Red Bronson Action

[redbronsonaction]

When Severus signed up with Voldemort, he had every reason to believe Marauders would be there

Concerning Marauders' bullying and Severus' eventual decision to join Voldemort: without the benefit of the hindsight, Severus had every reason to expect all of his tormentors to be there, right near Voldemort for the meet-and-greet.

James Potter: pureblood, literally invited to join along with his less-than-kosher wife. What reason would Severus have to believe that his bully of all people would join very heroic and rapidly dwindling resistance instead of grabbing the offer with both hands?

Sirius Black: pureblood who did not receive an invitation, but whose entire family either signed up or sympathized. Sure, Sirius ran away from home, but there's a massive leap between hating one's parents and signing up to fight the most powerful Dark wizard of the age plus his army of murderous minions. What did Sirius ever do for Severus to ever think he'd do something as noble and self-sacrificial?

Remus Lupin: the only werewolf who fought against Voldemort. So you have a follower of two guys who by all accounts could be expected to join Death Eaters, who himself has every reason to sign up.

Peter Pettigrew: a certified Death Eater. A guy who follows, a guy who adapts to the strongest side. Oh yeah, after seeing this dude in action for seven years, Severus definitely had him pegged for a "brave rebel against the tyranny" type.

Neither Death Eater nor Order membership was advertised before the war's end. So until Severus put on the cloak and sat at the first meeting, he had every reason to expect Marauders to be there, with the same masks and hoods as everyone else.

[redbronsonaction]

Alternative Concept for Grey faction

Fanfic writers usually conceive of Grey faction as not-quite-baby-murdering version of Lucius Malfoy, concerned with some notion of pureblood culture and whatnot. But I think that Slughorn would be a much better model for the Grey faction than Lucius.

Grey faction is not about blood or tradition. Grey faction couldn't give two shits about nebulous ways through which Muggleborns destroy "their" culture because even if there is such a thing, they are not a part of it. They're are quite well-versed in the Muggle affairs. And they care not for arbitrary distinctions between Dark and not-Dark magic.

Grey faction is a lifestyle. A lifestyle which revolves around exploiting Muggles and their resources, just like Slughorn did when he needed to hide.

These people flourish in seemingly small cracks (which are in fact buttomless pits) between wizarding and Muggle worlds. Where wizarding powers that be can't follow because they can't be everywhere at once and where Muggle powers that be can't reach because they aren't equipped to deal with magic.

These people don't have the time to climb the short and very greasy pole of wizarding politics where your boss will probably die in the next century, if you're lucky. These people know that every man can be a king of his little fiefdom in the Muggle world today if he knows how to use his wand and not to make a public mess.

You want to have money? A curse here, a hex there and voila, you can profit from the resources of any major institution, along with expertise of insiders who know how it works.

You have a passion project, like running your own art gallery or curing cancer? Again, there are thousands of marks waiting to be exploited, who have no idea how vulnerable they are or even what they are vulnerable to.

You have socially unacceptable vices? Well, it's significantly easier to abuse victims when you can swiftly remove all evidence - including memories - and disappear without a trace. And also make someone else a fall guy for Muggle authorities, if you're so inclined.

There is only one golden rule - don't make a public mess which will lead the Ministry to your doorstep. After all, they can't find you if they don't know about your dealings. And you are as much a beneficiary of the Statute of Secrecy as they are.

Grey faction wants to have St Mungos for medical help because not everyone can be Healer, a few shops in London because travelling around the world for ingredients and items is a bit tedious and the Ministry to keep the gravy train of secrecy going. They are the dreaded part-timers of wizarding society, perfectly willing to reap a few benefits and be absent for the rest. As long as their shadowy domains are left unmolested, the Grey faction couldn't care less about anything else.

And when worst comes to worst, when crazies like Voldemort take charge and try to control everyone, these people batten down the hatches, pull up their Fidelius charms and wait out the storm until things become normal again. There's always a Chosen One for every Dark Lord, after all.

[redbronsonaction]

Did Salazar Slytherin Actually Want to Chase Muggleborns out of Hogwarts?

That's a silly question, I hear you say. Of course he did. That's his thing.

Or is it?

I. The sources are lacking, to say the least.

Salazar Slytherin lived a thousand years ago. Nobody alive has met him and ghosts aren't talking much about him. Professor Binns references some "reliable historical sources", but the same sources also inform him that British wizards suffered much persecution at the time of Hogwarts' founding, and we know that's five centuries off the mark.

So maybe those oh-so-reliable historical sources are full of shit.

There is the Sorting Hat, but the Hat never says anything about the Chamber nor the monster, nor the Heir.

In short, the account about Slytherin and his nefarious plan is rather dubious and who knows how much the story was re-told and re-adjusted to suit current agenda over the centuries.

II. The (Renovated) Chamber of Secrets & the Basilisk

But Harry found the Chamber of Secrets! That surely proves everything!

Except, of course, it proves absolutely nothing. There is a secret room with Slytherin's statue in it - or at least people believe it to be Slytherin's statue - with a basilisk tucked inside. That's all. There is no proof it was built by Salazar, there is no proof that the basilisk is meant to leave the chamber, let alone target a specific group in it.

After all, Dumbledore too had a murderous monster placed in a room inside Hogwarts, but nobody says Dumbledore planned a massacre at Hogwarts.

Furthermore the Chamber is connected to the castle via pipes which stretch throughout Hogwarts, with an entrance nested away in girls' bathroom. And a thousand year ago neither castle-wide plumbing nor modern-style toilets would be a thing. Which means that either the Chamber was constructed way, way later than Slytherin's time, or someone took care to conceal the Chamber during Hogwarts' numerous reconstructions over the centuries.

And while the first option simply discards Slytherin's involvement alltogether, the second one presupposes that there was one (or several) Parselmouth(s) who took care of the original Chamber. And this one (or several) person(s) who had knowledge of and access to the Chamber never decided to utilize it for its alleged purpose.

In fact the only person in a thousand years who tried to use the Chamber to pursue radical anti-Muggleborn agenda was Tom Riddle - someone raised in Muggle world, who had no connection to Salazar Slytherin whatsoever beyond unverifiable legends and maybe some distant relation.

III. The Basilisk

Also, the basilisk.

First things first: that basilisk couldn't give two shits about blood purity, only speaking of its hunger and desire to rip and tear. It has no issue following a half-blood, so its commitment to pureblood extremist agenda is questionable to say the least.

Second: what kind of a weapon is a basilisk?

I mean sure, it worked for Tom Riddle and his horcrux diary to some extent, but there was (un-)healthy dose of luck involved. Nobody saw the basilisk despite dozens if not hundreds of ghosts floating through its walls and Hermione was prevented from speaking up at the very last moment.

The second castle's inhabitants know it's a basilisk, that thing becomes absolutely useless. Why? Basilisks are vulnerable to something as basic as roosters. Wizards can conjure up animals. Having enchanted roosters running around would be a bit annoying, but stop any attempt to use the basilisk dead in its tracks.

Salazar Slytherin was supposed to be a great luminary of his age. If he wanted to leave his heirs a weapon to bring Hogwarts to its knees - surely he would have chosen something that couldn't be countered by a moderately competent student?

IV. The Legend

Speaking of legends...

If Salazar Slytherin constructed the Chamber to outsource ethnic cleansing of Hogwarts to some nebulous successor down the line - how the hell is there a legend about it?

Who blabbed?

