[HPforGrownups] RE: Are all Slytherins rotten to the bone? etc.

[heidi tandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 8417


--- Amy Z <aiz24 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> -Are all Slytherins rotten . . . ?
> 
> <snip of description of good idea>
> 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.
> 
And as Cassandra & I have discussed numerous times,
this is exactly why some of us are so discomforted by
the idea that Draco may, in canon, turn out to be evil
in the end of Book 7 (or, worse, dead, and evil before
that, without ever having worn leather!) - I have a
very hard time with that thought - and I'm going to
discuss 2 things for a moment which influence how I
view slytherin in general & draco in particular -
first, an example that Penny will probably jump all
over...how many of you read the Little House books? 
Nellie Olsen is evil in the begining, and evil in the
end (of course, neither of her parents in the books
are portrayed as killers, whereas Lucius is at least
perfectly willing to stand around & watch a homicide)
- she's laura's foil, she's described in very
superficial ways at times, and she's mean, saracastic
and BLOND! You're supposed to dislike her (although in
the tv series, after she married the Nice Jewish Boy
from NYC, she turns into a terrifically sweet person &
great mother) because even Laura needs some teenage
angst and a romantic rival (although, of course,
Nellie Olsen as described never existed - she's a
combination of at least 2 girls Laura knew, but,
whatever)
Second - how many of you read both Interview with the
Vampire AND The Vampire Lestat. Slytherins are like
Lestat & the Paris vampires in Interview - we only see
them through the eyes of an outsider (louis) who makes
conclusions about them without haivng the correct
information and knowing the whole picture. Compare
this to Harry determining at the first dinner in Book
1 that the Slytherins look like an unplesant lot.
While we know more about individual slytherins in
harry's year than we do about, say Ravenclaws (only
one - Padma - has been mentioned by name) we don't
know anything from any perspective other than Harry's,
and he is, admittedly, biased against Slytherins,
given that TWELVE PLUS YEARS AGO, a lot of death
eaters were formerly of Slytherin House - which may
have some bearing on the current house given that many
of the death eaters have kids in that house (although
I'm looking for little Jenny McNair to be sorted into
Ravenclaw next year...) but doesn't necessarily mean
that those students will have to walk down the Path of
Evil.





=====
heidi tandy

What Maureen Dowd thinks David Souter was thinking on Monday, December 11, 2000: I know the Bushes are furious at me. That'll teach 'em to assume that a guy living like a monk in an isolated New Hampshire farmhouse is some kind of Live Free or Die nut.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online!
http://photos.yahoo.com/