listen snape absolutely - 100%! - made a mistake when he joined the death eaters. but i do think it’s worth considering how snape was such a prime target for recruitment bc snape’s type is definitely recruited into terrorist organizations in real life and so much of the time they really have no fucking clue what they’re getting into. (disclaimer: of course that doesn’t excuse what they do or the harm they cause.)
snape is not just working-class, but abjectly poor. he’s ridiculed and humiliated (and two of his bullies are obscenely wealthy btw) routinely and his poverty is used as a weapon against him. his abuser is part of the sect that the death eaters are railing against. he is powerless and friendless (partly due to his own actions, partly due to his circumstances eg. his blood and the marauders). his humiliation isn’t taken seriously (or indeed, stopped or halted in any significant way) by the people in power and those people are leaders of the opposing side.
and you’re trying to tell me you can’t understand why the death eaters might appeal to this kid?
the thing is, much like draco malfoy, i sincerely doubt snape has any real idea of what the death eaters do. the snape we see - both as a teen and an adult - has little to no interest in actually harming people. quite the opposite, really. what snape really wants isn’t destruction, it’s power. it’s agency. and he wants it because it’s been actively stripped away from him for the majority of his life. so of course he’s prime recruitment material!
some kids in poverty, kids who are bullied and humiliated, they’re vulnerable. they make choices based on survival, based on what gets them the power they’ve never had access to. so they go to the groups that promise them that, the groups that say “if you join us, you’ll get everything you ever dreamed of.” i think people forget that voldemort wasn’t always a paranoid insane snake-hybrid - he was canonically charistmatic as fuck. he lured people in. he told them what they wanted to hear. of course snape - an abused, lonely, poor halfblood - thought the death eaters would open up gateways for him, would get him things he could only dream of.
that’s what gangs do, my man. that’s what terrorist groups do. they convince you that they can give you what you want. and of course there are people there that just hate and want to destroy, but there are many people - esp people who are recruited as teenagers - that had no idea what they were walking into and joined bc they wanted power. and of course that doesn’t change the hate they cause or the harm they do, but it’s worth thinking about simply bc while we can’t change people hatred or bias, we can give kids with no other options…. options.
what if dumbledore had actually punished the marauders, showing snape that the light side could help him? what if the marauders hadn’t bullied snape and he’d been allowed to have a safe space to heal and grow from his abusive home? what if someone had reached out to snape and helped him by buying him new robes or new books so his poverty wasn’t such a weapon anyone could use against him? snape made his choices, sure, but he might have had more of them if the circumstances of his life had given him even just some help and care.
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