âIt's probably because Sirius himself completely and utterly rejects his class/status. We never see him explicitly take advantage of it for his own benefit. When we see him in canon era (poa-ootp), he literally has nothing. No money, Azkaban/old clothes, no shelter (aside from Grimmauld that he hates). He's not some rich asshole persecuting the poor. His life post age 21 isn't privileged, it's tragicâ
Rejecting your class does not magically erase your class privilege, and this is where your whole argument falls apart from the start. Class is not an aesthetic identity you can opt out of because you disagree with your family. It is a material condition and, more importantly, a process of socialisation. Sirius was raised as an aristocrat in a supremacist household. That doesnât just disappear because he runs away at sixteen.
What that upbringing gives you is not just money, it gives you a way of moving through the world. A sense of entitlement, a normalisation of hierarchy, and very importantly in Siriusâs case: a normalisation of violence and domination over others. And we see that constantly in his behaviour. His treatment of Severus as a teenager is not just âkids being meanâ, it crosses into cruelty and sadism. You donât âaccidentallyâ orchestrate a situation where someone could be killed by a werewolf as a joke unless you have been raised in an environment where other peopleâs lives are disposable. That is learned behaviour.
And no, he does not âhave nothingâ. That is simply not true. Harry inherits not only Grimmauld Place but also a significant amount of money from Sirius, which we are told comes in part from his uncle Alphard. Sirius has wealth. Sirius has assets. Sirius has a safety net. The fact that he is traumatised or that he spent time in prison does not negate that.
Because this is another fundamental issue: trauma does not cancel privilege. You can be traumatised and still be privileged. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. A person with a house, inheritance, and access to elite social networks is still privileged, even if their life is tragic. The idea that suffering somehow âlevelsâ class differences is, frankly, a very bourgeois fantasy.
And also, classism is not defined by whether you are âpersecuting the poorâ in some overt, cartoonish way. Thatâs not how it works. Classism is expressed through everyday behaviours, through assumptions of superiority, through how you treat people you perceive as beneath you. Thinking you have the right to endanger someoneâs life for your own amusement is classism. Treating a servant with contempt is classism. These things do not require you to be standing on a soapbox shouting âI hate poor peopleâ.
âPre-15, it's implied that his family isn't the best - verbal abuse at the least + favoritism from Kreacher who was a caretaker of sorts. Not all fans interpret Walburga that way. Personally idk if there's enough evidence to say if there was physical abuse, but the shit that Walburga yells makes it pretty clear and undeniable that there was verbal abuse and the household was a toxic situation for him, with all of them being blood purists. Either way any type of abuse - even verbal - is abuse. And for some reason the majority of people are allergic to understanding that rich women can abuse their rich sons just as poor fathers can abuse their poor sons, and both leave lasting effects.â
No one is denying that the Black household was toxic or that Walburga was verbally abusive. Abuse is abuse, and it leaves marks regardless of class. But what your argument does is flatten two completely different material realities into the same category, and thatâs where it becomes deeply misleading.
Growing up in an abusive wealthy household is not the same as growing up in poverty with no resources, no support system, and no way out. Those conditions shape not only your suffering, but your options. Sirius, when he leaves, does not fall into precarity. He goes straight into another wealthy, well-connected household. He remains within the same class bracket, with the same level of social capital and protection. He is not cut off from opportunity, he is not exposed to material instability, and he does not lose his access to networks of power.
That matters, because class is not just about money in your pocket at a given moment, it is about the structures that catch you when you fall. Sirius has those structures. Severus does not.
And that difference is reflected very clearly in how both of them function at Hogwarts. Sirius is socially successful, popular, integrated into a strong peer group, and occupies a position of dominance within the schoolâs social hierarchy. He is not just surviving: he is thriving to the point where he can exert power over others without consequence. That is why he is able to become an abuser himself. That capacity to harm others without losing status is not incidental; it is directly tied to his position.
