I'm really sick of seeing pureblood apologism and classism in fanfics.

I read a fic a few weeks back where Harry became alienated from his friends and started chumming up with Slytherins. All good... up until a rape is brushed off as 'He is pureblood. He can't be charged for raping a muggleborn. Its his birthright as a pureblood to rape muggleborns'.

99% of Slytherin!Harry fics where the purebloods are just poor misunderstood rich bigots. That's why I don't read many Slytherin!Harry fics. They tend to idealize the so called pureblood values and bigot attitudes.

The worst is when people somehow make out that muggles/muggleborns/halfbloods/whoever else the raving, racist terrorist brigade despise are the actual bad guys, that fear of nuclear annihilation (for example) is enough reason for Voldemort to murder a whole bunch of people and take over the Ministry, for the protection of wizardkind.

Classifying people by their quality of blood, and treating anyone who's not in your special inbred corner as second class, murdering or throwing them in prison when you have the power, and otherwise causing murder and mayhem is definitely wrong and it really bothers me that so many authors don't seem to see that.

In Harry Potter, the pureblood faction is mostly a bunch of violent, sadistic, racist scumbags, and should never be apologised for.

 

I mean, how is this not a direct analogy for the real world? Treating people based on race and appearance is hardly new. Enough people believe similar things about our world today, and not in a fictional story environment. It's totally ok for you to be bothered by this, but I would question your surprise.

 

I hate to break it to you man, but you found a kink fic, not a regular fic.

 

Don't confuse apology and explanation. The best stories are the one where the antagonists are NOT evil just for the sake of being evil, but have at least understandable reasons for acting the way they do. So giving the Death Eater faction (no amalgams, bro ) justifications (whether you agree with them or not) gives them a little depth. That's the problem with canon, I think.

Of course, that also makes it non-canon, since as Innomine said, canon Death Eaters are a metaphor for blind racism so they're just bad. It's perfect if you want a black-and-white world, but nothing forces you to respect that in fanfiction, if it's done well (which doesn't seem the case in your examples, granted).

 

Maybe but a lot of things like Marriage contracts, Harems etc don't really exist in real life as much as they do in fanfics. They are apologized for just like people who do the House-Elf bond trope do for slavery.
--- Post automerged ---

Really? Blood purity is as stupid as is sounds in the books and makes everyone who believes in it basically a idiot.
--- Post automerged ---

"The mudbloods ruin our culture, so we must kill them!"

I just dislike this kind of fic severly, because very often it feels like the author has put no thoughts in the implications of what he's writing down, and hasn't thought things through.

 

You okay OP? You seem upset.

 

The Death Eaters and Voldemort have parallels in their ideology with the Nazis , and it really bothers me that so many authors don't seem to see that.

 

Author, welcome to fanfiction, where 99% is pure shit and most authors just write wish-fulfillment without consider the implications of their written work.

RobSt is the example of how low fanfiction fell.

 

I'm yet to find a fic that explains a legitimate reason there is such a backlash by purebloods that has some sort of logic behind it. There's often some root cause or underlying conflict behind racism or prejudice. Humans need to have some rationale for what they're doing. Evidently there's a large majority that, while not death eaters, are slightly prejudiced against Muggleborns. And that's certainly true of Modern society as well. Humans need to have some rationale for what they're doing. It might not even be true (often it isnt) but we dont even get that in canon.

 

This is the equivalent of getting triggered by Skyrim because the Stormcloaks remind you of the IRA.

Getting offended by this shit doesn't make you some paragon of virtue, it just makes you an entirely dull individual who would rather read about black and white caricatures than a story with depth.

 

Well, technically it's the correct interpretation, as it's the canon interpretation. DEs are parallel to the Nazis, just like Harry has his mother's eyes or Snape's hair is greasy. So I'm not sure how it's a caricature?

