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A relevant comment was posted by Rakso5809:

Snape fails point one too, because his background is culturally relevant. He’s a man who grew up in the brutal, gritty poverty of Cokeworth, a fictional former factory settlement, dominated even years later by the smell of coal and soot, broken, cobbled stones and the chimney of an old mill looming over the whole area. He’s a representative of this British subculture, a child whose parents never managed to escape poverty, despite the mother being a witch. His character was formed by his abusive childhood under a father who represents this impoverished lowest cast of a society who moved on from them and forgot them. That history is defined by certain traits Snape absolutely personified in the books. The harsh and unforgiving treatment of children, as he himself experienced it during his youth as a standard he could never shake, the ruthless bitterness, the lack of emotional regulation. That’s all part of this heritage we learn about in The Half Blood Prince. He’s a remnant victim of strict authoritarian upbringing, of a father who most likely compensated the shame about unemployment by excessive drinking, and the poverty grown from industrial revolution and technology. There were no blacks in those communities, and they were often incredibly racist and bigoted, breeding grounds for nationalism and extremism. It’s a culture that bred the hooligans and Britain’s white supremacist equivalents.

So it adds a very important baseline for the character of Severus Snape, it explains why he was drawn to Voldemort, who provided scapegoats he could blame for all his misfortunes, and offered a alluringly easy way out of his misery.

It makes his eventual betrayal of the Death Eaters so much more impressive. Very few young men ever managed to leave those hate groups in real life. They rarely ever get out. It shows why he could never overcome his bitterness, he’d never learned how to do it. It explains why he hates Harry so much. With his authoritarian upbringing, Harry seemed weak, snobbish, ungrateful for all the attention he got and all the chances he had. Coming from a London suburban area, Harry was the impersonation of everything Snape grew up to despite, and he couldn’t see Harry’s suffering as it was, due to his own harsh background.

The host agreed that he did miss that, as he isn’t from England, and thus the swap actually does break all five rules.

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About ShadowWing Tronix

A would be comic writer looking to organize his living space as well as his thoughts. So I have a blog for each goal. :)

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