#class dynamics

They're pureblood, think less about muggles and they never speak about their only muggle relative, yet they don't seem to fit with the aristocrats because they're "blood traitors"?? What does that mean?

Despite being poor, the father and breadwinner for the family works at the Ministry, and Percy joins him later in a higher rank. Meanwhile, the eldest brother works on a bank (THE bank? is there any other banks that isn't Gringotts?) and we have no clue about how people see dragon breeding as a job.

I don't know where I was trying to get to, the Weasley's place in society confuses me. Any idea?

This is a very European dynamic that happens in most countries that still have monarchies or a strong aristocratic elite and a tradition of class systems based on nobility: the figure of the poor aristocrat. In Spain, for example, there is the figure of the hidalgo, which is the aristocrat with a title but without property or land, perhaps even poorer than a bourgeois, but still maintaining their aristocratic status. And this figure exists in other countries too; in fact, it's quite common in popular culture.

The problem with this is that many people (especially from the United States, obviously) think that in old Europe, class is defined by money. But that's not necessarily true, because an aristocrat will always be socially above —even for other aristocrats— regardless of being poor or a "class traitor," as opposed to a bourgeois without a family name. And this is something that is very well reflected in the fact that even Slytherins consider Ginny a "catch." The pureblood Slytherins don’t consider Ginny a catch just because she’s pretty, but because even though she’s poor and a “traitor,” she is still pureblood. She still has “aristocratic” ancestry and comes from the same roots as them. A pureblood would choose a “traitor”—as much of a traitor as she may be—a hundred thousand times over someone who can’t help continue the bloodline. This is pure traditional European aristocratic mentality.

So yes, the Weasleys may be traitors and perhaps not as wealthy as the Malfoys, but the Weasleys are still far above any other wizard in the magical society because of their blood status. Because in an aristocratic society, economic capital is not enough to match social capital: you need both. Lucius is above Arthur because he has both social and economic capital. But Arthur is still above any Muggle-born or half-blood wizard who might have as much or more money than Lucius. Does that make sense? Because despite the hatred and contempt Lucius has for Arthur, he would still be willing to save Arthur twenty thousand times before saving any half-blood or Muggle-born, no matter how wealthy they might be, because Arthur can help preserve the bloodline, and the others can’t. And this is something those of us who grew up in societies deeply affected by these value systems understand quite well.

Hey, idk if you follow this blog or vice versa but since I follow you my feed fetches me a lot of anti marauders/marauders critical posts. This one i read stood out to me but since I mostly read your metas I just wanted to know your two cents on this essay ? I mostly agree with this but the "classism" part that you also bring up a quite a lot confuses me just a tad bit could you elaborate ? I just want to be educated on classism as a whole, as snape fan I feel like i should be well aware of my stances.

Thank you and that's all

Yes, we are mutuals hahahah Honestly I think a lot of people misunderstand what people mean when they bring classism into discussions about Snape and the Marauders because they immediately reduce it to “poor person good / rich person bad” which is not really the point.

The issue is more that class affects the way characters move through the world, the kind of social power they have access to, how protected they are from consequences and how others perceive them. And in that sense the Marauders vs Snape dynamic is absolutely shaped by class whether people like it or not.

James and Sirius are both wealthy pureblood boys from extremely influential families, they’re charismatic, socially admired, academically gifted and institutionally protected. Even Sirius, despite his dysfunctional upbringing, still carries the social capital that comes from being a Black. They move through Hogwarts with confidence because the system is built in a way that favors people like them socially.

Snape meanwhile is visibly poor, neglected, isolated, badly dressed, socially awkward and comes from Spinner’s End which is coded very heavily as working-class deprivation. People underestimate how much this affects the way a child is perceived. Poverty is stigmatizing. Kids notice it, teachers notice it, peers notice it. And when you’re already weird and abrasive on top of that, it becomes very easy for people to dehumanize you or treat you like the “acceptable target.”

And I also think people massively underestimate how much easier it is to “make the right choices” when you come from privilege and already have options, support systems, social protection and a sense that the world will catch you if you fall. It’s very easy to preach morality when you’ve never experienced the kind of desperation, alienation or lack of prospects that pushes people toward harmful environments in the first place. Severus grows up with basically nothing: no emotional stability, no social support, no economic privilege, no real sense of belonging outside of Hogwarts and even there he’s ostracized. So yes, when the only spaces offering you recognition, protection or power are the “wrong” ones, it becomes much easier to fall into them, especially as a vulnerable teenager desperate to escape humiliation and powerlessness.

Again, that does NOT absolve Snape of responsibility for the choices he made later. But I also think fandom often judges him in a very classist way by completely ignoring the context he came from and the lack of possibilities that context gave him. Because at the end of the day, judging two people who come from radically different social realities through the exact same moral lens without accounting for structural differences is itself deeply classist. Pretending that a neglected working-class child and wealthy socially protected pureblood boys all had the same emotional resources, opportunities and margin for error it’s ignoring how social inequality actually shapes human behavior.