Did Salazar tell other Founders about it? I suspect that in that case poor bastard would have been lynched on the spot. If we presume the legend is true, Salazar obviously didn't think himself strong enough to purge the school, relying on some descendant to make his vision a reality. And this descendant's chief weapon would be secrecy, so Salazar (or the people whom Salazar presumably saw as his successors) would have no reason to mention it to anyone.

Did the mysterious caretaker(s) talk about it? Seeing how everything was done to conceal the Chamber, it would be very strange for them to spread any information about it to the public.

V. Summary

The legend about Slytherin's plot to purge the school of Muggleborns has dubious sources. The legend makes no sense in terms of the legend's very existence and Salazar's choice of weapon. There were people who opened the Chamber in the past, but the only one who used it in the way suggested by the legend was Voldemort. A Muggle-raised half-blood bigot who had no connection to those previous custodians of the Chamber, but did have a large chip on his shoulder.

Whatever old Salazar believed or fought for, his story was appropriated centuries after his death by the people who had their own agenda to push.

[redbronsonaction]

Gringotts is Reparations

The idea of tribute - goods or services extracted by the victors from their defeated opponents - is not a new one. Over the course of history tribute took form of basic resources, luxury or specialty items, workforce allocation and even conscription.

In the wizarding world it takes the form of a bank.

Imagine a bank which consists of hundreds (if not thousands) of underground vaults with complicated defensive enchantments, a complement of guards and exotic beasts. A bank which has a division of Nathans Drake/Laras Croft with wands who run around various cursed hellholes trying to scrounge up some forgotten treasure. A bank which services literal wizards, a small group of people who have little need for things like loans and credit lines. A bank which performs a rather tedious - and quite frankly very illegal - task of converting Muggle currency into wizarding one and vice versa.

Also - a bank which levies no fees on its customers. A bank which has little to no industries to invest money into. A bank where clients' money just lies in giant piles generating no profit whatsoever while incurring massive daily security and storage costs.

That's Gringotts. And nobody is their right mind would ever build or operate such a place because it's just a giant money sink with a side dish of extra danger from thieves and robbers.

Magical thieves and robbers.

Unless, of course, the owners didn't have any choice. Goblic were repeatedly defeated by wizards, after all. They operate under the dominance of the Ministry and while they like to pretend they have autonomy, in practice they don't have any. The Ministry under more conventional leaders like Fudge seems to be somewhat mindful of Goblin sentiment, but if someone like Voldemort is in charge, there's just no way for Goblins to defend themselves.

Vae victis and all that.

Given Goblins' subservient position, it's not inconceivable that their Ministry overlords have just decided to saddle them with some onerous tasks for the benefit of (human) wizarding public. Like operating a system of underground vaults. Or sending curse-breakers to clean up accursed dark corners of the wizarding world. Or converting currency between wizards and Muggles. And if the Goblins need to purchase services of wizards to carry those tasks out - all the better for wizards.

And that's what Gringotts is: reparations from defeated Goblins to victorious wizards.

[owlsforall]

honestly, what sixteen-years-old Voldemort would be doing once he resurrected in Chamber of Secrets?

sure Ginny dead now, Diary is useless (good place to write down teenage dreams again), in this case two scenarios: Dumbledore knows, or not. my question is when D not knows, what next? he has no money, no home, to out of Chamber he need go through all Hogwarts, where he goes?

I highly doubt original Voldemort ever planned his horcruxes be used. he specifically hide them or give to people he values so they kept his pieces of soul untouched

what is Voldemort going to do?

at point where D is know, Voldemort gets Azkaban for murdering, then Dementors sucked his soul, or Voldemort rescue himself and... honestly, I don't know, it's already AU

[redbronsonaction]

He's gonna be Voldemort. He just murdered Harry Potter and found out the secret of main Voldemort's downfall in 1981. Hogwarts has been evacuated. Dumbledore doesn't know where entrance to the Chamber is (if there is indeed only one entrance) and Tom probably can use Disillusionment charm, which means leaving is not an issue. Or he can wait for a few weeks and months until the way is clear, or he can throw DISTRACTION BASILISK at whoever sticks around at Hogwarts and run away while the enemy deals with that little surprise.

With Harry's wand (a brother wand to his own) and his own powerful magic, Tom can easily acquire home and money if he needs them. And with Voldemort still hiding somewhere in Albania, the sky is the limit for young Tom. And it's not like diary-Tom has any warm feelings for "main" Voldemort - when Harry tells him about Voldemort's fall he shows no emotional investment in that other guy.

Tom can repeat Voldemort's rise, accelerate it even since the last war has hollowed out opposition to Voldemort, reducing the Ministry to a rotten stump which crumbled when returned Voldemort leaned on it. Meanwhile main Voldemort is simply buggered. If Harry, Ginny and Ron are dead, there won't be big photos of Weasleys with Peter in Egypt. Even if Weasleys go to Egypt (big if), Peter's owner Ron isn't there anymore. No photo - no escape from Azkaban by Sirius, no confrontation at the Shack, no Peter running away to Voldemort.

Without Peter, Voldemort is dead in the water. Finding one willing helper was great luck for him, finding a second one was nothing short of Fate smiling upon him. There will be no third one. All hail pretty young boss, same as the old ugly boss.

[redbronsonaction]

Uneasy Truce of 1981

After Voldemort's fall in October 1981, his entire army has collapsed. Almost all of his Death Eaters have surrendered to the Ministry claiming to be under Imperius, thus escaping punishment. The few who persisted were imprisoned in Azkaban. While the fate of lower-ranking, unmarked servants is not described explicitly, there are hints to them being partially imprisoned and partially scattered: Sirius claims about a bunch of Azkaban inmates hating Karkaroff for rating them out and Fenrir seemingly remains at large, but doesn't continue the fight.

What is remarkable about this situation is the Ministry's leniency towards Voldemort's middle management. During the war the Ministry authorized torture, enslavement, indefinite imprisonment and murder of anyone suspected of following Voldemort. The Ministry didn't care about someone being under Imperius, or being rich, or being from a prominent family. Nor was there some kind of leadership or policy change after the war to explain the Ministry's sudden leniency: the same Minister remained in power for a decade till 1991 and despite war's end there was no attempt to investigate cases of people thrown into Azkaban without trial.

Sure, one might try to explain it all away by claiming corruption, but if gold was all it took to claim innocence-via-Imperius, how come Rookwood and Dolohov were left to rot in Azkaban while Macnair did not? Was Macnair, an executioner, that much richer than a Department of Mysteries empoyee Rookwood? And why would the Ministry care to take Death Eaters' gold in exchange for their freedom if it could just take all of their gold to the last Knut and leave them to rot for treason and rebellion?

Barring a sudden outbreak of post-war naivete, how come the Ministry just let most of Voldemort's lieutenants go?

Consideration 1: the state of the Ministry

While 1981 Ministry was never quite as pathetic as to allow itself to be couped by Voldemort, every description of the war provided to us paints a rather grim picture of a decade-long war where the Ministry was slowly losing ground. Despite emergency measures championed by Barty Crouch Sr, Voldemort was gaining strength, his army was growing via recruitment/bewitchment/intimidation, while his enemies were fading - opponents intimidated, families wiped out one-by-one with the Dark mark left in the sky to remind everyone what happened to people defying the Dark Lord.

It is most probable that after a decade of fighting the war - and almost losing - the Ministry was in no shape to continue the fight against Voldemort's minions, even if Voldemort himself was removed from the board.

