Everything is not what it seems

sirius is an incredibly principled character. he lived and died for his friends, and for the causes he believed in. do you really mean to tell me that sirius wouldn't have hated regulus for joining the violent fascist hate group that targeted his friends and ultimately killed lily and james, orphaning harry? he breaks out of AZKABAN to avenge james.

i frequently see "but regulus was forced/coerced/groomed" to join the death eaters, and to that i say...so was sirius! they grew up in the same environment and they were both indoctrinated in hateful ideas. at 16, he gives up all the comfort and stability in the world because he can't bear to be associated with the blacks anymore. sirius saw regulus' choice to stay a black and join the death eaters - and it was a choice, no matter how young he was - as a moral failing. and frankly, we all should.

Mike Wheeler is always making sure El Hopper is okay! STRANGER THINGS (2016 - 2025)

Severus Snape did not call Lily Evans a Mudblood because he was ‘under duress’ or ‘being bullied by James and Sirius,’ he called her a Mudblood to hurt her.

To explain this I’ve got to digress a bit.

Firstly, I just want to touch on the fact that Snape and Lily’s friendship almost directly mirrors that of an abusive relationship, with Snape playing the role of the abuser. Abusive relationships often begin with emotional, not physical, abuse, and we’ve seen evidence of that from Snape’s own memories. His treatment of Petunia, insulting her, searching her room, etc, most certainly indicates both a disdain for Muggles and a desire to separate Lily from other people. His primary focus was keeping James as far away from her as possible, but his memories most certainly give a strong indication that he was very likely jealous of every single person in her life. He wanted her all to himself. He watched her ‘greedily.’ He told her he 'won’t let you’ involve herself with James Potter as if he could claim some sort of control over her behaviour. In short, Snape wanted Lily to conform to a specific set of choices and actions that he deemed acceptable. This makes him an abuser.

“But his childhood! His father was an abuser! This excuses everything!” you might cry, to which I say, dude, that I’m a living example of a victim of childhood and adolescent abuse from a parent, both physical and emotional, and I’ve never treated another living soul in the way Snape treated Lily, or her son, or anyone else, for that matter. I’ve got no tolerance for that kind of shit in relation to Snape’s behaviour. It’s a crutch for a weak-ass argument. Oh, but JKR forgives him? She defended Johnny Depp. Like her opinion means a damn thing anymore.

Yeah, Snape was a kid, and a ten or eleven-year-old is bound to need guidance in differentiating between right and wrong, but again, speaking as a victim of abuse, it’s NOT that fucking hard to learn it yourself as you grow, simply by meeting others and observing their actions, especially when you’re spending ten months out of the year away from your abusers. Snape had Lily – a beautiful, rich wealth of decency and kindness - for a best friend, and he learned jack shit from her.

I firmly believe that Lily was spared from further evolution of this abuse by two things – one, she was a Gryffindor, two, she never actually dated him. Being a Gryffindor and living in separate quarters meant that Lily spent a significant amount of class and leisure time away from Snape. This meant that Lily had ample time to pave her own way through Hogwarts, make her own friends and establish herself as a separate entity to Snape’s Best Friend, all without the unhealthy influence of his presence. It makes sense that as a new student, and a Muggle-born, Snape may have represented a sort of safety to Lily in the early days. However, she was a bright, confident little girl who became a bright, confident young woman. It wouldn’t have taken long for her to find her feet. Snape was co-dependent. She wasn’t.

(Side-note: You just know that Snape went into frequent rage spirals as he sat in his dorm in the dungeons, thinking about Lily up in Gryffindor where he couldn’t get to her, couldn’t watch her, couldn’t regulate the contact she had with other people – specifically James)

Because she never dated Snape, she denied him a form of ownership that abusers often feel when romantically involved with their victim, because a romantic relationship has a singular quality (unless you are in an open relationship, in which case, more power to you girl/boy/person) that holds distinction from others. Most people still conform to the monogamous norm, wherein you can have many friends but one partner. He never felt that exclusivity. He never came close. There was something he wanted from her that he could not have, and she probably didn’t realise how much that spared her from.

Maybe Snape always thought he never would have hurt her. Maybe he really, really thought that their relationship wouldn’t have devolved further into darkness had Lily ever been interested in him romantically. But I don’t believe it.

So, why did he call her a Mudblood? Two reasons.

One, take on board the above, and then recall that Lily caught him in a moment of extreme vulnerability. Abusers do not like appearing vulnerable in front of their victims. A great example of this in fiction is from the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones (or, indeed, the show) where Joffrey is beaten and humiliated by Arya and Nymeria, and rage-shouts at Sansa, 'his lady,’ when she rushes to his aid with tears and sympathy. Obviously, there’s a difference between the Joffrey/Sansa scenario and Snape/Lily, because Snape was being set upon by two other students, but it doesn’t matter. Lily came to his aid in a moment of weakness and he resented her for seeing him in that state. He wanted her to think him powerful, impressive, and commanding. She didn’t. It made him mad.

