskar Schindler, I feel some degree of sympathy for them, whatever my opinions of their probable politics.

And of course I also take it as a given that for every Winky-like Bellatrix who adores her cruel master with a mad devotion however he abuses her, there must be 20 more like Kreacher and Dobby, furtively looking for ways to betray their master or to sabotage and subvert the orders they can not or dare not directly disobey.

I realize that I’ve been conceptualizing the DE’s as slaves for some time now, and that I naturally therefore for that time have been reading canon for signs of slaves’ expected relationship to a feared and hated master.

However, this way of seeing the DE’s just sort of snuck up on me without me noticing. Certainly back when I wrote and posted “Death Eaters in the Seventies,” I read Lucius and some of his followers’ failure to use adequate force against the children to secure the prophecy as signs of their being too “soft” to bring themselves to torture children. But I didn’t then even consider the possibility that the failure could instead perhaps be ascribed to covert (but deliberate) disloyalty.

*

Reading the Death Eaters as slaves, I don’t generally expect them to engage in flashy gestures of defiance. Outright rebellion does occur among slaves, but for every Harriet Tubman or Spartacus, there are many more who, however they hate their masters, obey them—for the most part. Overtly, at least. Most slaves, in history and literature, content themselves mostly with doing what little they can to protect themselves and their best-beloveds from the worst abuses.

Now, some, like Bella and Barty and Kreacher, actually identify with their master (some of their masters) and his interests. Some, if they hate the master enough, look for ways to sabotage him. Or even kill him—that bouncy 1840’s song, “Jimmy Crack Corn,” about the master’s “accidental” death, comes irresistibly to mind. But slaves only, ever (or mostly, unless pushed way too far) do what they think they can get away with, and always bear in mind that too-effective sabotage can bring collective punishment down upon on the whole group. And they live with the knowledge that destroying the master’s household could mean destroying his slaves with him. Even those pushed far past caring for their own safety or comfort might fear to make their family or compatriots suffer for too-obvious disloyalty or incompetence.

I don’t expect slaves to revolt courageously against their chains, though those few who do are most inspiring. (She says, cringing, hoping never to be in a position to emulate those courageous few.)

I do expect them, when the Master is as brutally sadistic as Tom Riddle, to adopt one of several stances: identification (especially among the sadists among the slaves, who can try to rise in relative power on the pain of others); appeasement, using obedience and subservience to try to ameliorate one’s own lot and perhaps that of one’s closest loved ones; covert sabotage (work slow-downs, incompetence, “misunderstanding” one’s orders or carrying them out too literally—which all carry a strong risk of punishment, but not usually the most lethal punishments); outright attempts to destroy the master or to counter his aims (which can only be undertaken by someone who is not only indifferent to hir own fate, but is willing to risk the destruction of any potential hostages among hir fellow slaves. Or who has no one left to risk.)

And looking for these patterns, I see them quite clearly delineated.

Identification: Bellatrix, Dolohov, the Carrows, all eager to visit pain on others in fulfillment of their master’s will. Taking gratification where they can get it, but always cringingly aware that any failure might suddenly put them on the receiving end.

Appeasement: Peter Pettigrew (for himself only); Lucius and Narcissa (for their family). If I’m a good enough servant, perhaps Tom won’t punish me/us. Too much. Tonight. If no one else sets him off too much….

Covert sabotage: all the canon incompetence of DE’s can be read as this, now. Twelve DE’s armed with AK and the Cruciatus can’t kill any of six kids, or persuade any one of them to surrender a prophecy globe? Thirty DE’s in concert can’t kill anything more than an owl? When they’ve got the drop on fourteen defenders, half of them half-trained teens?

Just how hard were they trying? Really?

Draco, just coincidentally happening to forget how the DA communicated. And where they met. And how to get into that Room…. And what Hermione and Ron looked like, when they were dragged before him for positive identification!

Outright attempts to destroy the Master: Canon gives us two, apparently. Regulus (whose best-beloveds were all safe, he earnestly prayed, behind the very best wards a large fortune and the Black paranoia could procure) and Snape, whose best-beloved was, at first, Tom’s primary target no matter what Snape did, and afterwards was safely dead.

