Death Eaters and Ideology.
Death Eaters and Ideology - Fascism, Ultra-nationalism and the Cult of Personality.
Since I’ve been playing Rabastan Lestrange on Communiquills I’ve begun to spend more and more time debating with myself the nature of Death Eaters.
All too often Death Eaters appear in fiction as chauvinistic thugs - with no thought put into the political reasoning behind choices. They are simply mindless brutes.
I do not doubt that there are those in the organization for whom the very draw of the Death Eaters is this aggressive, violent aspect. We shall call this group the fascist element. They are the canon-fodder, the Brown Shirts, the thugs, the Crabbe and Goyle - they work upon the very basics of irrational emotion - anger and fear, and their cohesion in the group is based upon the collective “Unity through Struggle”. They are much like the groups of young men you may find throughout history, their anger and disillusionment makes them band together and together they feel a strength and a unity, and their inflated sense of power often irrupts into scenes of violence as they feel the need to impress each other and to show off.
In many ways the Voldemort is certainly fascist; he demands loyalty, duty, obedience and self-sacrifice in his name. Similarly weakness is despised and eliminated (Karkaroff being a perfect example). The Death Eaters as an organization seem deeply elitist and it would appear that those who rise to the top do so through struggle and ruthless ambition.
There is no doubting that the Death Eaters are a racialist group, they despise the taint of muggle blood but this does not make them as fascist as you might first think. There are those who do not fit into this simplistic, thuggish, anti-rational approach. I think here of those who come for the more enlightened sectors of pureblood society, the intelligent higher-classes - those who have had both affluent lives and excelled in their schooling.
I would call this group the ultra-nationalists. Their involvement comes from memories of a glorious past. Now the old families are in decline but the children of these families are still spoon-fed the stories of their ancestors and their glorious past and the inferiority of muggles and muggle blood, still spoilt and treated as little princess and princesses, and kept within their own circle so they are brought up completely brain-washed by their pureblood propaganda.
Thusly when they approach the outside world (in this case school and Hogwarts) they are put at odds with what they have been taught as they meet muggleborns and half-bloods (such as Lily Evans and Hermione Granger) who are smart, organized and do not adhere to the stereotypes of muggles or the social norms of pureblood society.
For some of these children the shock wears off and they revaluate their beliefs - either becoming more moderate or abandoning them all together (here we think of Sirius Black) but for others the shock becomes fear and fear becomes anger and they band together to protect themselves and their culture from the perceived threat that the inclusion of muggleborns and muggle society would bring. For some it stays only as suspicion and hostility but for others the anger builds up and they feel the need to express that anger and to belong to a group of like minded people.
They feel that they are simply protecting the pureblood nation, their race, form the aggressive tendencies of muggleborns and half-bloods who are eroding their customs, and they plan to restore their past greatness.
There is yet still a third possibility and that is the cult of personality. Voldemort takes such care to build up an image of himself, rather like the Spartan mirage, of a formidable and powerful wizard, almost invincible that it is possible that many Death Eaters are drawn to this oddly charismatic man (although, I hesitate with the use of the word man as it is clear he has not been one for years)
This, as I see it, are the three faces of Death Eater ideology.
Since I’ve been playing Rabastan Lestrange on Communiquills I’ve begun to spend more and more time debating with myself the nature of Death Eaters.
All too often Death Eaters appear in fiction as chauvinistic thugs - with no thought put into the political reasoning behind choices. They are simply mindless brutes.
I do not doubt that there are those in the organization for whom the very draw of the Death Eaters is this aggressive, violent aspect. We shall call this group the fascist element. They are the canon-fodder, the Brown Shirts, the thugs, the Crabbe and Goyle - they work upon the very basics of irrational emotion - anger and fear, and their cohesion in the group is based upon the collective “Unity through Struggle”. They are much like the groups of young men you may find throughout history, their anger and disillusionment makes them band together and together they feel a strength and a unity, and their inflated sense of power often irrupts into scenes of violence as they feel the need to impress each other and to show off.
In many ways the Voldemort is certainly fascist; he demands loyalty, duty, obedience and self-sacrifice in his name. Similarly weakness is despised and eliminated (Karkaroff being a perfect example). The Death Eaters as an organization seem deeply elitist and it would appear that those who rise to the top do so through struggle and ruthless ambition.
There is no doubting that the Death Eaters are a racialist group, they despise the taint of muggle blood but this does not make them as fascist as you might first think. There are those who do not fit into this simplistic, thuggish, anti-rational approach. I think here of those who come for the more enlightened sectors of pureblood society, the intelligent higher-classes - those who have had both affluent lives and excelled in their schooling.
I would call this group the ultra-nationalists. Their involvement comes from memories of a glorious past. Now the old families are in decline but the children of these families are still spoon-fed the stories of their ancestors and their glorious past and the inferiority of muggles and muggle blood, still spoilt and treated as little princess and princesses, and kept within their own circle so they are brought up completely brain-washed by their pureblood propaganda.
Thusly when they approach the outside world (in this case school and Hogwarts) they are put at odds with what they have been taught as they meet muggleborns and half-bloods (such as Lily Evans and Hermione Granger) who are smart, organized and do not adhere to the stereotypes of muggles or the social norms of pureblood society.
For some of these children the shock wears off and they revaluate their beliefs - either becoming more moderate or abandoning them all together (here we think of Sirius Black) but for others the shock becomes fear and fear becomes anger and they band together to protect themselves and their culture from the perceived threat that the inclusion of muggleborns and muggle society would bring. For some it stays only as suspicion and hostility but for others the anger builds up and they feel the need to express that anger and to belong to a group of like minded people.
They feel that they are simply protecting the pureblood nation, their race, form the aggressive tendencies of muggleborns and half-bloods who are eroding their customs, and they plan to restore their past greatness.
There is yet still a third possibility and that is the cult of personality. Voldemort takes such care to build up an image of himself, rather like the Spartan mirage, of a formidable and powerful wizard, almost invincible that it is possible that many Death Eaters are drawn to this oddly charismatic man (although, I hesitate with the use of the word man as it is clear he has not been one for years)
This, as I see it, are the three faces of Death Eater ideology.