catty cat

Mmm, no?

Severus chooses that path because the only people who seem to offer him a way out of his miserable life are the Death Eaters. He chooses that path because, within Slytherin, he finally finds the only place where he isn't abused or bullied, probably feeling safe for the first time in his life. He chooses that path because outside that circle, all he's ever known is poverty and systematic abuse. His motivations are far deeper than "a girl rejected him," especially considering that he never actually clings to that friendship. Once Lily ends it, he accepts it and moves on with his life.

And as for your whole "I would never hang out with racists" speech... if those racists were the only people putting food on your table, I guarantee you wouldn't just hang out with them, you'd wash their underwear too if that's what it took.

what poverty? at hogwarts, he was offered free access to elite education for doing absolutely nothing. he had guaranteed housing, daily meals, advanced magical healthcare and lived in one of the safest places in britain for about ten months a year. he escaped his abusive home for most of the year and was surrounded by highly accomplished professors, an extensive library and hundreds of students from different walks of life. he had access to mentorships, prestigious career opportunities, a large network and an environment that rewarded intelligence and talent. he was allowed to work on his abilities, invent spells, improve potion recipes and gain skills that could have earned him respect, prestige and financial success.

plus, he wasn't trapped in an ideological echo chamber either. he had constant exposure to different beliefs, lifestyles, people with various life circumstances and had a best friend who repeatedly challenged his attraction to dangerous magic and his choice of friends. he wasn't forced to stay in one social circle, nor was he forced to associate with future death eaters. he could have found belonging with other people if only he pulled the stick out of his ass. he chose dangerous people for company, signaled to others that he was one of them, used slurs against the more vulnerable in society, and by his own making, closed himself off to better groups of people. no systematic disadvantage pressured him into this. he had all the space to choose different types of friendships. if he wasn't so egotistic, he could have been satisfied with a life that wasn't about power and cruelty. tho cruelty is what he associated with power. but he wasn't powerless in society. he was a half-blooded, white boy with plenty of prospects and exceptional magical talent. he had proximity to hundreds of peers to befriend and gain possible protection from. if he changed his mindset only slightly, he could have found belonging elsewhere. that is his own fault, nobody else's.

on top of that, he's a wizard. you equated his willing association with death eaters to a worker who has to tolerate racists to keep a job as a means of survival, but that comparison is ridiculous. not only did he have food at hogwarts that he could have brought home and access to plenty of opportunities that could have changed his two-month stay at spinner's end, but he had lily to help him get food. he could have made friends with people who would help him out. his mother or father clearly provided food. he didn't have to tolerate any future death eater to get food, water or housing. after hogwarts, he had magic that allowed him to survive without tolerating disrespect simply through the ability to conjure water, cook meals from ingredients, create heat, clean himself and create shelter, but he wasn't forced to tolerate anybody in order to have basic necessities at hogwarts, nor was friendship with death eaters ever a student's requirement.

he knew far more than just poverty (which wasn't even happening when he was buddying up with people who wanted to hurt his best friend) and systematic abuse. he was opened to a big world of access, a caring best friend, plenty of different people and protection at hogwarts from the outside world. staff had an obligation to protect him from danger and death as well, we never saw james do him a type of harm that was lethal so he had no reason to fight for survival at hogwarts. instead we saw him using sectumsempra, that we know in the future became lethal. only time his life was at stake was when he chose to put himself in a situation he knew was risky and violated hogwarts rules.

To claim he had "access to a vast network and hundreds of peers" while ignoring how extremist recruitment actually operates in real life is politically illiterate. Who do radical groups, gangs, and hate movements target? The isolated, the abused, the impoverished, and those left completely unprotected by institutions.

For a severely neglected kid, Slytherin wasn't just a social club, it was the only structure offering him protection and status against relentless bullying from wealthy, high-status Gryffindors (which the staff actively ignored). Demanding that an abused, traumatized teenager display the pristine emotional maturity of an adult to "just change his mindset and pick better friends" is pure armchair privilege.

"He was talented, he could have invented potions and earned respect." Welcome to the meritocracy fallacy. Talent does not shield you from systemic abuse or social alienation. History and sociology are full of brilliant people from marginalized backgrounds who fell into radicalization because the "respectable" mainstream society rejected, abused, or looked down on them first. Snape didn't seek power out of pure "ego", he sought it as a defense mechanism against total powerlessness.

Downplaying systemic bullying by arguing that "James never did anything lethal to him" is grotesque. Psychological trauma and public humiliation—including physical and sexualized assault like being publicly stripped—destroy a person's sense of safety and drive them further into fringe groups. Expecting a victim of chronic abuse to be a "perfect victim" with pristine morals just to earn your empathy is a classic bias.

psychologically not. but materially? yes. and material poverty is what often drives people towards gangs or hate groups that offer them resources or help towards basic necessities. and i can understand that class shapes human psychology. and i also understand how a lack of material opportunities forces people into extremist, dangerous groups, which is not snape's case here. so what drove him there if not poverty?

"Poverty isn't just about whether you're starving at any given second; it’s about accumulated precarity, lack of generational capital, and deep-seated social stigma."

and how did all of that necessitate him affiliating with proto-death eaters? did he not have plenty of available access to different life paths? he actually had many of them and was systematically highly privileged compared to a working-class muggle, a squib, or the average werewolf, for example.

"Suggesting that he could have "brought food home from Hogwarts" or relied on his teenage friend to feed his family isn't just absurd, it's condescending and entirely misses the point of systemic hardship."

not really. at hogwarts, he wasn't poor at all. then, he spent two months at spinner's end knowing he'd come back to a lucrative environment where he could work on a promising future. actually, since he was a child, he knew he would have this access. that's not the psychology of a real-life poor individual.