*

And see, once I started seeing the Death Eaters as slaves…. well, I didn’t expect them to suddenly start acting as not-slaves. They’ve been living for years with the knowledge that the slightest defiance or disobedience could bring torture or death to themselves, to their loved ones, and to their comrades.

So when I view DE’s as slaves I view it as unreasonable to expect overt defiance or disobedience from them. Instead, I celebrate every failure to fulfill his will as a sign of muted rebellion. And I feel sorry for them in such a terrible predicament, even though they did bring it partly on themselves.

Partly….. That is, I understand, of course, that presumably the Death Eaters all initially joined up voluntarily. In principle. But as Jodel pointed out, almost everyone who signed up with Tom was at the time a misguided KID:

And you will notice that over the course of the 2 generations that he cast his shadow, he has reeled in almost every single one of his followers before they were out of their teens. The creature preys on children. And he is not their friend. And he does not mean them well.

http://www.redhen-publications.com/Loyaulte.html

And we’ve argued before about what the children joining thought they were going to DO—what Riddle’s publicly-professed aims and publicly-admitted means were back in the seventies when he was recruiting these teens. The ONLY thing we’re told in canon about Riddle’s publicly professed agenda was that, like Albus and Gellert, he wanted to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule over their inferiors (except that Tom apparently added Muggle-borns to Albus and Gellert’s Muggles). But please note that, when Tom took over at the Ministry, he did NOT end Seclusion and start ruling openly over us regular folk. So he played his followers for fools in that. At least.

We don’t know what Tom told his prospective recruits in the Seventies. But what we can be absolutely sure of, is that whatever the children joining him thought they were going to accomplish, what they really got was something other.

I suppose it’s deliciously ironic that people who might have been attracted by propaganda about lording it over their supposed magical inferiors ended up enslaved as Tom’s magical inferiors.

Magic is might, indeed.

What did you expect, Lucius, Bellatrix, Avery? Severus? You did mount this dragon, of your own free will.

But I think there can be no doubt that few, if any, of the children binding themselves to Riddle had any conception at all of what relationship they were really committing themselves to.

And committing their children to.

Unto the nth generation, if Tommy had had his way.

I mean, think about it. Do you really think that Lucius Malfoy joined up because he expected to be made a prisoner in his own home, his manor and his galleons appropriated, his heir and his wife threatened, his very wand stolen, if his side WON?

And do you really think that Lucius had any real choice to raise Draco to resist (or know that he should want to resist) being recruited by Lord Voldemort? If Tom had returned to find Draco NOT preconditioned to accept him, what would Draco, Lucius, and Narcissa’s life expectancies have been?

And, I can’t, myself, see punishing people for a lifetime out of a sense of irony, however delicious, for a mistake made in their teens.

Still less destroying their kids and grandkids.

Not when I think that canon shows that most of them may have repented.

Canon has Tom making it quite clear, after all, that he considers almost all of his former followers deliberate traitors to him. GoF, “The Death Eaters:” “I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact—such prompt appearances!—and I ask myself… why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty?”

No one spoke.

Yeah, the accusation really is unanswerable, isn’t it?

*

Of course, there is one type of person who would find some of the conditions of Tom’s servitude rewarding: the sadist. You may recall Tom, at his resurrection, promising the Ministry’s creature-exterminator, Macnair, “better prey.” And obviously Bella and Amycus both enjoy being on the “right” end of a Cruciatus.

It’s standard fanfic that ALL the DE’s must be like this, and certainly it would help them to fulfill some of the Dark Lord’s worst orders.

(I had argued, in “Poisoning Toads in the Dungeon: Threat as Theatre,” that Snape deliberately tried to give his students the impression that he had a taste for physical cruelty, so as to make his eventual “return” to Voldemort seem supported by hope for gratification as well as self-interest. You know, the whole “I would totally be poisoning children’s pets for fun, but my mean headmaster won’t let me get away with too much. Pout. When YOU take over, YOU’’ll indulge my evil tastes, my Lord, won’t you?” schtick.)

