The Death Eaters Were Inevitable
(Or, How I Broke My Brain And Fell In Love With Statute of Secrecy Discourse)
Now, before I begin, let me escort the first elephant out of the room: Yes, the Death Eaters were basically a Nazi parallel (or an X/Y/Z cocktail of various prejudices).
This is not about that. This is, if you will allow me, sidestepping that to suggest that there is another motivating factor in the wizarding world that not only strengthens psychologically exploring Death Eaters and similar, but could arguably be treated as their source code.
I am referring, of course, to the International Statute of Secrecy (est. 1689).
Second elephant out of the room. Yes, in canon, the Statute is a franchise convenience. The wizarding world as it exists in Harry Potter and its cousins only exists as-is with the Statute as foundation. Masquerade trope. Doylist, yadda and that.
Now let’s look at the elephant that we’re sitting down for tea: a society that has spent three hundred years reciting and digesting scattered medieval witch hunts as a reason to maintain a mind-control-enforced insular culture.
As we know from the real world, hardcore fear-fueled isolationism always produces functional, well-adjusted people.
Sarcasm aside, moving on.
Imagine you are a pureblood wizard, if you would. You grow up in a house out in the countryside. You occasionally glimpse Muggles, maybe, but you aren’t allowed to meaningfully talk to them. Not much. Besides, Muggles burn people and have nukes and all of this and that and the other. Imagine what they would do if they found us - that is the mantra you hear all your life. But wait no, we have magic, we’re safe, we’re superior.
And then you go to school, and you notice there’s a whole class of wizards whose parents and siblings and aunties and uncles are Muggles. What if one of them cracked and said something? What if one of the Muggleborns decided they liked the Muggles better than you? Half-bloods? Them too. People who marry Muggles? They've actively decided it, haven't they?
And then along comes this fellow saying don’t worry. We are superior to Muggles. And you know what? Muggleborns probably are conspiring and plotting against us anyway. They don’t get our ‘culture’ (and I use the the word loosely, considering canon population distribution), not to mention they were born out there.
People don’t like the narrative that makes them afraid. They like the one that makes them feel in control.
Now, enter the 1970s and surrounding years. The Muggle world is changing rapidly. The Cold War is afoot. The other is in its rapid-pulse state.
And we look at our pureblood and we wonder why he might become a Death Eater.
I want to be clear: I am not saying the Death Eaters are right or good or the real victims. I’m saying that the fundamental premise of the Statute of Secrecy does not create a stable, healthy society. It creates a highly paranoid one. (Which also raises some interesting pressures on canon’s British Ministry’s behavior, come to think.)
It breeds radicalization.
So, yeah. Has anyone else considered that 300 years of militant isolation might fuck up a society?
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