Consideration 2: the state of Voldemort

In a great contrast to 1995, 1981 Ministry - and indeed society at large - seems to believe that Voldemort is not finished and that he may return. When Crouch Sr accuses his son & co of conspiring to bring Voldemort back, it's treated as a valid prospect, and Voldemort himself mentions how the Aurors were searching for him between wars.

With the prospect of Voldemort's immediate return in mind, it would be perfectly logical to break up his army by granting clemency to his followers, and focus on looking for the Dark Lord and preventing his return to power.

Consideration 3: the state of Death Eaters During the first war, Death Eaters used hit-and-run tactics to fight against the Ministry: Dark wizards apparate in, torture/enslave/murder using superior numbers, leave the Dark mark for extra terror and disappear again. The Ministry was obviously at a disadvantage since it couldn't be everywhere at once, thus allowing Death Eaters to eliminate their enemies piecemeal.

What was to stop Death Eaters from continuing the same thing without Voldemort?

Absolutely nothing. Having Voldemort was certainly a massive advanatage, but it's not like Death Eaters couldn't repeat the same strategy without him. And that's something the Ministry was bound to tak into account while considering how to proceed after Voldemort's fall.

Consideration 4: Death Eater morale

Voldemort's army had very bad morale. It was held together by fear. Most people - even objectively bad people who liked torturing, killing and enslaving - didn't want to be there by 1981. Nobody is happy to see Voldemort back in 1995, and that was a reuinion of marked Death Eaters, the chosen servants. Sure, there were Lestranges and Crouch Jr, but most Death Eaters are very happy never to see Voldemort again.

In short, most Death Eaters were willing (and eventually did) abandon Voldemort once he fell from grace and wasn't there to threaten them anymore. All the Ministry had to do was to make sure that fear of being murdered by Voldemort for desertion was not replaced by fear of being fed to the Dementors.

Conclusion: it was a deal

The Ministry didn't just develop a sudden case of mercy 1981. The story about Death Eaters being pardoned because they were placed under Imperius curse - it was just that, a story. A hastily invented, very stupid cover story, a little fig leaf to hide the deal made between the Ministry and Voldemort's middle management.

People like Malfoy, MacNair, Goyle and the rest laid down arms in exchange for pardons. Given how all hardliners were quickly caught and placed into Azkaban, it's very probable that turncoat majority helped the Ministry to catch their hardliner compatriots. Maybe not directly, but by providing information where and when hardliners planned to go next. Deprived of leadership, the rest of Voldemort's army collapsed overnight.

The Ministry could dedicate its meager remaining resources to looking for Voldemort (which again, they did according to the man himself) for the next few years until complacency finally took hold and most people persuaded themselves that Voldemort was gone forever.

And Karkaroff - a foreigner with no connections or family in Britain - was conveniently made the public scapegoat, allegedly providing all that juicy information which led to arrests and imprisonments. Naturally Karkaroff had no desire to test fate by waiting around for some remaining fanatic to punish him for his betrayal, so he buggered off to the continent, eventually becoming a headmaster in a foreign school.

Clemency for Death Eaters was a sound (if cynical) short-term decision prioritizing a larger threat... but only on the condition that the Ministry would remain on its toes and prevent Voldemort from returning. And the Ministry grew complacent instad, allowed Voldemort to resurrect himself, at which point the decision became a giant liability since Voldemort had most of his key followers ready to go at the moment's notice.

[empatheticwizard]

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.

Elephant out? Good.

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.

Which one is it?

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?

[redbronsonaction]

Counterpoint: nobody in the books is afraid of the Muggles.

Like, literally nobody. The stories of witch hunts are some half-forgotten memories of lectures by Binns, mixed with funny bits like that witch who pretended to be burned by Muggles a dozen of times. Nobody contemplates that it migth actually happen again. And, given how cooky and poorly adjusted for the regular world most wizards are shown to be, I'm pretty sure most of them have no clue about nuclear weapons.

Overwhelming majority of violence between Muggles and wizards is done by wizards.

Death Eaters aren't afraid of Muggles and murder them brazenly for fun and entertainment.

The Ministry isn't afraid of Muggles. Scrimgeour treats meeting the Prime Minister like an annoying obligation without even a pretense that PM is his equal. That's happening while a group of wizards (for whom Scrimgeour is responsible) is attacking PM's constituents - but Scrimgeour is completely assured that he won't have to answer for anything.

Nobody in the Order is afraid of Muggles. Death Eaters attacking Muggles is bad because it's morally bad to abuse defenceless Muggles, not because that these attacks might rouse the sleeping giant which will destroy wizarding world.

The Statute of Secrecy is not an emergency measure to preserve a persecuted minority from extermination/subjugation by violent majority. The Statute ensures that every witch or wizard can do whatever they want to Muggles around them.

Muggle-baiters want to cover plumbers in shit and generally practice curses of varying lethality on the Muggles without repercusions. The Statute enables that.

Slughorn wants to squat in Muggle residences - Statute to the rescue.

The Ministry wants to do its business without accounting themselves to anyone. Well, isn't it convenient that their very existence is a secret?

Death Eaters want to kill and torture Muggles. The Statute ensures that they have that opportunity without possibility of retaliation.

Wizarding world assumes absolute supremacy in any situation where Muggle and wizardig world come into conflict. Ministry's sovereignty trumps the sovereignty of the royal government. Wizards attacking Muggles will face wizards' justice and laws, not Muggle ones. Ministry claims the right to brainwash any Muggle it deems necessary.

Imagine PM telling the Parliament that there's some parallel self-proclaimed government in the UK which can't maintain basic order in its community, resulting in numerous cases of assault and murder of HM's subjects. Imagine PM telling the Parliament that said government releases terrorists guilty of those crimes on laughable pretenses so that they can continue attacking, torturing and killing as they please.

And also this self-proclaimed government is guilty of perverting the course of justice on a massive scale by covering up/destroying evidence of various crimes against HM's subjects. With similar degree of fraud/framing of innocent contractors and property owners for negligence on the side.

How long would such situation be tolerated?

Death Eaters aren't inevitable because the Statute breeds some kind of paranoia nobody ever shows any signs of. Death Eaters are inevitable because the Statute's underlying philosophy loudly proclaims that wizards can do whatever they wish to Muggles to ensure their own convenience and to escape any sort of accountability.

In the world where 99,99% of humans are assumed to have no human rights, Death Eates want to add another 0,0001% to the list and make violent entertaiment at sub-humans' expense more violent. That's all it is.

[redbronsonaction]

Theory: Marvolo Gaunt hunted down Merope and Tom Riddle Sr

The story of Voldemort's parents is fairly simple: a young witch named Merope Gaunt falls in love with local muggle Tom Riddle. Merope's tyrannical father tries to murder her on the grounds of magical racism and ends up fighting the law, which lands him (and his son) in prison in September 1925. Merope, free of her shitty family, bewitches Tom Sr and they run away to London. Merope becomes pregnant with Tom Jr, future Lord Voldemort, but Tom Sr somehow breaks free of Merope's magic and flees back home. Merope becomes destitute, gives birth to Tom Jr in a random muggle orphanage and dies in December 1926. Her father Marvolo Gaunt (who has returns from prison early 1925) is completely shocked and dismayed by her desertion and quietly dies in his shack. Or at least that's how Dumbledore presents it. However it should be noted that the story has several problems:

the story actually relies on a lot of conjecture. There's no proof that Merope actually bewitched Tom Riddle, or that his falling out with Merope was caused by him breaking free/being released from her magic, or that Marvolo Gaunt actually quietly sat in his shack for the remainder of his life after being released from prison

speaking of quietly sitting in a shack - Marvolo sure does a complete 180 after Azkaban, doesn't he? Marvolo is ready to strangle his own daughter in front of Bob Ogden for a mere suggestion that Merope fancies a muggle lad. That's how he gets his half a year in Azkaban. But once released, he is allegedly informed that his daughter ran away and married the muggle in question and Marvolo... kinda takes it in stride. Quite a shift for a would-be murderer of his own child.

