Motivations for Joining DEs (Was: Bullying)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 140913

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich <mgrantwich at y...> 
wrote:

<snip>

> I said that young people often join gangs (criminal ones) and cults 
> for all kinds of reasons - and they do.  And we have Sirius' comment 
> that people thought Voldemort had the "right idea" at first, and that 
> even his family - who he has no incentive to excuse for anything - 
> backed away once they realized what he was really all about.  

I think I have a train of logic here, although it's likely to derail.

Given Sirius's comments about his family and such, I think it's a good 
assumption that the *public* face of Voldemort's movement was precisely 
the blood issue.  Regulus' family approved of his actions because they 
saw him as contributing to this noble cause, furthering ideas that were 
socially acceptable.

Now, we the readers know that there was always a subcurrent to 
Voldemort's organization.  HBP gives us information that puts the 
origins of that pretty far back.  This subcurrent is the interest in 
Dark Magic, which leads to the immortality research, etc.  What we 
don't know is how widely *this* was known.  However, I keep thinking of 
Sluggy's comments about how wizards of 'caliber' have always been drawn 
to that kind of magic, and I wonder about even more past connections 
between pureblood pride and the Dark Arts.

So we, of course, don't know what Young!Snape knew about the DEs.  It 
seems safe to say that the blood thing was their public face, so we can 
assume that Young!Snape knew all about that and at minimum had no 
problems with it.  And I think it's also supported that Young!Snape 
had 'issues' with the blood thing.  He's one of the very few characters 
we've heard 'Mudblood' from (the others being Voldemort and Draco, and 
I think Bella?).  We have the 'Half-Blood Prince', however one wants to 
read that.  [I tend to agree with a correspondent, who said they found 
it "pathetic and cringeworthy and pitiable and contemptible and 
embarassing - and absolutely perfectly so."  But that's a tangent.]

This has no information to connect it to Present!Snape, but I think it 
belongs firmly in the mix for Young!Snape.  It's a little too marked, 
put in places to be *noticed*, not to be relevant.  What I wonder is 
whether there were associates of Voldemort in the school spreading the 
siren song of his Dark Magic skillz, as well.  There's always the 
possibility of unrelated factors, but I'm not going to speculate about 
what I don't know I don't know, when I have shiny information in front 
of me.

-Nora notes that evidence and construction thereof is why arguing to 
disregard the 'Harry filter' becomes tricky, fast