And personally I think fandom often reproduces really ugly classist biases without realizing it because people romanticize the Marauders’ behavior as “boys being boys” or “charismatic popular kids having fun” while framing Severus' bitterness as uniquely monstrous and unforgivable. There’s a tendency to view socially polished wealthy characters as inherently more human and redeemable than poor abrasive ones. Like, James hexing random people for entertainment gets brushed aside as youthful arrogance because he’s charming and beloved. Snape being bitter and hostile after years of humiliation gets treated as proof he was born morally rotten. That disparity does not happen in a vacuum.

I also think people ignore how much humiliation and social exclusion can radicalize vulnerable teenagers. Again, this is not me saying poverty made Snape a Death Eater because that’s pretty reductive. But extremist groups absolutely prey on isolated angry young people who crave power, belonging and recognition after a lifetime of feeling powerless and degraded. That’s just a real social phenomenon.

Royalty all dressed up for a fancy fancy party with their hair done in elaborate braids and pins and wandering out into the garden ignoring everyone but being made to take their knight/body guard with them and perhaps while a tad inebriated asks for their help taking their hair down cause it’s giving them a headache. And fumbling through for hair pins and having to take off gloves to have full dexterity and this is also the royal realizing they’ve never seen the bare flesh of their guard’s hands And expecting them to be rough and yank but going and being so gentle trying to comb it out while getting confused by jewels and hair pieces all the meanwhile, plus having to be so close to eachother’s space and the scent of their hair care wafting up into the guard’s face

So gathering the many many pins and decorations from where they were set down, the guard sorta panics cause uhhh these need to go back to them right??? And can’t just carelessly drop them down over the top of their head/shoulders. so has to walk around to face them where they’re sitting and delicately lean down to deposit their delicately clasped hands into their royal’s. And looking down at them, while they’re looking up, illuminated by the far glow of the late night party, hair now loose and framing their face, it’s an intimate moment that should not be shared between strangers. Not only was the physical contact of their hand in their royal’s hair inappropriate but to see them in a state of undress as such…it’s enough to get them lashes as punishment.

But the pins and decorations are deposited into the royal’s hands and they smile and shake their head, exclaiming how much better that feels and how it is ridiculously how long the hair takes to be done yet for the relatively short amount of time it will be used and is it really worth it anyway

And I think it finishes with the royal giving their guard a kiss on the cheek as a thanks for rescuing them from a massive headache and then they declare they are ready to go back in to turn to bed

Hawkins was a small town but it had a pretty explicit wealth divide. There were a solid wall of three streets where people had three, even four story houses and their own pools. Walk beyond that line and it looked pretty grim. Well, his parents said it did. Steve privately thought the people who lived in those houses looked much happier.

Except for one house. The Hargrove’s.

The dad was ex Marines and was a fucking piece of work. He’d go on ranting about anyone and everyone in the mall, clutching his wife’s hand in a vice. She was quiet and didn’t really seem to do much apart from occasionally pushing her daughter into getting more dresses. The kids were far more interesting.

Gwen’s efforts at reassurance aren’t helped by the fact that Arthur is somewhat (but understandably) contradictory in wanting to be seen and valued as 'just' Arthur but also wanting to take his responsibilities as crown prince seriously and to be taken seriously as such by his father and Camelot. Even Gwen and Merlin, who do genuinely care about Arthur as a person, can't entirely separate Arthur from his status as future king- Gwen because she has to hope things will get better and Merlin because of the dragon's words about destiny.

To be fair to all three of them, they grew up in a classist system which has only been more and more reinforced in their eyes that people need to work within that system to have any hope of positive change, as anyone who runs afoul of Uther's decrees, however slightly, is deemed irrevocably evil. The Complete Guide (which actually only talks about series 1) says that Uther's allied kingdoms went along with the magic ban to shore up their own status-induced power. Gwen and Merlin want to believe things would improve under a less vengeful king, although their idea of 'things' is more overlapping rather than a single circle.

If you look further back, middle housing (townhomes, condos, apartments, triplexes, quadplexes, etc) are where the middle class historically found themselves living (usually, there are exceptions). Suburbs are mostly new and they are extremely wasteful. The idea that people lived in single family homes or even semi-detached housing with large green outdoor spaces (as opposed to shared courtyards) just strikes me as very, very silly and very, very American.

A better, more honest, more accurate description of the decline of the middle class is not just the disappearance of middle housing—it’s how much middle housing has deteriorated qualitatively. We no longer consider that apartments can be big enough to raise families in. Nor do we consider that they should be well-made enough to hold up to decades of uninterrupted housing.

“Luxury” condos have nothing on early-20th brownstones of the working class. And that’s the problem.

I am having trouble reconciling the same people who rightly said that density over space are now claiming that the birthright of the middle class is the ownership of implied single family homes, presumably with spacious yards. No.

There is no class worth establishing that pines for the trappings of the rich. And there’s no need to establish it anyway, it already exists. That’s the upper middle class.

I cannot believe people are saying that waste is the only sign of being middle class that matters again. But, what’s worse, I can believe people are buying it.