Maravolo Gaunt, a murderous magical racist who was dangerous enough for Bob Ogden to run away from him and summon reinforcements to put him own, returns to the same village where Riddles live in spring 1926... and his forgiving streak continues. Marvolo, who previously approved of his son cursing Tom Riddle for merely being fancied by Merope, doesn't try to brutalize Riddle Sr. or his family in retaliation for his dishonor either. Who says Azkaban doesn't reform people?

Tom Riddle Sr suddenly develops resistance/Merope suddenly has a complete change of heart about bewitching him, thus allowing Tom to leave and go home while his wife is pregnant at some point in spring/summer of 1926. That's... convenient either way to be sure.

Merope dies in the muggle orphanage. Why would Merope die, exactly? Women do die in childbirth, but the average chance of it happening in Britain in 1920s was something like half percent. That's some seriously bad luck for Merope, isn't it?

Also, Merope dies in the muggle orphanage. That's a curious choice for a witch who could go to St Mungos to receive truly magical levels of medical care.

In short, the story which Dumbledore assembles from available facts is a bit wobbly. Let's try to re-assemble it with fewer contradictions:

Merope Gaunt fancies Tom Riddle, her father and brother are furious, Marvolo Gaunt attacks Merope and Bob Ogden and both of them go to prison in September 1925.

Merope, freed of her dad and brother, runs away with Tom Riddle Sr in late 1925.

Marvolo Gaunt returns home in March 1926 and finds out about his daughter betraying her magical blood, dishonoring her family and running away with a muggle. But Marvolo doesn't have this character reversal from violent murderous bigot to a depressed wreck. He simply departs for London to do what Bob Ogden stopped him from doing half a year ago.

After some time Marvolo Gaunt finds his daughter and son-in-law. There is a confrontation and Marvolo exacts his revenge against his daughter by cursing her something nasty and probably fatal to punish her "betrayal". Whether he leaves her to suffer or Merope escapes by the skin of her teeth, the result is all the same: Merope is getting sick, she is terrified of her father, terrified that he'll hunt down her child as well, so she avoids any contact with magical world and makes sure her son is hidden safely away in muggle orphanage. With a muggle name, in a muggle city, isolated from the magical world, Tom is practically anonymous and thus protected from his grandfather/uncle.

Being a Muggle, Tom Sr. is defenceless against a madman "brandishing his bloody knife and firing hexes indiscriminately from his wand". And this would be the end for Tom Sr. but there is a snag: the Ministry already knows that Marvolo and his son Morfin were attacking this guy. If he turns up dead, or horribly mutilated, Marvolo might have to deal with another trip to Azkaban - so he does something clever, almost diabolical instead. He enchants Tom Sr. to detest and hate his wife and his unborn child and sends him back on his merry way. Not only does Tom Sr. suffer from a violation arguably worse than any physical attack, he becomes a cover and bait at the same time. The Ministry can't find out that Marvolo is doing something to Tom if Tom is seemingly okay and back home after a little romantic misadventure. And if his daughter turns up at his doorstep, they won't find any help there anymore. Practicality and sadism, all rolled into one.

Marvolo goes back to the village. Nobody particularly cares where he was for a few weeks/months, especially since he went away for half a year immediately prior to this. Marvolo doesn't speak of his daughter because his daughter is effectively dead, family dishonor is erased in a suitably dreadful fashion. Marvolo doesn't live long enough to see his boy return home - he is not a young man, after all - but he got away with it. His mental mutilation of Tom Riddle Sr. outlives him, as magic often does. Merope rots away in the grave. And Tom Riddle Jr. ends up despising his mother for being weak and his father for deserting him. And this is how Marvolo Gaunt ruined everything for everyone for three decades at least. The end.

[redbronsonaction]

Sirius allowed Hagrid to take Harry away to Dursleys because Dumbledore said so.

Sirius argued with Hagrid and begged Hagrid to let him have Harry only after Hagrid would not budge did Sirius then give him his motorbike so he could get Harry there safely and then he went after Peter. There was no way of knowing what would happen after that but Sirius 10000% would have gone back for Harry if he hadn’t been thrown into Azkaban without a trial

Two issues at hand:

"Dumbledore said so"/"Hagrid wouldn't budge"/"Sirius was distressed" is not an excuse.

Sirius was, by his own admission, supposed to act as Harry's guardian. That's what Potters asked of him, that's what he agreed to. A guardian is not supposed to allow people - even if they are friends or even old school headmasters - take their charges away and place them with some third party (whom nobody even asked beforehand, by the way). That's a bare minimum expectation and Sirius blew it before Potters' bodies got cold.

Mrs Cole did better by Tom than Sirius did by Harry, and Mrs Cole was a gin-sucking alcoholic who didn't even like her charge. Even she had to be brainwashed before she let Tom be taken away, Sirius just backed off after a conversation. As for Sirius "10000%" coming back if not for Azkaban... There's zero chance of that.

Sirius is a "Dumbledore said so" kind of guy. Dumbledore tells him to give up the child under his care - and Sirius gives up the child. Dumbledore expects Harry to stay at Hogwarts for the Tournament - and Sirius soothes Harry into doing just that. Dumbledore commands an information blackout for Harry after the Tournament - Sirius abides by this command.

Time and time again we see that when Dumbledore makes a decision about Harry, even if it's a bad and abusive decision, even if it places Harry in mortal peril - Sirius accepts. He tries to make Harry feel better about it, to soften the blow, but he accepts.

Does Dumbledore want Harry to stay with Sirius? No, he does not, literally the first thing he does after Potters' death is to take Harry away from Sirius and place him with Dursleys. And as we have established, Sirius always sticks to what Dumbledore commands.

Assuming Sirius does not go to Azkaban, Dumbledore will tell Sirius to get lost and Sirius will do just that, tail between his legs. Oh, he'll beg and argue for a bit, but in the end he'll do what Dumbledore tells him to do because that's exactly what he keeps doing in the books.

To sum it all up, Sirius never transitioned from a fun godfather to a full-time parent whose main concern is Harry's welfare. Overwhelming majority of parents would either resort to violence or call the cops on any "friend" who would try to take their child away, no matter who told them to do it. But Sirius didn't have that kind of mindset. For him there was always something else that came before Harry, be it revenge against Peter or Dumbledore's orders.

Obviously it's a plot requirement - nobody can behave like an actual parent to Harry, or he never returns to a school where there's an attempt on his life every year - but resulting implications for Sirius' character are unavoidable.

[neverenoughmarauders]

Not to point out the obvious but last time Jily and Sirius decided not to listen to Dumbledore—ie when they decided to decline his offer as secret keeper—things didn’t go all that well.

And reducing the importance and power Dumbledore wields to a headmaster is wilfully misunderstanding the source material.

The whole guardian shouldn’t allow stuff is BS because authorities (usually in the form of child protective services) have a right to take children off their guardians. Sirius knew even when he went for Harry that he was officially the Potters secret keeper. He will have read into Dumbledore’s refusal to give him Harry (via Hagrid) that it was a matter of time before he or the ministry came for him and that he’d lost the right to take care of Harry until his name was cleared (and I think he stupidly thought hunting down one Peter Pettigrew would be easy.)