But we know for sure that some of those sent to (or threatened with) Azkaban for supporting Voldemort were never accused of committing violent crimes: Rookwood and Bagman were accused of passing on information; Mulciber, of using the Imperius. (Yes, I do agree that the Imperius is mental violence and violation, even worse than mind-raping one’s own parents, and that it deserves to be an Unforgivable. Mulciber earned Azkaban, fair and square, I’m not arguing that. But I’d point out that any parent of a toddler could occasionally muster an impressively strong desire to just MAKE THE KID OBEY FOR ONCE, and that it’s a far stretch from that to mustering the will to cause excruciating agony, permanent physical damage, and death.)

Then there’s Lucius. We saw that Lucius Malfoy, in the fight at the MoM, could order people to kill kids if they felt it “necessary,” but he himself could do no more than wrestle with Harry and make empty threats. (Or, at least, Harry’s famous gut instinct considered them empty. None of Lucius’s threats inclined Harry in the least to obey; but when Bella, NOT on Lucius’s orders, Cruciated Neville and threatened to repeat it, Harry did decide to give her the Prophecy. Only then at the very instant he started to obey her, Jo had the cavalry show up…)

And we saw that Lucius’s version of “torturing Muggles” consisted, not of the Cruciatus, nor of rape or mutilation, but of Levicorpus: the same spell that much of the Hogwarts student body considered good clean fun when used publicly by James on Severus. Indeed, that was, if Lupin may be believed, used by (and on) everybody who was anybody: “There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn’t move for being hoisted in the air by your ankle.” (HBP, 16)

So, no, not all of Voldemort’s followers were natural or induced sadists. And even Harry noticed that those who were not, did not enjoy what they were ordered to do by Riddle and obeyed only under severe compulsion. Indeed, we’re rather given to understand, in that scene in DH where Draco was ordered to Cruciate Rowle, that Voldemort was deliberately going for a twofer: that he was torturing Thorfinn physically and Draco psychologically.

*

Finally, consider Regulus, almost brave enough in the end to be a Gryffindor like his brother.

Rowling gave us Regulus Black’s final epitaph in Kreacher’s battle cry (DH, 36): “Fight for my Master, defender of house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus!”

Except, of course, Regulus hadn’t defended Kreacher. He’d handed his slave obediently over to his own master, and then got in a snit when he found out his dependent had been misused.

Here’s Jodel again on Regulus (after pointing out that Regulus could as easily have ordered Kreacher to bring him home—or at least try to do so!—after the locket substitution as have ordered Kreacher explicitly to leave Regulus to die):

And then how is a deliberate suicide supposed to square with his “screw you” note in which he boasts that he had destroyed the real Horcrux? As it now turns out, he evidently never even intended to make an attempt at its actual destruction. He left Kreachur holding the bag and simply intended to be dead. Unnecessarily!

We are left having to conclude that Regulus must have deliberately killed himself just to get free of Riddle’s service.

Without having ever had any real intention of personally striking a conclusive blow against Riddle which would do him some actual damage, regardless of what he spouted off about the matter.

It was an empty boast. The boy died a liar and a braggart. So much for “brave Regulus”. It was clearly easier for him to face death than to face Tom. Or even to make an attempt to destroy the Horcrux once he stole it.

http://www.redhen-publications.com/Horcrux.html


Think back, now, to the standard way that most slaveholding societies acquired new slaves: warfare Prisoners of war. A brave warrior would die in battle rather than let himself be taken. A brave warrior’s woman would kill herself first. So only cowards would let themselves live on to be enslaved.

See?

So if you live on to be enslaved, that’s the proof that you deserve to be a slave. (Just ask Aristototle.) If you were truly courageous, a true Gryffindor, you’d die first.

Voldemort’s attack on Regulus’s slave made Regulus realize his own condition of servitude. And what Regulus did then was NOT to turn spy or start smuggling Muggle-borns to safety or to publicize that Voldemort was indulging in actual EVIL (not just Dark Arts) or to reveal Tom’s Muggle ancestry or otherwise do anything that might do real damage to Tom or to his cause.

No, Regulus caused his elf to hijack the Horcrux—with orders which the elf couldn’t fulfill to destroy the thing.

*

It is attested to in canon, after all, that the locket was in fact as safe at Grimmauld Place as in that cave.

Safer, even—no one looking for one of Tom’s Horcruxes would ever have reason to look in Grimmauld Place. In fact, the locket was thrown out as meaningless junk under Horcrux-hunting Dumbledore’s very nose!