"To claim he had "access to a vast network and hundreds of peers" while ignoring how extremist recruitment actually operates in real life is politically illiterate. Who do radical groups, gangs, and hate movements target? The isolated, the abused, the impoverished, and those left completely unprotected by institutions."

extremist recruitment works well when a person lacks resources and is isolated from other people who could help them. not much of a snape case. he had many chances to get out or to not even enter those circles. he wasn't entirely isolated. he had lily and daily access to teachers, alumni, other superiors, a healer, a headmaster and various types of students. in the first years, the details of his bullying are obscured from us, so we don't know if it resembled fifth year. he wasn't poor at hogwarts and the institution itself was legally required to protect him, which it partially did, even if imperfectly.

"For a severely neglected kid, Slytherin wasn't just a social club, it was the only structure offering him protection and status against relentless bullying from wealthy, high-status Gryffindors (which the staff actively ignored)."

"only" is doing a lot of work here. but regardless, there were different slytherins he had the opportunity to befriend. he willingly chose the extremists because of his ego.

"Demanding that an abused, traumatized teenager display the pristine emotional maturity of an adult to "just change his mindset and pick better friends" is pure armchair privilege."

i do expect some responsibility from a brat who was given so many chances not to lead the life he led, yes. and he fully deserves criticism for that.

"'He was talented, he could have invented potions and earned respect.'" Welcome to the meritocracy fallacy. Talent does not shield you from systemic abuse or social alienation. History and sociology are full of brilliant people from marginalized backgrounds who fell into radicalization because the "respectable" mainstream society rejected, abused, or looked down on them first."

what i did was imply that his exceptional talent gave him a high probability of success and that he had a legitimate route toward it simply by being a hogwarts student, which is true. and to your other point, the only rejection we first saw towards snape was social stigma from petunia and from the marauders. however, you're doing a lot of work again with "society" here. did everyone reject or abuse him? was he at the social margins of hogwarts from the first day he attended? we don't know. it was likely that every single day since he woke up there, he could have flown like a bird towards many other social circles. his ass didn't. there is simply no proof he did not have this opportunity and psychologically, i struggle to see how every kid would reject a friendship with him. that seems socially and statistically implausible. he could have worked on how he came across as well.

"Snape didn't seek power out of pure "ego", he sought it as a defense mechanism against total powerlessness."

Mmm, no?

Severus chooses that path because the only people who seem to offer him a way out of his miserable life are the Death Eaters. He chooses that path because, within Slytherin, he finally finds the only place where he isn't abused or bullied, probably feeling safe for the first time in his life. He chooses that path because outside that circle, all he's ever known is poverty and systematic abuse. His motivations are far deeper than "a girl rejected him," especially considering that he never actually clings to that friendship. Once Lily ends it, he accepts it and moves on with his life.

And as for your whole "I would never hang out with racists" speech... if those racists were the only people putting food on your table, I guarantee you wouldn't just hang out with them, you'd wash their underwear too if that's what it took.

what poverty? at hogwarts, he was offered free access to elite education for doing absolutely nothing. he had guaranteed housing, daily meals, advanced magical healthcare and lived in one of the safest places in britain for about ten months a year. he escaped his abusive home for most of the year and was surrounded by highly accomplished professors, an extensive library and hundreds of students from different walks of life. he had access to mentorships, prestigious career opportunities, a large network and an environment that rewarded intelligence and talent. he was allowed to work on his abilities, invent spells, improve potion recipes and gain skills that could have earned him respect, prestige and financial success.

plus, he wasn't trapped in an ideological echo chamber either. he had constant exposure to different beliefs, lifestyles, people with various life circumstances and had a best friend who repeatedly challenged his attraction to dangerous magic and his choice of friends. he wasn't forced to stay in one social circle, nor was he forced to associate with future death eaters. he could have found belonging with other people if only he pulled the stick out of his ass. he chose dangerous people for company, signaled to others that he was one of them, used slurs against the more vulnerable in society, and by his own making, closed himself off to better groups of people. no systematic disadvantage pressured him into this. he had all the space to choose different types of friendships. if he wasn't so egotistic, he could have been satisfied with a life that wasn't about power and cruelty. tho cruelty is what he associated with power. but he wasn't powerless in society. he was a half-blooded, white boy with plenty of prospects and exceptional magical talent. he had proximity to hundreds of peers to befriend and gain possible protection from. if he changed his mindset only slightly, he could have found belonging elsewhere. that is his own fault, nobody else's.

on top of that, he's a wizard. you equated his willing association with death eaters to a worker who has to tolerate racists to keep a job as a means of survival, but that comparison is ridiculous. not only did he have food at hogwarts that he could have brought home and access to plenty of opportunities that could have changed his two-month stay at spinner's end, but he had lily to help him get food. he could have made friends with people who would help him out. his mother or father clearly provided food. he didn't have to tolerate any future death eater to get food, water or housing. after hogwarts, he had magic that allowed him to survive without tolerating disrespect simply through the ability to conjure water, cook meals from ingredients, create heat, clean himself and create shelter, but he wasn't forced to tolerate anybody in order to have basic necessities at hogwarts, nor was friendship with death eaters ever a student's requirement.

he knew far more than just poverty (which wasn't even happening when he was buddying up with people who wanted to hurt his best friend) and systematic abuse. he was opened to a big world of access, a caring best friend, plenty of different people and protection at hogwarts from the outside world. staff had an obligation to protect him from danger and death as well, we never saw james do him a type of harm that was lethal so he had no reason to fight for survival at hogwarts. instead we saw him using sectumsempra, that we know in the future became lethal. only time his life was at stake was when he chose to put himself in a situation he knew was risky and violated hogwarts rules.