Furthermore it’s established in canon that the responsibility for Harry’s welfare fell to Dumbledore (likely because you know… Sirius “was” the Potters’ secret keeper), so it’s not even correct that Sirius had the authority to keep Harry whatsoever. Is that a fucked up system? Yes but it is the one that exists in the HP universe.

Finally, while JKR does a bad job of convincing us that Harry has to stay with the Dursley’s, the fact that this keeps him safe (?) from Voldemort and his followers is never questioned in the narrative, so we’re meant to believe it, however flimsy. Sirius ALWAYS puts Harry’s safety above all. He would do exactly what the other adults decided too, which was to have him stay with his relatives. He’d do whatever it took to keep the Dursleys in line, but he listens to Dumbledore, not because Dumbledore says so, but because Dumbledore is, in the narrative, meant to be in the right.

Also near death experiences is a matter of course at Hogwarts. Katie Bell returns to school after nearly being killed, Ginny returns after CoS. In fact all the students continue to go to school at that point. Ron’s nearly killed in HBP. Parents keep their kids in school after Hogwarts teachers turns out to be part giants and werewolves (which remember, huge parts of the community consider beyond evil and dangerous). Sirius letting Harry attend school is hardly relevant when assessing his suitability as a guardian.

[redbronsonaction]

Jily and Sirius were listening to Dumbledore for two years and things weren't going all that well either, to say it mildly. Which might be the reason why they decided not to do so for once in 1981. In the end it all came down to Peter being a spy and Dumbledore was none the wiser to it than Jily and Sirius, so it's not like he has some spotless record of good judgement over them.

Concerning Dumbledore's importance and power - it's always kept very vague, but I direct you to observe an instance of Dumbledore opposing a figure of formal legal/political power. Any instance. Any figure. Dumbledore folds like wet paper to the board of governors, to disposal commission, to Fudge, to Crouch Sr (under Imperius), to Fudge some more, to Umbridge... Every time he ends up backing down or running away. That's not a good look for his supposed importance and power.

Hence just because Dumbledore does something, like confiscating orphans, doesn't mean that he has any actual authority to do so. He just engages in criminality while nobody is looking.

And - no, there's zero evidence in canon that Dumbledore has some kind of formal responsibility or authority in regards to raising Harry. If anything, the exact opposite is quite firmly established: Dumbledore needs to bully Dursleys (actual guardians) so that they make decisions Dumbledore needs (like sending Harry to Hogwarts, when Hagrid ends up doing some illegal shit forcing Dursleys into obedience).

As for Dursleys being good for Harry's safety... what evidence would Sirius have for that? The sight of blown-up Marge in the sky? Dementors at Privet Drive? Stories of a crazy elf framing Harry for the use of underage magic? Order members taking shifts guarding this supposedly oh-so-unassailable home once Voldemort actually returns? Anything besides "Dumbledore said so"? And maybe other adults went along with it, but Potters appointed Sirius to be Harry's guardian, not other adults. Their actions neither excuse nor bear the same weight as his own.

Finally, a child being withdrawn from Hogwarts for security reasons is not unprecedented. It happens in HBP. It's not some inconceivable notion nobody in the wizarding world could ever come up with. So yes, it's quite relevant when assessing Sirius' suitability as a guardian.

Again, it's all more or less the result of books' main plot, but Sirius' character suffers inevitable damage for the sins of modular writing.

[maxdibert]

I don’t understand why Percy Weasley apologists even exist when Percy Weasley never did anything wrong. The ones who should be sorry are his shitty parents, who basically treated him like a pariah for having ambitions in life, and his sheep of brothers, who tore into him for not settling for living in filth while whining all the damn time about having to wear second-hand clothes and just because he wanted to make the most of his resources and have a better life, they saw it as betraying Godric Gryffindor. The Weasleys were like a religious cult, what a fucking toxic family.

[kickflip-mf]

Percy Weasley sold out his family to a tyrannical government and I wont forgive him for that.. but it is important to note that the Weasley parents are notoriously bad at raising/interacting with children especially but not limited to their own. I could write essays about it tbh

[maxdibert]

How exactly did an 18-year-old kid who’s just starting out in the working world —and who’s spent the last five years watching his younger brother nearly die every time they do what Dumbledore wants— end up solding his family? I’m asking.

[cauldronofthoughts]

I think we as fans might not see Percy's actions objectively because the books are from Harry's POV. We know Voldemort was back. We know Fudge was sticking his head in the sand because he was afraid.

Percy did not see Voldemort come back. All he and the rest of the Wizarding World had was Harry's word on that, and the kid had given that testimony while clutching a dead body.

Then he gets the job of a lifetime - Junior Assistant to the Minister For Magic - And his family told him to turn it down. They as a family have struggled with money his entire life, and they asked him to turn down a very well paying job, again, on the word of a teenage boy who was either severely traumatized or a straight up murderer.

So instead of arguing with them about it, he moved out.

Again. We as the reader can see Fudge only did this so he could spy on the Weasleys.

But Percy did not and could not have known that, because in his mind, Fudge had no reason to be spying on his family.

Furthermore, we don't know if Percy even gave Fudge any information about his dad, or the Order. There's no proof he 'sold them out'.

He picked a side, a side he had every reason to believe was correct and competent.

He was wrong, and he acknowledged that, even if it took him a couple years. A couple years, mind you, where the ministry had to have all hands on deck most of the time because fucking Voldemort was back and Fudge's monkeying around had given Voldemort plenty of ground. And then the ministry was taken over by Death Eaters.

The man didn't have the fucking time.

And that's not even getting into the way his family treated him. Constantly the butt of the joke, expected to carry everything, never really taken seriously.

They didn't deserve his loyalty to begin with.

But let's be real here.

A lot of Percy haters don't care about that.

He's not pretty.

If Percy Weasley was conventionally attractive, they'd be falling all over themselves to excuse his every action.

[redbronsonaction]

"...on the word of a teenage boy who was either severely traumatized or a straight up murderer"

Neither option makes Percy look any better.

Percy believed that a teenage boy who saved his sister at the age of twelve was severely traumatized following a murder of another boy whom Percy knew for years... And Percy didn't have a word to say to the survivor, nor did he care to know who murdered the victim? And why the murder saw zero investigation effort?

Or...

Percy believed that four of his siblings lived in the same tower as a straight up teenage murderer... and he just took it in stride? He didn't fall to panic, he didn't try to persuade any of them to GTFO before Potter murdered them too, didn't question why the Ministry didn't investigate this little murderer before he could kill someone other than Diggory?

It's not a good look either way.

[redbronsonaction]

Genophage Didn't Win Krogan Rebellions

Some in-universe sources imply that it did, but it's been 1500 years ago, so there's a healthy dose of historical revisionism going on. In truth, the notion that military victory in a conflict between interstellar empires was attained through a sterility plague of all things is pretty unlikely.

The first problem with genophage as a weapon of war is the fact that it doesn't do anything to the enemy military. The Krogan of that era had actual space fleets which could contest void dominance and transport troops from one planet to another. That dreadnought pounding a planet to dust from orbit? Genophage doesn't do a thing to it. It doesn't do anything to the armies in the field, not to the industries that supply those armies. Even military recruitment won't drop immediately since even Krogan need some time to grow up and become capable of serving in the military. In short, genophage would take years to make any appreciable difference on the battlefield.