No, Regulus made a Gryffindorish gesture of empty defiance—that could be known only after he was safely dead, yet!—and died.

To repeat Jodel’s great insight,

We are left having to conclude that Regulus must have deliberately killed himself just to get free of Riddle’s service.

And that’s Jo’s POINT. That’s what MADE Regulus “brave”

See, there’s always an alternative to slavery. If you’re brave enough.

“Give me liberty or give me death!”

Or, in the words of the spiritual “O Freedom,” “And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave….”

Kill yourself. For no noticeable result, to no noticeable detriment to your enemies. Though it may have no other effect, it establishes past any doubt that you are someone who “WILL NOT BE ENSLAVED!”

So Regulus was, in the end, lauded. Not for what he accomplished, because he accomplished nothing, but for an utterly pointless gesture of defiance that resulted in his death. And therefore established his refusal to be a slave.

*

That the Death Eaters can be convincingly read as slaves makes them, as a group, more sympathetic to me—however little I agree with the political aspirations that presumably led to their original enslavement.

But Rowling, I think, had the opposite emotional reaction to mine. That she plausibly wrote the Death Eaters as slaves to a terrible master made them more, not less, contemptible in her eyes.

This is why Reggie, of all the canon Death Eaters, is lauded as “brave” by Jo. He chose death before dishonor.

And this is why Slytherins in general are so contemptible to JKR. Because “… given the choice, we [Slytherins] will always choose to save our own necks.” (Phineas, OotP, Chapter 23)

They (we) choose to save our own necks? We won’t die before submitting?

Possibly before regrouping to try to defeat the enemy by subterfuge?

*

We should, instead, be liars and braggarts, openly if emptily defying the enemy?

We should.

*

So we (`Slytherins) are natural slaves. We deserve what we get.

What they got.

Comments

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"We are left having to conclude that Regulus must have deliberately killed himself just to get free of Riddle’s service.

And that’s Jo’s POINT. That’s what MADE Regulus “brave” "

Which of course fits right in with the book's overarching theme that death is the most important thing in the world. Sort-of like how Harry's ritual suicide made him a great man.

Honestly, Rowling seems to be awfully blase about death, doesn't she? Death really does seem like the answer to everything. You being enslaved? Kill yourself! You're the Chosen One whom the fate of the world depends on? Defeat your enemy by dying! Neville's parents? Better off dead! Lily Potter? A heroic martyr because she begged and pleaded to die in place of her child! James Potter? He could be an asshole his entire life but because he died protecting his family he can do no wrong! Snape? He only gets respect after his death! And so on and so forth....

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Honestly, Rowling seems to be awfully blase about death, doesn't she? ...

... And so on and so forth....

I think she found it easy to write. Living characters *do* things, and the author has to *think* about what they're going to *do*. But if they're dead then there's no such pressure. :-)

Seriously, a few of those corpses were just cogs in Rowling's unending stream of deus ex machina gimmicks. The whole idea of a deus ex machina is that it materialises from nowhere. In such cases you really CAN'T have the originator of the device hanging around. If Lily or James were still alive people would be asking "well, how did that magical protection work then?". Okay, that's not fair of me, because Lily's death was actively part of that gimmick. But if James had survived then Rowling's fairy floss plot device would have failed under the examination. Just look at her interview where she tried to explain why Jame's sacrifice didn't count but Lily's did. It's hilarious.

Rowling couldn't think of a way to get rid of the Harrycrux - not without putting more effort into the mystery of the Horcruxes, which *relied* on people not knowing about them, or how to detect them - otherwise her whole "Harry is a Horcrux" would have been a wet firecracker - so she has Harry march off to passively die. The whole Locket horcrux thing was dreamed up in book 6, so Regulus is used for that one device and then thrown away (without Rowling thinking about it, it would appear). Snape's dying is so much easier than having him hang around afterwards, I reckon.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Draco, just coincidentally happening to forget ... what Hermione and Ron looked like, when they were dragged before him for positive identification!

