Are all Slytherins rotten to the bone? etc.

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 8217

-Are all Slytherins rotten . . . ?

I firmly believe NO.  Not only for the excellent reason given by Christian 
(most Slytherin students applauding Harry in CoMC class) but also because of 
what the Sorting Hat says:  Griffindors are brave, Hufflepuffs hard-working, 
Ravenclaws smart, Slytherins ambitious.  I'm not taking the SH's view as 
gospel--after all, it wouldn't be very nice if it sang about how this was 
the house for evil, power-mad sadists, so maybe it's being tactful.  But 
I'll go with it because I like the idea that there is nothing inherently 
wrong with ambition.  As we know, Harry is pretty proud, ambitious, and 
driven himself (maybe that's why the SH considered putting him in 
Slytherin).  Those qualities are good servants, bad masters; without strong 
moral fiber to keep them in their place, they tend to make someone 
dangerous.

I prefer this idea because otherwise we're left with the idea that about 25% 
of incoming Hogwarts students are evil to start with, at the tender age of 
11 no less.  I think character is much more malleable than that, and 
furthermore, that ambitious and tempted-to-the-Dark-Side characters are way 
more interesting than through-and-through evil-from-the-start characters.

-Number of students cont'd

>Also, remember that Hogwarts is *large* - Professor Flitwick's office is 
>located
>on the
>seventh floor, and this is described as being one of the "...upper floors 
>of the
>castle",
>not just a single tower (Both informations from 'PoA Chapter Twenty-one -
>Hermione's
>Secret').  It is not even specified as being the top floor.

We do have to remember that the professors *live* there.  Their homes are 
usually referred to interchangeably as their "offices" (e.g. with Trelawney 
and Lupin, though Snape, for one, seems to have a separate office and 
apartment, judging from the break-in in "The Egg and the Eye," GoF).  So the 
building is not only a school, with classrooms, dormitories, etc., but 
includes full apartments for all the faculty, minus Hagrid.  That takes up a 
lot of square footage, even with a bunch of unmarried, childless faculty 
(well, maybe Sinistra and other little-known profs are married and JKR just 
doesn't want to get into that).  And those 100+ house-elves have to live 
somewhere.  ;-)

>I think what Rowling has done to a degree basically equals what is known in
>model
>railroading as 'selective compression'.  The concept is that you show 
>enough of
>the scene
>so that it is recoganisable to the viewer/reader, but you do not show it 
>all, as
>that
>would take to much space.

Absolutely.  Just because we only know 3 4th-year Griffindor girls doesn't 
mean there are only three.  Same goes for the boys, even.  But other 
evidence suggests there are only about 20 students per class per house 
(class size, e.g.).  I go with the "Jo said 1000 off the top of her head" 
theory.

Although I love the HWMNBN-as-Herod theory!  The end of PS all but promises 
we'll learn one day why V wanted to kill Harry in the first place.  We might 
be nibbling around the mystery here.

>Flying doesn't seem to last all year.

This seems likely, but I don't think we can know; we can't go by Harry, who 
proves to be a natural so he never takes lessons again.

Amy

- - - - - - - - - -
"And on Wednesday, I think I'll come off worst in a fight."
"Aaah, I was going to have a fight.  Okay, I'll lose a bet."
"Yeah, you'll be betting I'll win my fight. . . ."
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