The only immediate effect is a theoretical blow to the morale, but Krogan throw their young to a Thresher Maw as a rite of passage into adulthood, so kids dying wouldn't have nowhere near as much of an effect on them compared to, say, Turians.

The second problem is the fact that genophage doesn't just spread itself on a press of a button - it has to be deployed. Mordin mentions that he "released it on Tuchanka, other krogan-centric areas" when discussing modified genophage. And back in the day, the Krogan were numerous and they had an empire of their own. Four hundred years of colonization/claiming already settled planets between the end of the Rachni Wars and the beginning of Krogan Rebellions. And for the genophage to work, entire Krogan population had to be infected. Which means that the Council had to find every single planet, every single asteroid, every single space station where Krogan were, deliver their tanks full of sterility and then spread the stuff around. That... doesn't necessarily require complete dominance in space, but at very least reliable access to all Krogan holdings. Which means that genophage deployment couldn't be completed before the Council had already secured if not a victory, then a solid advantage in the war. Otherwise there would be pockets of fertile Krogan ruining the whole operation.

In short, genophage wasn't a desperate measure to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The Council was already winning the war, genophage was a measure to make sure the Krogan would stay down after they were fully beaten. Sort of like Turian bomb on Tuchanka.

How did the Council actually beat the Krogan?

"The krogan never had the resources to rebuild the solar arrays, depriving them of their fleet's main fuel supply for the remainder of the war." (Description of Mantun)

The Krogan had to be uplifted by Salarians and Asari in the first place, so it's hardly surprising that they had difficulty maintaining infrastructure without Council's help. To the point that they couldn't rebuild the facilities crucial to their war effort. Fuel for warships, if the Krogan "never had the resources" to deal with that issue, what resources did they have?

So Council's campaign of sabotage at the war's start wasn't just a problem which the Krogan could deal with, they were getting crippled permanently. And Turians provided the muscle. It wasn't all smooth sailing - the Krogan did drop rocks on three planets and even invaded Palaven's moon, but it worked out in the end. And after genophage was deployed, the era of explosive Krogan breeding was over, eliminating the issue which drove the Krogan to attack the Council to begin with.

And later, when the war became a distant memory, the genophage discourse slowly shifted from a wartime measure to a measure which won the war! So no judgement, we had to do it, really, if we wanted to survive Krogan onslaught.

[redbronsonaction]

Sirius allowed Hagrid to take Harry away to Dursleys because Dumbledore said so.

Sirius argued with Hagrid and begged Hagrid to let him have Harry only after Hagrid would not budge did Sirius then give him his motorbike so he could get Harry there safely and then he went after Peter. There was no way of knowing what would happen after that but Sirius 10000% would have gone back for Harry if he hadn’t been thrown into Azkaban without a trial

Two issues at hand:

"Dumbledore said so"/"Hagrid wouldn't budge"/"Sirius was distressed" is not an excuse.

Sirius was, by his own admission, supposed to act as Harry's guardian. That's what Potters asked of him, that's what he agreed to. A guardian is not supposed to allow people - even if they are friends or even old school headmasters - take their charges away and place them with some third party (whom nobody even asked beforehand, by the way). That's a bare minimum expectation and Sirius blew it before Potters' bodies got cold.

Mrs Cole did better by Tom than Sirius did by Harry, and Mrs Cole was a gin-sucking alcoholic who didn't even like her charge. Even she had to be brainwashed before she let Tom be taken away, Sirius just backed off after a conversation. As for Sirius "10000%" coming back if not for Azkaban... There's zero chance of that.

Sirius is a "Dumbledore said so" kind of guy. Dumbledore tells him to give up the child under his care - and Sirius gives up the child. Dumbledore expects Harry to stay at Hogwarts for the Tournament - and Sirius soothes Harry into doing just that. Dumbledore commands an information blackout for Harry after the Tournament - Sirius abides by this command.

Time and time again we see that when Dumbledore makes a decision about Harry, even if it's a bad and abusive decision, even if it places Harry in mortal peril - Sirius accepts. He tries to make Harry feel better about it, to soften the blow, but he accepts.

Does Dumbledore want Harry to stay with Sirius? No, he does not, literally the first thing he does after Potters' death is to take Harry away from Sirius and place him with Dursleys. And as we have established, Sirius always sticks to what Dumbledore commands.

Assuming Sirius does not go to Azkaban, Dumbledore will tell Sirius to get lost and Sirius will do just that, tail between his legs. Oh, he'll beg and argue for a bit, but in the end he'll do what Dumbledore tells him to do because that's exactly what he keeps doing in the books.

To sum it all up, Sirius never transitioned from a fun godfather to a full-time parent whose main concern is Harry's welfare. Overwhelming majority of parents would either resort to violence or call the cops on any "friend" who would try to take their child away, no matter who told them to do it. But Sirius didn't have that kind of mindset. For him there was always something else that came before Harry, be it revenge against Peter or Dumbledore's orders.

Obviously it's a plot requirement - nobody can behave like an actual parent to Harry, or he never returns to a school where there's an attempt on his life every year - but resulting implications for Sirius' character are unavoidable.

[redbronsonaction]

Krogan horde is a scam

Okeer's "lance" is a scam too.

A lot of discussion about Krogan - both in- and out-of-universe - revolves around Krogan regaining their numbers and sweeping the galaxy like an unstoppable tide, overcoming all. This is what Mordin fears, this is what Weyrloc representative raves about (if you have patience not to press Renegade interrupt). The Krogan horde is coming, the Krogan horde is coming, to the... to the...

BLACKADDER: "You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan."

BOLDRIK: "What was that, sir?"

BLACKADDER: "It was bollocks!"

Where exactly is the hypothetical Krogan horde supposed to go? And how?

In Mass Effect 2 we get to visit Tuchanka. It is a bombed-out ruin. The most advanced piece of technology around is a big truck. The Krogan are divided between clans who are constantly engaged in border skirmishes. There is some kind of economy going - planetary descriptions/characters mention mining, growing crops, producing weapons for their little wars - but it's not some advanced industrial powerhouse.

Tuchanka is Somalia or Afghanistan in SPAAACE!!!

Let's imagine genophage is gone. There is now a massive new generation of Krogan underway.

What are they going to eat?

If population explodes, the Krogan will have to either farm more or produce something else and trade that something for food. Who is going to do that and how? These guys who shoot at each other on the daily? Oh yeah, they're all hard-working little bees, with qualifications to match.

And then numerous new generation of Krogan will need clothes and housing and eventually some kind of education to earn their keep without shooting each other. So again - a lot of money, a lot of qualified workforce, a lot of industrial output to make it happen.

And if these Krogan are ever to threaten anyone besides each other, they'll need space ships. Lots of space ships. They'll need Krogan space shipyards and Krogan space engineers, Krogan pilots and Krogan navigators. And giant Krogan factories to produce specialist steel or whatever ME ships are made of. And Krogan ship designers.

I'm sure Lord High Reseracher Fortack has learned a lot about building space ships while stabbing his way to the top. Unless someone is ready to sponsor the Krogan and nurture them back into an industrial civilization of sorts, the horde isn't happening. They'll starve and eat each other before they get anywhere close to other species.

The lance isn't happening either. Okeer was nuts. Grunt was taught nothing but how to kill people. His sentiment about improving Tuchanka is admirable, but what's he gonna do to make it better? Shoot people? Tuchanka has no shortage of people who can do that.

Mass Effect is a space age story. Having a lot of guys isn't bad, but you need more than just a lot of guys to matter on the galactic stage. Or you need a sponsor, but no sponsor will support Krogan horde rampaging across the galaxy.