Heh. It's funny ... I only saw the DH Part 1 movie two days ago and, for the first time, that particular flaw of the book - Rowling Error #3538 - became obvious to me. Here's Bellatrix, Lucius, Narcissa, all pushing Draco at Harry ... when Hermione and Ron are in the same room and completely recognisable. So, Draco, do you recognise these two as the companions who ALWAYS accompany Potter? Oh, you do? AHA! GOT YOU, POTTER!

My goodness, even today, 4 years later, there are still errors in that book popping out at me.

I'm glad you addressed the fact that the DEs all joined Voldemort of their free will. Interesting point that they did so as relative youths. Still, they *did* voluntarily relinquish their freedom to their new master. Which makes them stupid as well as initially somewhat evil to fall in with Riddle's (stated) goals.

Why was it so difficult for these slaves to revolt? Spartacus wasn't given weapons which he could use to kill his masters! And there was only ONE master to overcome. The DEs all had wands ... all together now, AVADA KEDAVRA, one of us will surely get lucky, we only need one spell to land and we'll be FREE again!

Interesting analysis of 'Brave Regulus'. I love it when Rowling's careless writing comes back to bite her like that. No wonder she keeps having to tell people what she *really* meant to say. :-) I must come back and read this, and Red Hen's essays, when I have more time. Thanks!

[fishinginthemud.livejournal.com]

So, Draco, do you recognise these two as the companions who ALWAYS accompany Potter? Oh, you do?

But they did ask him if he recognized them. (Yeah, maybe he does. He can't be sure. Who knows. Who are any of us, really, when you get down to it. Shit, this is some awesome bud, maaaaaan.) That they couldn't get a straight answer out of him wasn't their fault. That was one of the few moments I actually enjoyed in the book, because it felt almost like it had once been in the same room as something authentic.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. You're right, thank you; they do ask Draco for his identification of the other two in the novel. So I'd chalk that up to an error with the movie, maybe? It seemed to be an obvious thing to do.

Still - in the book - Draco was sticking his neck out a bit, then, wasn't he? Since it was obvious that no 'Stinging Jinx' had been cast at them, so Draco had no real legs to stand on to explain why he couldn't immediately identify schoolmates of six years standing.

It just read as awkward to me, but maybe I'm supposed to feel that way, to get the full measure of Draco's ambivalence/reluctance.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, considering that Tommy boasted to them about how far he had gotten in the pursuit of immortality (note this does not seem to be new news to them, suggesting they knew something about it before Tommy's disappearance) - and came back from what would have been death to anyone else - they may very well (and correctly) have believed that they COULDN'T kill him. And if you are going to act against him openly, you had better make sure that he will be dead at the end of it, or you have just made things a hundred times worse for yourself and your loved ones.

Also, when you're roped in as a teenager and find yourself enslaved to a homicidal psychopath and surrounded by sadists all too willing to turn on others to make themselves look good to the Master, there's a lot of *psychological* pressure to not rock the boat. Acting in concert - should you be able to psychologically reach the place where you feel that you CAN attempt it - requires that you be able to *trust* the others you are discussing revolting with. And several of them have proven themselves willing to use any advantage whatsoever to avoid being the focus of Tommy's wrath. You don't know how the rest of the others feel without talking to them, but hinting at how you feel to the wrong person will get you (at best) a round or two of cruciatus faster than you can blink....and, once again, you don't know who the wrong people are until you've already put yourself out there.

It's not merely a question of numbers; you have to take the entirety of their situation into account.

And word to this whole thing, terri. Another excellent essay.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, actually, considering that Tommy boasted to them about how far he had gotten in the pursuit of immortality (note this does not seem to be new news to them, suggesting they knew something about it before Tommy's disappearance)

I wonder how that worked before Godric's Hollow. Did he just hint and nudge about being immortal or what? Clearly his immortality wasn't put to a test before Halloween 1981.

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

"when Hermione and Ron are in the same room and completely recognisable. So, Draco, do you recognise these two as the companions who ALWAYS accompany Potter? Oh, you do? AHA! GOT YOU, POTTER!"

And Harry still had black hair, didn't he? and he still had a scar on his forehead, didn't he? though the scar was probably in the shape of a vertical line.
And IIRC Hermione only made his head inflated (what happened to his glasses btw?) the rest of his body was normal-looking.