The second reason is because of James, but not for the reason people often argue. It’s clear from Snape’s memories that despite Lily’s poor opinion of James’s behaviour, she was attracted to him regardless. She blushes when talking to Snape about him, for one, but more telling is that when she rushes over to stop James and Sirius from bullying Severus, her attention is on James basically the entire time, and boy, she most certainly had a big ol’ list of observations on his behaviour to throw in his face. Do you notice that someone has a habit of ruffling their hair if you’re not, you know, paying attention?

Wouldn’t you notice that your friend fancied someone else if you, too, were paying attention? Close attention? Snape knew. Of course he knew. Likely he knew before she did, even. Lily behaved in a certain way around James, reacted, looked, moved, probably, in a way she never did around him because she wasn’t attracted to Snape, and that formed the basis of his insane obsession with James. Nothing mattered to Snape as much as 'Potter,’ and keeping Lily away from him, so when she charged over – earnestly, decently – to save her friend, with whom she had almost had it up to here because he was well on the road to becoming a fucking Death Eater – and he saw that James was commanding most of her attention, it pissed him off. He wasn’t just angry with Sirius and James, he was angry with Lily, but it was a scarier, unhealthier and totally unwarranted form of anger. It is the anger an abuser feels towards his victim when he cannot exert his control.

So, In conclusion, Severus Snape did not call Lily Evans a Mudblood because he was 'under duress’ or 'being bullied by James and Sirius.’

He called her a Mudblood to hurt her.

— Sirius to the Weasley kids: "It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing. That's your parents' decision."

— Molly to Sirius (Harry's godfather) right after: "It's not down to you to decide what's good for Harry!"

And somehow, jkr wants us to view SIRIUS as the immature and disrespectful one in this conversation....which even worse because Lupin and Arthur Weasley say the exact same thing Sirius did after he does but unlike him are framed as reasonable and mature and are taken seriously. Dumbledore himself literally admits he was wrong and should have told Harry everything at the end of the book, which is exactly what Sirius was arguing for from the very beginning. Dumbledore's refusal to do so directly led to Sirius's death, the plot explicitly validates Sirius's perspective (he was RIGHT, he was the one who had Harry's best interests at heart), but the narrative still frames him as someone who was in the wrong and someone who needs to be reined in by Remus or Molly.

The absolute worst part is that...I'm pretty sure if any other parent was overruled in such a manner when it came to their child, both the narrative and the fandom would recognize it as outrageous (even when its not justified, which is why Walburga's abuse of Sirius is consistently downplayed). Just imagine Dumbledore dismissing Molly and Arthur's concerns for their children, or imagine Molly trying to say what she did to Sirius to Lily/James if they were alive. It would be unfathomable. It's only Sirius's status as a convicted murderer on run from the government that gives them the leeway to overrule him in such a manner. I don't know if it's because jkr believed that Sirius being a godfather means that he was somehow "less" than a biological parent, or because she couldn't stand the fact that he was a single parental figure, or if it's an extension of her ableism regarding his mental health, or if it's because of her preference for Snape and Dumbledore, or all of the above, but .... it's pretty shit!

I never thought about that specific part, you're so right. Sirius respects the rights of other parents, and shows a lot of respect for Molly in general despite how she treats him - he tries to comfort her about Percy after the boggart, looks after her kids and cooks and plays host for the whole family after Arthur's attack (after which Molly starts complaining about his "fits of the sullens"), etc.

Idec I blame Dumbledore, Snape, AND Molly for Sirius’s death. Dumbledore for the reasons you said, Snape for stopping Occlumency lessons and also treating Harry and Sirius like shit which led to Harry not believing that Snape would actually listen to Harry's warning to save Sirius (if it had been any other Order member Harry would've had no doubts!), and Molly -

who planted the idea that Sirius was reckless and thought of Harry as James which led to Harry believing Voldemort's vision, tried to keep Sirius and Harry from interacting by watching them constantly (i.e. when they're talking by the tapestry) and more interaction alone with Sirius might've assuaged Harry's worries that other people kept putting into his head -

AND WORST OF ALL!!!!

“I want you to take this,” he said quietly, thrusting a badly wrapped package roughly the size of a paperback book into Harry’s hands. “What is it?” Harry asked. “A way of letting me know if Snape’s giving you a hard time. No, don’t open it in here!” said Sirius, with a wary look at Mrs. Weasley, who was trying to persuade the twins to wear hand-knitted mittens. “I doubt Molly would approve — but I want you to use it if you need me, all right?”

Like. ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING. Sirius doesn't feel like he can give an important and useful gift designed to protect his own fucking godson in his own fucking house because Molly's interfering has affected him so much. Imagine if Harry had opened the gift here...

Hermione follows Molly's example from the initial fight on of course and ultimately it's her that convinces Harry of Sirius's recklessness enough that eventually makes him believe V.'s vision, but I will give Hermione leeway because she's 15 and also the biggest victim of JKR using her as a mouthpiece that just makes her super inconsistent (she was Sirius's #1 stan in GoF). For Molly though this is perfectly consistent with her behavior elsewhere, so.

Also, I think it is so telling that Harry's first thought is this when the DA is discovered by Umbridge:

They were at the stone gargoyle within minutes. Harry wondered how many of the others had been caught. He thought of Ron — Mrs. Weasley would kill him — and of how Hermione would feel if she was expelled before she could take her O.W.L.s. And it had been Seamus’s very first meeting... and Neville had been getting so good...