Krogan horde is a scam perpetuated by Turian military-industrial complex to get Asari subsidies.

[redbronsonaction]

This is 8 months late but I’ve just come across your post here https://www.tumblr.com/hollowed-theory-hall/772571857513742336/hi-i-love-hearing-your-thoughts-about-things/replies/772598487430971392

And just wanted to highlight Hagrid literally says Sirius asked to take Harry, he says that Sirius argued when Hagrid wouldn’t let him take him. Sirius tried to take Harry and look after him (mind you this was a 21 year old man) it’s only after Hagrid didn’t give in that he went after Peter and personally I don’t think he would have actually killed Peter he was angry and grieving

“Well… your parents appointed me your guardian,” said Black stiffly. “If anything happened to them…” (PoA)

Sirius was (as per his own words) Harry's guardian, a replacement parent responsible for him. And he just let Hagrid take away the child... after a short argument? Because he was angry and grieving?

Do you think it's a thing? That parents are likely to comply with child abduction after a short conversation? That they'll go - oh, but this guy kidnapping our child wouldn't let us do anything, wouldn't give in, so we'll just let it slide? That they won't start a fight or call the cops? And if they're angry and grieving, it'll be this spoonful of surgar that'll make child abduction go down easier?

I don't think so.

Sure, there're bad parents/guardians, but letting someone just take away the child - we're talking bottom of the barrel, crack whore kind of bad. Even Mrs. Cole had to be brainwashed with magic when Dumbledore tried to take away Tom Riddle to some nebulous school in Scotland. An argument didn't cut it.

Sirius did worse than a state-appointed alcoholic who didn't even like the child in question.

As for murdering Peter, it's a hypothetical, but what Sirius did both times seems to be pretty consistent with the desire to have revenge by murdering Peter himself.

[redbronsonaction]

How would you write Snape even worse than he was in the books?

I wouldn't.

Snape has a certain role in the plot and reading the books back to back as an adult, he's already too much for that role. Granted, that's not how the books were meant to be read, but the point still stands.

Snape already has:

volunteered to participate in Voldemort's campaign of terror during the first war, when Dark Lord's minions were murdering, enslaving and torturing people left and right

stuck with Dumbledore's yearly crazy child endangerment schemes plans which could have easily resulted in scores of dead students, if not for Harry and a lot of luck

been barely prevented from feeding Sirius and Remus to the unruly and aggressive Dementors despite the fact that he had three students on his hands. This could have easily ended with six soulless husks

mishandled Occlumency lessons so badly that Harry went from occasionally glimpsing Voldemort's thoughts to "a kind of aerial that was tuned in to tiny fluctuations in Voldemort’s mood"

behaved like a complete maniac in class. Imagine a chemistry teacher testing anything on a student's pet or threatening to do the same on an actual student

and generally was a hypocritical asshole.

Unless you re-write the story to make Snape Voldemort's loyalist or some kind of independent bad guy, there isn't much he can realistically do to be a worse person. Not without risking his credibility with Dumbledore, and Dumbledore's word was the only thing which kept Snape out of Azkaban.

[cauldronofthoughts]

the 'pure blood supremacy is actually a metaphor for racism' idea gets problematic as fuck when you consider that plenty of justification toward the idea of muggles being an actual threat to wizards exists in the books.

muggles drove wizards into hiding. many times in history, muggles hunted down and persecuted wizards to the point where the wizarding world has LAWS about how it can interact with the muggles. you want to talk history? while witch trials weren't common in tenth century england, they still happened, which meant they were happening during the founding of hogwarts. slytherin's no muggleborns rule kinda makes sense when you take that into consideration.

many half bloods are abused by their muggle parents. see snape's father tobias. many wizards are mistreated by muggles, almost every damn book in the series opens with the dursleys abusing harry. tom riddle was mistreated by the muggles in the orphanage.

almost every muggle we see or hear about learning that magic exists does not take it well. see seamus finnegan's "me dad's a muggle. mum's a witch. bit of a nasty shock for him when he found out." petunia was horrible toward lily and severus when she found out. even the muggle prime minister is dodgy around rufus scrimgeour.

and, going even further, while the supremacy angle in the books is often tauted by death eaters and supporters of voldemort, supremacy tends to crop up more among the rich families - who are, you know. already elitist assholes. (yes, this includes the gaunts. while they weren't rich by the time tom was born, they had been for centuries before. rich people mentality doesn't always leave when the money does.)

there's hesitation and suspicion toward muggleborns and muggles by lower class folks, but not the same supremacy.

if you wanted my opinion on the closest real world analogue to it, i would say xenophobia. while xenophobia has recently been conflated with racism and they can work hand in hand, they are different.

it's not right, but it can have a more understandable throughline. (and i do not say understandable here in a sympathetic or empathetic sense. i just mean you can follow the logic.)

[redbronsonaction]

Wizards don't treat Muggles as a danger in Harry Potter books. In fact, it's framed the opposite way: wizards murder and torture Muggles on multiple occasions, while Muggles murdering or torturing wizards is relegated to something which happened to that one guy, maybe.

We know that various forms of low-level attacks on Muggles (like regurgitating toilets) are considered a form of fun pastime/hooliganism in the wizarding world and Arthur Weasley and his colleagues have to clean up the mess. Nobody is shaking in their boots thinking that Muggles may actually fight back.

More violent attacks on Muggles do take place - for example Muggle PM has to deal with a bridge which "snapped cleanly in two, sending a dozen cars into the watery depths of the river below", curtesy of Lord Voldemort. That's a mass murder right there, but neither Voldemort nor the Ministry think that the Muggles may actually retaliate in some way. Whether such attitude stems from the faith that the Ministry's cover-up apparatus can hide anything or just simple disdain for Muggles, nobody in the wizarding world thinks Muggles can do anything about it.

Scrimgeour's attitude demonstrates wizarding world's view of Muggles best: the Ministry of Magic has screwed up, they can't keep Death Eaters under control, there are terrorist attacks on Muggle population - and Scrimgeour just expects the PM to take the fall for it and treats PM like a nuisance. It doesn't happen to Scrimgeour that he might be actually held accountable for people dying or the results of Dementor-induced depression wave about to be unleashed on the people of Britain.

The lion does not concern himself with the problems of the sheep. PM is expected to grit his teeth and bear the pain until Rufus deigns to do something about it, at the time and in the manner of his choosing.

Even Medieval witch hunts are treated like a joke: oh, this witch thought "burning" on the pyre was fun, she did it a dozen of times using Freezing charm.

The Statute of Secrecy is not some desperate defence devised to protect a persecuted minority from being hunted down by the masses. It is a massive apparatus of oppression which ensures that wizards are free to do whatever they like to the majority of human population without fear of retaliation or accountability. The Ministry can wash their hands of any responsibility, Death Eaters can slaughter and torture Muggles as they see fit, Slughorn can squat in Muggle houses if he wants to - all thanks to the Statute.

The Statute is based upon the idea that wizards can and will do to Muggles as it suits them, including interfering with Muggles' very minds. In essense, it reduces 99% of humanity to a sub-human status.

You can see why even Voldemort supports it.

As for the pureblood supremacists, they are KKK to the wizarding world's racist uncle. Pureblood supremacists think 99,2% of humanity are sub-human and they want to abuse Muggles harder, with torture and murder.

It's racism, down to Nazi-esque calculations of who has how much "proper" blood.

