ChosenOne wrote:>
> So, my first question, regarding the Death Eaters, I always thought they were flat
> out criminals and bad guys, and that admitting to STILL being a Death Eater landed
> you in Azkaban. But, now it appears that Death Eaters are more akin to, for example,
> the KKK - deplorable but not illegal. Is that an accurate read? If not, how are Malfoy,
> Crab, Goyle, etc. still allowed at Hogwarts despite their family ties?
>
> Similarly, with regard to Malfoy and speaking about Voldemort on the train, he proudly
> boasts about him. Again, isn't everyone outwardly "against" Voldemort? The train
> sequence made it seem like all Slytherin in attendance were "for" Voldemort.
The old belief that the sins of the father shouldn't be paid by their children. Malfoy and his crew are just being teenage edgelords at this point in the story. They're trying to come off as better than Harry and the rest of their classmates, acting like they back this true evil without fully comprehending the weight of the situation. We all knew kids in high school who would draw swastikas on a desk to seem like they didn't care about what society deemed "right" or "wrong" (at least, I did).
Most of the world
is against Voldemort, but just as in real life, there will always be that sect who need to go against the grain to feel superior to others. That's not necessarily to say that Malfoy and his pals don't share Lucius' ideals, but they themselves haven't carried out any truly deplorable criminal acts themselves, so there would be no reason to punish them or forbid them from attending school. Just look at Nazis, or any other real-world equivalent to Death Eaters... they themselves are the criminals, not their descendants. Some of those descendants may share the same gross beliefs, but plenty of them likely disavow them as well.
I forget if there are any blatant representations of this in the books, I know there aren't any in the movies, but within the lore of Harry Potter and the wizarding world, it's known that not every Slytherin is inherently evil. MOST of them are just normal wizards. Heck, even Harry was considered by the Sorting Hat to be placed in Slytherin. Slytherin himself was a big old racist, but I think in the "modern" day (or the 1990s, where the books take place), it's just Harry's class that gives the Slytherin House itself a bad name to us book readers. Classic Malfoy family.