Lucius and Bella know very well how Ron and Hermione look. Why the hell would they need Draco to identify them????????

WOW I completely forgot how dumb this scene is!

Child Abuse among the DEs

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Ah, Terri, it's so nice to see you making everyone at Journalfen crazy again. Just the thought of them all crapping their pants when they read this is enough to warm the cockles of my heart. :D

Reading this made me think of something you didn't cover. When you talked about the sadistic DEs, I began to wonder how they'd become sadistic. No one is born getting their kicks from torturing others. That's learned behavior. Even violent psychopaths usually come from very abusive and/or neglectful backgrounds. So now I'm wondering if those violent DEs came from abusive families, also.

This particularly applies to Bellatrix, with her sick, fawning "little girl" posturing to "daddy" Voldemort. I've read so much fanfic in which she has the hots for Voldemort, I don't remember whether that's canon or not. If it is, that leads me to wonder if she was sexually abused by her father.

All three of the Black sisters fit the abused child mold: Bella over-identifies with her abuser by becoming a photocopy of him. She chooses a substitute daddy she constantly grovels to and begs for approval, trying to be the perfect daughter by emulating everything he does and says to the nth degree. Identifying with the father is typical of oldest children. Since there are no sons in this family, Bella may also have felt like she had to act more aggressive and "masculine" to make up for being a girl. I'm sure magical society is just as sexist in preferring sons as non-magical society is.

Andromeda goes in the opposite direction to Bella by rebelling and marrying a mudblood, then turning her back on her family. Narcissa takes an in between position, marrying another rich pureblood who agrees with her family politically and socially, while apparently having little to do with her family of origin after her marriage.

IOW, Bella begs for daddy's affection, hoping if she's perfect, one day he'll give her the love and approval she's always wanted and needed. Andromeda realizes she'll never get what she needs, so she turns her back on her family entirely, making sure to give them a symbolic finger before she goes. Narcissa tries to be a "good girl" by marrying the "right kind" of man, but still tries to stay away from her family if she can.

Of course, we know Severus came from a background that was at best malignantly neglectful, if not outright abusive. (The train scene in The Prince's Tale) Do we know enough about any of the other DEs' backgrounds to know if they were abused or neglected? And what does it say about Slytherins that they are more likely to be abused (if I'm right), or at least, are more likely to react to their abuse by joining Voldemort? (I know Harry was abused, but by his own admission, he wouldn't join VM because the man killed his parents. I'm talking about people who've been abused who don't have that kind of compelling reason not to join the DEs.)

Re: Child Abuse among the DEs

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"No one is born getting their kicks from torturing others."

Remember that this is Rowling we're talking about- she did go out of her way to make it very clear that Tom Rid was born evil! Presumably she'd say the same thing about at least some of the Death Eaters.

Re: Child Abuse among the DEs

[oryx_leucoryx]

There are the Crouches - I don't think Barty was physically or magically abused pre-Azkaban, but he had a tyrannical, hard-to-please father. The only way to please him was to lose one's individuality and become a copy of him - so Barty replaced him with another tyrant (see Elkins for details).

Re: Child Abuse among the DEs

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of an article I came across a while back that suggests that the Holocaust may have been partly due to horrific child-rearing practices in Germany and Austria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author, Lloyd deMause, argues that severe childhood trauma used to be (and still is) the norm in many parts of the world, and it was this widespread child abuse that led a society to believe as adults that mass genocide was a good idea.

Apparently, deMause is considered to be a bit of a crack by much of the academic community, but I think he might be on to something.

For some reason, LJ keeps screening this comment. I think it might be due to the link to the article I'm trying to include. I'm not sure. I'm going to replace some of the letters in the URL and see if that works.

hxxp://www.psychohistory.com/originsofwar/06_childhoodOrigins.html

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

As someone abused in real life, you know that I hate these direct comparisons!

But, um, yes.

But first, let me just note that Bella actually held herself together until her father-substititute/abuser was killed, and possibly until she'd been subjected to Dementor-torture for a decade.

I'd expect that to have an effect; wouldn't you?

As I pointed out in "Death Eaters in the Seventies,' the Bellatrix admitting proudly to Cruciating the Longbottoms into insanity also claimed she did so solely in hopes of revealing her lost lord's whereabouts and means of revival.