[danadiadea]

Okay, so I was rereading the famous "I see no difference" episode, and remind me, why do we so unanimously connect Snape's comment to Hermione's teeth at all? I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, and I have no problems with loving a character who made a mean lookist comment on their student in Snape's conditions, really, but I analyzed it, and it appears.... at least not as straightforward as it's most often described. Let's remember how the scene goes first:

"For a split second, they looked into each other’s eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted. ‘Furnunculus!’ Harry yelled. ‘Densaugeo!’ screamed Malfoy. Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in mid-air, and ricocheted off at angles – Harry’s hit Goyle in the face, and Malfoy’s hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up – Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth. ‘Hermione!’ Ron had hurried forwards to see what was wrong with her. Harry turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione’s hand away from her face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Hermione’s front teeth – already larger than average – were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, towards her chin – panic-stricken, she felt them, and let out a terrified cry. ‘And what is all this noise about?’ said a soft, deadly voice. Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamoured to give their explanations. Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Malfoy and said, ‘Explain.’ ‘Potter attacked me, sir –’ ‘We attacked each other at the same time!’ Harry shouted. ‘– and he hit Goyle – look –’ Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi. ‘Hospital wing, Goyle,’ Snape said calmly. ‘Malfoy got Hermione!’ Ron said. ‘Look!’ He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth – she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape’s back. Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, ‘I see no difference.’ Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight."

First of all, was the spell intended as a comment on Hermione's teeth, or bullying of her? No. It was directed at Harry. It was just a coincidence that Hermione's front teeth were naturally prominent. Did any slytherins or Snape directly connect the effect of the spell to Hermione's teeth? Also no. The girls giggle silently behind Snape's back, but whether that's because they make fun of Hermione's own teeth, or they just think she looks funny with the spell taking effect right now, is unclear. No-one laughs after "I see no difference", too, even tho Slytherins often giggle at Snape's comments, and previously mentioned girls could've stopped hiding if Snape supported their fun – but it hadn't happened. The only person who connects the effects of the spell with how Hermione normally looks is Harry in his head, imposing that view on a reader with that notion: "already larger than average". But that is never voiced anywhere during the scene but in Harry's private thoughts.

Now let's look at what was said out loud:

'Explain.’ ‘Potter attacked me, sir –’ ‘We attacked each other at the same time!’  ‘– and he hit Goyle – look –’ 'Hospital wing, Goyle,’  ‘Malfoy got Hermione! Look!' 'I see no difference.’

When we see the dialogue itself, the fact that "I see no difference" is connected to Hermione personally is more than unclear. It literally can mean "I see no difference between what happened to her and to Goyle". It can mean “I see no difference between what Goyle and Granger should do”. He could say "she looks the same" or "I don't see what's wrong" if jkr wanted to make it clear it's a comment on Hermione's appearance.

Okay, but how it was said? Was Snape smirking or speaking in a sarcastic, snide voice? No. He gave Hermione a cold look – well, sorry, I do not see such a difference between descriptions "examined" and "looked coldly". It's not like he kissed Goyle's forehead – he also just looked at his traumas, with his eyes that we know generally look "cold and empty" according to Harry. His tone isn't described here – we can assume it was also cold, and considering that Snape previously spoke in a "deadly" and "calm" voice, that's not a drastic difference as well.

Did Snape punish anyone unreasonably? No. He didn't punish Harry for attacking Goyle, which is what happened according to Draco (Snape is so prejudiced though, right?), and he didn't punish Hermione for leaving the class without permission. If Snape insulted her, then she ran away without him letting her go, yet no points were taken from Gryffindor for that – except if he wanted Hermione to do exactly what he told Goyle to do, that is go to the Hospital Wing, and that's why he didn't have problems with it. Snape only took points and gave Harry and Ron detention for publically cursing and screaming at the teacher, which is more than fair, if you ask me.

Would Snape even notice Hermione's unusual teeth at all? Harry, Hermione's best friend, didn't notice that they became shorter for a couple of months, nor did Ron. We don't ever have Snape's POV, so we don't know if he tends to notice details like that about people, but we know that his own teeth were uneven as well, and he didn't care enough to change them, or anything else about himself; and we know that he didn’t insult anyone's appearance in the books on any other occasions, making mean comments on skills or moral qualities instead. I personally quite often am perplexed when a person shares that they are insecure about some part of their body, because I don't pay much attention to that, so I wouldn't even know it's "unconventional" if they didn't tell me. What for Hermione was a feature she saw in the mirror every day and was well aware of, for Snape was a minor detail in the appearance of one of the hundreds of students he teaches. We know that Draco did notice Hermione's teeth, but Draco also makes comments on Lupin's old robes, for example, it's not unusual for him. Even if Snape noticed that Hermione's teeth looked unconventional before, "I see no difference" still totally could apply to the parallel between Hermione and Goyle, because without Harry’s commentary, the ISND connection to teeth is not only vague – it's almost non-existent.

"But Harry got mad at him! Harry and Ron cursed and screamed at him, they clearly thought he insulted her!" Well, Harry and Ron also thought that Snape was trying to kill Harry, or poison Lupin, or that him giving Neville a detention where he worked with ingredients for melting 6 cauldrons in a very short period of time was somehow unreasonable. Like I literally do not care what those boys assume about Snape, they are incorrect 90% of the time.

"But Hermione cried and ran away and was upset!". She was already "whimpering in panic" and "letting out a terrified cry" before that. Whether Hermione had taken it as a comment on her natural teeth or not, it doesn't necessarily mean that's what Snape was saying. She also got over it, and kept telling Harry he's unfair to Snape.

The only other times when Snape voiced his problems with Hermione in unprofessional ways was when he called her an "insufferable know-it-all" for speaking out of turn for the third time, and called her a "stupid girl" in a middle of a mental breakdown, reliving his near-death expierience and trying to save her. That's it.

So that's my take on it. You can agree or disagree, but frankly, I think this interpretation is at least as valid as that he made a comment on her teeth, if not making more actual sence.

[redbronsonaction]

It's valid and invalid.

It's invalid because:

Snape somehow didn't notice anything amiss when Hermione's front tooth was stretching towards her chin? The man has crooked teeth, he's not blind.

Snape let Hermione run away unattended - and that' somehow good? It's magic. She might be in some magically-induced hysteria, for all he knows. Letting her just run away was terribly irresponsible, potentially dangerous not only to Hermione, but also the others. Hell, letting Goyle walk alone to the Hospital Wing when his entire face is a mess was certainly a decision. Not a decision of all time, Snape set a record for those a few months before, but a decision nonetheless.

Snape punished anyone but a student who caused not one, but two students to be injured (to the point of needing medical attention) - and he's somehow reasonable? This blatant disregard for students' lives was lesson - and it was a lesson well learned. A couple of years later that same student will almost murder three students and a professor, enslaving an innocent woman to boot. I wonder where did little Draco learn that other people can be injured and maimed without consequence...

And of course, this rapid-fire lack of professionalism and basic concern for student welfare is somehow filed under "Pro Severus Snape".

It's also valid because:

... well, yeah? Severus Snape has been engaging in wildly irresponsible behavior endangering students' very lives since the first book. He is the kind of guy who might very well miss a student being injured by the virtue of not caring all that much.

Just a few months before the teeth incident, Snape was planning to summon dangerous and unruly Dementors to further his double-murder-revenge plot. The fact that he had three students on his hands (Hermione among them) didn't concern him in the slightest. Neither did the fact that the Dementors have attacked the students twice already.

Severus Snape didn't give two shits about Hermione Granger keeping her immortal soul, so him not noticing that she has grown giant teeth works perfectly.