Severus, on the other hand, exists in the exact opposite conditions. He is poor, isolated, already being abused at home, and completely lacking any meaningful support network. He is not in a position to exercise power: he is in a position where he is consistently on the receiving end of it. So when you try to draw a parallel between the two, what you are actually doing is erasing the role that class and material conditions play in shaping both vulnerability and agency. These are not comparable experiences, not even remotely.
âWhy are Snape stans so ready to dismiss how shitty Snape treats the Gryffindors - Hermione, Neville and Harry in particular as a 30+ year old man and adult in a position of authority, and so condemning with literally teenagers under 17? â
Because the comparison itself is flawed from the start. You are trying to equate two dynamics that operate on entirely different axes of power.
A teacher being harsh, biased, or even openly unpleasant is not the same as a group of socially dominant teenagers systematically targeting a poorer, socially isolated student over the course of years. One is an institutional dynamic that can be criticised within the framework of professional conduct. The other is sustained peer abuse reinforced by social hierarchy and lack of intervention.
And even within that, the way Snape is framed in the narrative complicates the picture further. He is not universally perceived as a bad teacher, Hermione, who is consistently positioned as intellectually reliable within the text, acknowledges his competence. More importantly, his role within the story is not limited to being âmean to Gryffindorsâ. He is actively, repeatedly, and at great personal risk working to keep those same students alive. He is operating under constant threat, maintaining a double role that requires him to perform hostility while simultaneously protecting them. That doesnât make him kind, but it does fundamentally change the moral framework. You cannot isolate his unpleasantness from the context in which he is literally ensuring their survival year after year. Reducing him to âa mean teacherâ while ignoring that is not analysis, itâs selective reading.
âHow can yall just dismiss the 3 years he served Voldemort as him being "young/a child" - its very likely that he was murdering muggles/muggleborn students, or sitting by and watching others do it. As bad as the Maurader bullying was, being an adult death eater is a whole new level of worse.â
Because the text itself does not support the version of events you are implying. There is a tendency in fandom to fill in gaps with the worst possible assumptions, but canon gives us specific information that contradicts that reading.
We are explicitly shown that Snape fears for his soul when confronted with the act of killing. That fear only makes sense if he has not already crossed that line. If he had been routinely murdering people, the moral weight of that request would not be framed in the same way. Additionally, his function within the Death Eaters is consistently presented as that of a spy and informant, not an executioner. The narrative does not associate him with acts of direct violence in the way it does with other characters.
But even if you want to bring the discussion into the realm of war, then you have to be consistent about what that entails. The Order of the Phoenix is also engaged in a war, and war necessarily involves killing. That applies to Sirius, to James, to Lily, to Moody⊠none of them exist outside of that reality. War is not a morally clean space where one side is untouched by violence.
What your argument ultimately ignores, though, is the context in which Snape makes his choices. He is seventeen years old, coming from a background of poverty, isolation, and sustained abuse, with no support network and no viable alternatives. The Death Eaters, for all their ideology, are the only group offering him structure, belonging, and a sense of future. So when you ask why he didnât choose differently, the question becomes: what were his actual options? Join the Order? Align himself with the same social group that humiliated him, endangered his life, and never once intervened to protect him? Trust authority figures who consistently failed to act on his behalf?
You are framing it as a moral choice made in a vacuum, when in reality it is a decision shaped by coercion, by exclusion, and by material conditions. Expecting a traumatised, isolated teenager to align himself with his abusers over the only group that offers him safety is not a reasonable expectation. It ignores how people actually behave under those circumstances. And this is where the broader issue comes in: your entire argument treats Sirius and Snape as if they are operating on equal footing, as if they have the same resources, the same support, and the same range of choices. They do not. One is a boy with wealth, social capital, and networks that protect him even when he leaves home. The other is a boy with none of those things.
Flattening that difference is not just inaccurate, it reflects a fundamentally classist way of analysing both characters. Your whole view is classist as hell, to be honest.