We know for a fact that every house-elf we see outside of Hogwarts (Dobby, Winky) is at least kinda unhappy, one going as far as hurting himself just to disobey, and literally dying for the one who freed him. I find it really I find it really hard to say it's not slavery. They are forced to obey, can't get out, and sometimes hate it. It's really not cool. The real issue is that even if it is necessary, many authors don't see fit to allow Hermione to push for Elf rights or whatever, and like you say, have Harry smack her opinions down and generally be a condescending asshole.
--- Post automerged ---

Authors are blatant saying, "I think they were correct, I think all mudbloods should be killed, go Voldemort!" then by openly supporting their racist views - and crucially - trying to convince the reader that that racism is somehow correct. Surely you can see immediately why people like me would interpret those arguments badly.

What I'm hoping for in voicing my perspective on how apologism for the Purebloods can sound is for more authors to consider their words, and the way in which they present obviously evil characters like the DEs as sympathetic, the protagonists, or even heroes. Taking HP canon as-is, not changing a thing but then somehow insinuating that the DEs are the good-guys is just poor writing, to me, and it takes considerable effort (in my reading experience anyhow, as I'm not a great writer) for an author to present such a blatantly antagonistic character/faction as something the reader should be supporting.

 

The point being made is that the canon depiction of black and white villains and good guys is the caricature and making the debate more nuanced in an AU fanfic is an improvement, not something to be avoided.

Shifting the debate to mirror current immigration debates (centred around culture and economics) rather than depicting the position as a racial philosophy is one way to achieve this.

 

I'm not advocating censorship, although it absolutely sounds like I am. You can write what you want but the whole pureblood misunderstood trope makes no sense logically and most authors of the genre use nonsensical reasons to justify it.

Not really immigration makes no sense as it's not as if muggleborns choose to immigrate - they are born into the society, just never informed of that until they reach Hogwarts.

 

Factually wrong: Winky is only unhappy after she gets fired, exactly when she goes to Hogwarts. Hokey is very happy with Hepzibah Smith and traumatized to think she caused her death. Kreacher is quite happy until he works for Sirius and then Harry. Dobby is the only one clearly unhappy with the House Elf system, with a cave-at that Kreacher wants to choose his master (or mistress, in this case).
Maybe you don't agree with what they call happiness, but since you mention condescending assholes, telling someone that their definition of happiness is not valid because "they don't know any better" is kind of the epitome of that.

Seriously, what kind of shitfics do you have to read to think this is the standard for Slytherin!Harry? I don't even remember reading something bad enough that they portrayed canonish DEs and then went "this is fine". Most of the time, DE-oriented fics rewrite all their ideology and propaganda, if not their actions, to give it a reasonable basis. These fics wants to make the "rich and beautiful aristocrats" right in everything as a kind of wish-fulfillment, not make the canon Death Eaters right.

 

If they are treated as property, have no rights and cannot leave someone's employ when they want to, then it's slavery. That Hermione is the only one to call it that just means that either everyone else is a dumb idiot, an evil asshole, or both - or that JKR fucked up her world building and characterisation, again.

Being dependent on someone doesn't give them any right to enslave you. Hermione trying to free the elves is completely in the right - as Dobby proves, they can work for others out of their own free will, without dying or needing to be enslaved.

I really wish people would stop making up reasons to excuse house-elf slavery. Dobby absolutely proves that House-elves do not need to be enslaved to survive or be happy. Which means there is no excuse for enslaving them.

I mainly read these in Slytherin Harry fics where Harry joins Slytherin becomes sympathetic to purebloods and eventually the death eaters eventually becoming a Dark Wizard himself. The reason for this pureblood apologism might be canon. Rowling repeatedly said that not all slytherins are evil, but she still made every slytherin boy in Harry's year a blood purist. Even Slughorn and Snape, who are used as examples for good slytherins, seem to agree with blood purity to a certain degree so the authors feel they are hard done by and in response is the apologism.

 

Lucius planted Riddle's journal in Hogwarts in an attempt to re-open the Chamber of Secrets, knowing it would lead to the deaths of innocent children including his own son if it succeeded. He is definitely evil as fuck.

Pets are not sapient. If they were, keeping them as pets would be slavery. House-elves are clearly sapient.