Goal-oriented, not affection-oriented.

The Bellatrix we saw in OotP, speaking in a baby voice and torturing young boys for FUN, had been rendered further insane by at least a decade of Dementor Dementia.

*

So, yes, I think a case can be made (you made it) that the Black sisters were all three damaged by their upbringing. And that they all three reacted in ways in line with their famlly-prescribed roles: Daddy's Girl, Outsider/Rebel, Beloved Baby.

*

I've argued before that abused childrenn should have a slightly higher chance than 24% mean normal of being sorted into Slytherin (whenever they didn't don the Sorting Hat--like Harry--chanting, 'O God, never put me in Slyerthin!') just becuase they have an above-average experience of having felt powerless--and therefore of wanting some power over their lives.

There are a number of reasons to have a pronounced desire for power at the age of eleven, after all, and most of the obvious ones are that the child in question has already suffered from feeling abjectly powerless, friendless, unattractive, unpopular, unwanted....

As to Riddle's apparently higher-than-norm recruiting among the Purebloods--I, myself, take it as a sign that this group was losing influence among the WW mainstream. That they perceived themselves as losing power....

There's the personal, and there'e the purely political, and how they reflect each other can be ... interesting. (Consider Alan Rickman's known politics, and his consenting to embody Snape!)

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

(Consider Alan Rickman's known politics, and his consenting to embody Snape!)
Can you say a word or 2 about his politics and the connection between them & Snape?

Btw, I saw DH Part 2 yesterday and your analysis suits it great.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

As someone abused in real life, you know that I hate these direct comparisons!

Oh, do you? Sorry. I didn't know. I come from an extremely abusive family, also, although to the best of my extensive knowledge, there's been no sexual abuse of a physical kind. (Emotional incest is another story.) That's why I find these books so inordinately fascinating, in fact: My family functions exactly like the Potterverse. I can even match up this or that character with this or that family member.

But first, let me just note that Bella actually held herself together until her father-substititute/abuser was killed, and possibly until she'd been subjected to Dementor-torture for a decade.

I'd expect that to have an effect; wouldn't you?

Well, yeah, but I would argue that just exacerbated the problems that were already there. She may have been mentally unstable to begin with and had that condition made worse by abuse at home. While I've never bought that Sirius' mother was crazy (not enough evidence), we know inbreeding causes problems, and all those purebloods had to be inbred because there were so few of them.

As I pointed out in "Death Eaters in the Seventies,' the Bellatrix admitting proudly to Cruciating the Longbottoms into insanity also claimed she did so solely in hopes of revealing her lost lord's whereabouts and means of revival.

Goal-oriented, not affection-oriented.

Ah, but what was that goal? To get her "daddy" back so she could start worshiping him again and try to make him love her. If he's permanently dead, she can never fulfill her fantasy of winning his love. As I'm sure you know, this happens in RL when bad parents die. Their kids don't grieve the actual parent who sucked, they grieve their fantasy parent, i.e., the parent they wanted Mom or Dad to be. They also grieve the death of their hope that one day, they'll do or say the right thing to make Mommy or Daddy love them the way they wanted, needed, and deserved. I'm sure if RL people had the power to raise the dead, there'd be a lot of bad parents alive again, just so their kids could have a chance to do over their relationship.

I've argued before that abused childrenn should have a slightly higher chance than 24% mean normal of being sorted into Slytherin (whenever they didn't don the Sorting Hat--like Harry--chanting, 'O God, never put me in Slyerthin!') just becuase they have an above-average experience of having felt powerless--and therefore of wanting some power over their lives.

There are a number of reasons to have a pronounced desire for power at the age of eleven, after all, and most of the obvious ones are that the child in question has already suffered from feeling abjectly powerless, friendless, unattractive, unpopular, unwanted....

But that applies to the other houses, too. Ravenclaw would appeal to the abuse survivors who dealt with their pain by living out of their heads and repressing their emotions. Gryffindor would appeal to kids who acted out, emulated violent behavior they'd learned at home (including bullying), or took foolish risks to induce a druggy high to distract them from their pain. Hufflepuff would appeal to potential workaholics (a kind of addiction) or kids looking for a stable, rule-bound surrogate family to replace their chaotic family of origin.

