It's not confirmed, but it's not denied either.

 

Stories in which the Potters survive, what ever the circumstances the survival was dependent on.

Why does Sirius Black stay unmarried in all of them. I hardly think he would have remained unmarried had he survived 1981 events without much damage.

 

I don't know why should he be married, Pontifex.

 

Because even Remus Fucking Lupin got married and most wizards in canon got married, leaving gay!Dumbledore and asexual Voldemort. Hell, even Bellatrix got married.

 

That may be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. No lie.

 

Topic change.

A new personal favorite Pet-Peeve of mine which really made me WTF!!

Caring Dementors. I am sure you folks ran across this fic.

Really, what's next, 'Spooning Inferi'?

 

Friendly Goblins, obviously.

Oh wait.

 

Don't forget the misunderstood DE's.

 

Woah, woah, wait a sec.

Saying all Death Eaters are kind, cuddly people is one (very stupid) thing. However, I personally like the idea that perhaps not all of the DEs are sadistic, evil motherfuckers.

I don't like the world to be split into pure black (all DEs are teh evilz!!1!) and white (the good side can do no wrong), and this is in fact one of the major themes of my story (albeit one that hasn't really presented itself yet). This is ironic considering that I've been a very black-and-white worldview kind of guy for most of my life.

 

Do name a DE who isn't a sadistic motherfucker. Even Regulus Black must have committed several atrocities before and after he got the mark. The only reason he bailed out is perhaps because he found out about horcruxes and the abominations they were.

Don't even tell me of the DE's imprisoned in Azkaban. The ones who got out in Imperius defense aren't all white either. Look at Malfoy and the scum bag he is. The only Death Eater who wasn't a sadistic bastard was perhaps Draco Malfoy.

 

I'll name the ones we know in canon to be sadistic motherfuckers. The Lestranges. Barty Crouch, Jr. The Carrows. Arguably Dolohov and Macnair.

How about the ones who aren't? Snape. The Malfoys.

And the ones we don't know enough to judge one way or the other? Rookwood. Pettigrew. Avery. Rosier. Regulus.

All of these are just off the top of my head. I'd say there's a fair bit of leeway. Judging them all to be undeniably, absolutely evil is childish and a cop-out that ignores the intricacies of real-life human beings. It's also boring. In fact, I'd say that straight up condemning all DEs as evil is a pet peeve of my own.

Why must he have committed several atrocities? Are you privy to information we're not?

Scumbag? Probably. Bastard? Yeah, I could buy that. Sadistic? Not really, no. It's shown that he cares for his wife and son, and while I don't think he should have gotten off scot free as he did in canon, saying he's as evil and vile as the Lestranges or Voldemort is just silly.

 

Severus Snape was a full fledged Death Eater before the prophecy was given. After that, he channeled all his bitterness and cruelty into bullying children.

As for Lucius Malfoy, there is no canon proof that he wasn't sadistic either. He was willing to kill off innocent students just to further his agenda of removing Dumbledore as the headmaster. What more do you want?

Cared for family? I see. Just because Lucius loved his son and wife, it doesn't change him from being the scum bag he is.

As for Rookwood, he was primarily a spy, not a full fledged DE in action.

Comparing everyone to Lestranges and Voldemort is like comparing the entire order to Mad-Eye and Dumbledore.

Still, everyone is entitled to their opinions.

What I meant were the stories the Dark Side is right and 'light wizards' are the ones oppressing the dark wizards and they revolted. Since I don't want to enter a light and dark magic discussion, I think I've made my point.

 

I can see both sides here - on the one hand, it's reasonable to assume that Voldemort would have demanded some test of service before he allowed Death Eaters into his inner circle, and it stands to reason that Voldemort's test would be brutal, likely testing the Death Eater's constitution, power, and devotion to the Dark Lord's cause. And yes, it's reasonable to assume that most Death Eaters are likely corrupt, sadistic, hateful, or generally insane - they'd have to be to survive as Death Eaters and follow Voldemort's twisted plans.

However, just defining them as murderous scumbags devoid of personality beyond 'they're evil, therefore they die' is sloppy characterization at best and terrible writing at worst. Why? Because it's boring, like mknote said. There's more to be found in villains that have subtext or rationale behind their actions, 'evil' as they might be. Hell, I wrote an entire story based around that principle (Speak Softly, Love). If I wanted to go even further on this, I'd say that one of the most compelling elements of a story can be a conflict where the main hero and the main villain have similar motives or methods, enough to draw that uncomfortable moral parallel.

