New follower here: Love this blog. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on why Regulus turned against the Dark Lord? What do you think was his motivation ultimately? A lover? Sirius? His family? The atrocities? His age? What aspects do you think played a role in him changing his mind?
Okay, first of all I want to apologize deeply for the very, very... very.... late answer.
Regarding the motivations, I get into it in this ask and also kinda in this post (look @reguluslocket! A relic!). Though just read the first link, the second one is long af.
His age isn't really a factor I feel, but he didn't really grow up in the "real world" so it's quite possible he never considered that things were as dire. He's obviously seen the atrocities in the papers, but we know a bunch of privileged people don't really realize how those atrocities are actually bad until they see them first hand. It's a long-standing theme in the real world that I'm sick of, but it's very realistic.
The thing is, obviously it's always entirely possible for there to be a person who's a motivator for someone to turn their life around, but I personally don't like it as a main motivation. I think people truly are on the path to redemption if their motivations are internal and it isn't because "Oh this will affect someone I love, so I need to change". It has to be a change from within; the realization that this is actually wrong.
That said I think his relationship with Sirius definitely played a minor role. He'd probably stay awake for hours at night thinking about Sirius and why Sirius could possibly turn against everything they were taught. Not that that would change him, but it'd definitely keep him thinking - the thing is, his parents would clearly want the best for him, so he'd think that surely they couldn't be wrong, so Sirius would be pushed out of his mind with that simple reasoning.
So it's basically
Realizing that the reality was far harsher than he'd anticipated
His brother's nagging in their earlier years making a comeback in the forms of a voice in his head, possibly.
Maybe he was told by someone he dislikes how people like him affect everyone else negatively. Not that this person would have any idea he's a DE, but because he's a pureblood supremacist.
Something he possibly witnesses
"He got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out" - I actually think, while this is simply speculation, it does have a root in the truth. I don't think Regulus was being asked to do something, but someone else had done something and he got absolutely panicky about it.
Despite how skewed initially, Regulus does have a sense of wanting to do what's right. He does want justice, genuinely. He just grew up to believe that justice was the old pureblood families continuing to have power over the newer or poorer. That's pretty messed up, but thankfully he gets his priorities kinda changed (this kinda aligns with his Quidditch persona. "There are rules. Rules are meant to be broken sensibly. What are we, animals?" (sorry, I had to quote this from my old quidditch fic, I'm very proud of this line))
Despite his house, some means are not justifiable for the end result.
The treatment of Kreacher.
So yeah. That got a bit longer than I expected.
Thank you for your ask, and I'm SO sorry again for answering this ages later.