There's the personal, and there'e the purely political, and how they reflect each other can be ... interesting. (Consider Alan Rickman's known politics, and his consenting to embody Snape!)

Could you explain that, please? I don't know what you're talking about.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

There's the personal, and there'e the purely political, and how they reflect each other can be ... interesting. (Consider Alan Rickman's known politics, and his consenting to embody Snape!)

I'm afraid I'm another person who has no idea what you're referring to, here. (I don't really pay that much attention to the actors.) Please explain? I'm all curious, now. :)

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

There is also the fact that the Slyths are the people that Tom had the most ready access to. That alone probably accounts for more than a little.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, the DE as slaves - the first known Dark Lord supporter we meetis Lucius in COS, where we also meet the first house-elf. We meet the DEs as a group in GOF, where we meet the Hogwarts house-elves. I think I have seen several SSHG fics where Hermione notices the similarity between Severus and the elves.

And then we have Dumbles, the enlightened version of the slave-owner. Doesn't the passivity of the Order show they are at least mentally as enslaved as the DEs? Servants of a good master aren't expected to rebel at all, why would they? In Rowling's world humans too shouldn't seek to pursue their own goals, what they need is a good master.

The most classically abusive interaction we see in canon on the DE side is Tom's treatment of Peter. Can we compare and contrast Tom->Peter with Albus->Severus?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Word.

Can we compare and contrast Tom->Peter with Albus->Severus?

Don't have it in me to do the whole comparison right now, but I had to chime in that this really highlights just how shudder-worthy a name "Albus Severus" is.

Also, now I want to write a historical AU in which Dumbledore and Tommy are rival plantation owners. Bloody demanding bunnies.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Now I'm wondering if Lucius was always abusive to his elf (assuming he 'always' had one) or if he got into this behavior pattern after being an abused slave himself. Not that this is a justification, but the picture looks a bit different.

Also, I have to wonder about the Lucius-Severus friendship (I believe HBP is evidence for it being genuine) and how it fits with Lucius' disillusionment with the DEs. Because he is several years older than Severus. Was he not yet that disillusioned when Severus joined in? Or perhaps Lucius had nothing to do with Severus' joining - Severus may have been influenced by Mulciber and Avery (both of whom had older relatives with a history with Tom) and Lucius was just as saddened to see Severus among the new recruits as Severus was with Draco?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Covert sabotage: all the canon incompetence of DE’s can be read as this, now. Twelve DE’s armed with AK and the Cruciatus can’t kill any of six kids, or persuade any one of them to surrender a prophecy globe? Thirty DE’s in concert can’t kill anything more than an owl? When they’ve got the drop on fourteen defenders, half of them half-trained teens?

Thirtysome DEs can't hit an already injured teenager when they are surrounding him? (Though Elkins says they had a justifiable reason not to try too hard - they just saw a demonstration that really strange things happen when one attempts to AK The Boy Who Lived.)

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I always took it as proof that they were graduates of the "Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy", to put it in TV Tropes terms. ;-)

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----That is, I understand, of course, that presumably the Death Eaters all initially joined up voluntarily.

I question how voluntary the decision to join was. This is a society that has the Imperius Curse, the Confundus Charm, memory charms, and love potions. It makes me wonder what forms of "persuasion" Voldemort might have used to gather his followers.

[oryx_leucoryx]

From the little we see, he seems to have taken an individualized approach to the recruitment - he had a good sense (well, he wasn't a Legilimens for nothing) of what potential recruits wanted to hear. But once he had them he did nothing to keep them wanting to serve him. Of course we never see how he treated his followers pre-Godric's Hollow.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Covert sabotage: all the canon incompetence of DE’s can be read as this, now. Twelve DE’s armed with AK and the Cruciatus can’t kill any of six kids, or persuade any one of them to surrender a prophecy globe? Thirty DE’s in concert can’t kill anything more than an owl? When they’ve got the drop on fourteen defenders, half of them half-trained teens?

Or how about Avery, providing Tom with wrong information about who can remove prophecy records from their shelves? Kept Tom's plan back for half a year (at the expense of Broderick Bode's life, alas).