You want examples? One of the reasons Snape is such a fascinating character is because he's not a one-dimensional sadistic motherfucker, and I'd argue Malfoy fits a similar (albeit less-complex) bill. And while we might not get much information on the rest of the Death Eaters, they're just as human and complex as Snape and Malfoy, and probably have more buzzing beneath the surface that most authors dare to consider. Fuck, I'd probably even toss Bellatrix onto the list, because you have to wonder the causes behind her seething insanity (home environment, born mentally disturbed - her fetish for violence and torture had to come from somewhere).

Hell, as one-dimensionally evil as Voldemort is, I'd reckon there's still personality there to be mined, the mind of a prodigy-academic turned terrorist. There's a lot of potential to be explored in that sort of characterization, and while he might be the closest definition to 'evil', there's more to him besides that. It's still fine to treat him as evil, just make it interesting. The approach of branding them all as uniformly 'evil' does a disservice to the characters and make them feel much less real. And as intimidating as implacable evil characters might be, implacable evil yet very recognizably human characters can induce terror and fear on a much more complex level. I'd argue one of the best (or at least most memorable) scenes I ever wrote was the 'waffle scene' with Voldemort and Barnabus Cuffe in Renegade Cause, because it played on the element that Voldemort was both human and above humanity, and thus all the more terrifying.

 

My impression of both Voldemort and Bellatrix is that they are more insane than evil, whereas Lucius is more of a calculating bastard who sees it as a perfectly reasonable course of action to kill a few "mudblood" kids to get to Dumbledore. I find it very hard to see redeeming qualities in him; Draco and Narcissa and Snape yes, but not Lucius.

Same goes to Umbridge: she's IMHO one of the most evil characters in the whole series.

Although it might just be that my definition of evil simply doesn't comply with the general use...

 

Super! Harry. Without a time-travel element in it or very specific unique idea or element, the idea is utterly ridiculous. It is not possible for a 16 year old boy to rival Dumbledore and Voldemort in power and skill, especially one as unmotivated as Harry Potter.

As for Umbridge, no matter what happened to her that rooted the seeds of hatred of everything not pure-blood, she is irredeemable in every possible way. She needs to die a painful death mauled by Greyback or get locked up in Azkaban for the rest of her life.

Draco had the element of redeeming because Voldemort's return coincided with his teen years. If Voldemort returned like 5-6 years later, Draco would have been just like his father.

As for other Death Eaters, whatever their reasons might be for turning towards Voldemort, they murder and torture innocent people just for fun and furthering an agenda that may or may not be the one they truly believe in.

But yeah. While most of them are sadistic bastards, some might have gotten themselves into the mess by accident or by a decision they took in anger or emotional turmoil and exploring them would add a dimension to any story.

In a way, Voldemort was right. There is nothing called completely good or evil.

 

Déjà vu

10chars

 

While I agree that villains that are defined beyond 'evil' are the most interesting ones they only remain so as long as they remain both villains and evil. Just because something can be explained does not mean it can be justified much less forgiven.

So yeah while I do like things beyond black and white leaving any of the named DEs from canon alive beyond Voldemort's death is doing away with white entirely. A great idea if that is the message you are intending to give(and if black is also removed) but almost no one actually intends on that being the message.

It is why when I finished reading the 7th book I couldn't consider it a happy ending. Pretty much everyone who deserved to live(or at least a second chance) died while a lot of those who deserved to die are still alive.

 

Of course Voldemort was right.

 

Not to argue about the concept of redeemable DEs, but even in the canon I took issue with Snape being 'redeemed'.

I know that a bunch of mindfucked fan girls (and fan boys) drool over Snape and his 'redemption'. However, I just don't get it. Snape wasn't acting out of the goodness of his heart. He only did what he did because he felt guilty about Lily's death. He didn't give a shit about Harry and, IMHO, he had forced himself to become indifferent about pureblood superiority in order to serve Dumbledore (or continued to support it, but did make his beliefs known to Dumbledore).

Severus Snape was never redeemed, damn it!

He was self-serving and a vindictive asshole to the very end. Just because he loved Lily and felt guilt over her death (he didn't ask Dumbledore to save James or Harry's lives) doesn't mean that all the horrible deeds he carried out throughout his life - as a DE, in the intermittent time between wars, and during Voldemort's second rise - is canceled out by the fact that he's capable of obsessively loving a women from practically his childhood to his last breath.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves.

TL;DR - Snape isn't a nice guy - never was and probably never would have been.

 

And that's one of my many beefs with DH: JK took a potentially deep and interesting character into a shallow and petty man, something I intend to rectify in my fic.