Why would death eaters want a Mudblood as their leader?

[erisedstraeh2002]

No: HPFGUIDX 44102

pickle_jimmy asked:

> So, how did a half-cast (mudblood) wizard from poor (orphanage) 
> beginnings become the head of a group that loathe poor half-cast 
> wizards? 

Now me:

I think the following exchange from a BBC interview with JKR helps 
address some of your question:

Q: Book Four explores several themes - some we've seen before like 
prejudice in Chamber of Secrets. We see more of that with foreign 
students and people with different parentage. Is that something 
you've been wanting to explore?

JKR: From the beginning of Philosopher's Stone, prejudice is a very 
strong theme. It is plausible that Harry enters the world wide-eyed: 
everything will be wonderful and it's the sort of place where 
injustices don't happen. Then he finds out that it does happen and 
it's a shock to him. He finds out that he is a half-blood: to a 
wizard like Lucius Malfoy, he will never be a true wizard, because 
his mother was of Muggle parentage. It's a very important theme. 

Q: Voldemort's a half-blood too...

JKR:  Like Hitler! See! I think it's the case that the biggest bully 
takes their own defects and they put them on someone else, and they 
try to destroy them. And that's what he [Voldemort] does. That was 
very conscious - I wanted to create a villain where you could 
understand the workings of his mind, not just have a 2-D baddie, 
dressed up in black, and I wanted to explore that and see where that 
came from. Harry in Book Four is starting to come to terms with what 
makes a person turn that way. Because they took wrong choices and he 
[Voldemort] took wrong choices from an early age. 

Here's the link to the entire interview:  
http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/Fall_2000_BBC_Newsround.htm

Do we know for sure that all of the DEs are purebloods?  Even if we 
assume that they all are, I don't think they would dare insult or 
attack a non-pureblood who is more powerful than they are.  And 
Voldemort is the most powerful of all of them.  IMO, the DEs follow 
Voldemort even though he's a half-blood because they believe in his 
goals and ideals, and because he's able to satisfy an unmet need 
(which varies by the DE, which I posted my theories on recently).

~Phyllis