Houses - Accidental Death Eater - Oily, Slimey, Greasey -

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 22590

Monika wrote:
> Catlady wrote:
> > Hermione ASKED the Hat to put her in Gryffindor 
> Now did she? She wanted to be in Gryffindor, sure,
> but I think all the asking was at Harry's side!

We only heard the conversation the Hat had with Harry, not with the
other students, but I believe it is a safe assumption that it conversed
with all of them. Hermione may not have said/thought "Please. Mr. Hat,
sort me into Gryffindor", but as we know that she wanted Gryffindor (she
said so on the train) and we know what human beings are like, it is
certain that she was thinking "What House will I go into? I *hope* it's
Gryffindor" and of course the Hat heard. In fact, I think the reason the
Hat took so long to Sort Neville is that Neville was thinking "Of course
it's going to be Hufflepuff, I can't ever do anything even though I try
my best', and the Hat had to argue him into accepting Gryffindor. "I'm
not good enough for Gryffindor, I'm just a superklutz almost-Squib."

Susanna wrote:
> there is one verse in the hat's song that 
> says that Slytherins "will use any means to
> achieve their ends". (snip) This touch of 
> macchiavellism without any scruples certainly
> is a main characteristic of the Slytherins 
> and I can't think of any argument to defend it.
> Ambition and determination are not bad *per se*, 
> but achieving your aim over the dead bodies of 
> others *is*.

The Hat exaggerated a little: not ALL Slytherins have NO scruples: there
is Snape, feeling free to verbally beat up on students, but not to give
Hermione on F on her essays just because he hates her. This can be
interpreted as 'his end is to (get whatever) while keeping his personal
ethics'.

> Did I miss something? What do you mean by "accident"??????

You didn't miss anything in canon. Canon has told us nothing about why
Snape joined the Death Eaters, and not much about why he left them. You
MAY have missed that when I said 'by accident', I was referring to Dane
having said: "then finding themselves drawn in to the abyss". I was
interpreting 'in the abyss' as 'having joined the Death Eaters' and the
rest of the phrase as 'by accident', that is, not on purpose. 

Dane said: " Given the house personalities, [Slytherin] people are
risk-takers --living life on the edge types--those who would be drawn,
not necessarily to evil, but to the thrill of the unknown, then finding
themselves drawn in to the abyss." That is, they are thrill-seekinn
rule-breakers -- much like my image of Sirius as a young man: in my own
life, when I was that age, there were certain incidents of driving very
fast on twisty, narrow, mountain roads with a deep fall on one side, in
which we were being stupid, not evil. 

Imagine a person with a good career who is breadwinner for a family, and
one day she is driving fast because it is so fun, and she accidentally
hits and kills a child who had no business running out into the street
without looking, and she makes another wrong decision by fleeing the
scene: hit and run. Now she will surely be identified, convicted, and do
prison time. She's terrified of prison and worried who will support her
children without her, and decides that 'desperate times require
desperate measures' and she will bribe a judge to be let off. ANOTHER
felony. Then someone tries to blackmail her about the bribery, and she,
maybe in a temper tantrum rather than premeditation, kills the
blackmailer. At this point, she believes she is in too deep to ever get
out and resigns herself to living a life of crime, and maybe joins an
organized crime 'family' to do it more efficiently and safely.

I imagine that Sevvie and Petie each has his own history of being slowly
seduced by the Dark Side, step by step by step, but that isn't in canon.
Sevvie has proved that Petie, and the Muggle in the mini-fic above, were
wrong: there is NO too deep to get out. There is always the option of
confessing, apologizing, and taking one's punishment: Azkaban, Muggle
prison, death by vengeful former associates, etc. 

Amy Z wrote:

> Rita wrote:
> > I image Snape as being the only person who 
> > joined the Death Eaters by accident...
> Tell us more--how did that happen? 

It's described in detail in Severus's reminiscences in Episode One of my
fic BAD DREAMS, which has long been available at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_FanFiction/files/Catlady%27s%20Stories/
altho' I took the opportunity for more proof-reading when I made a new
copy to be posted in the upcoming FictionAlley site. Surely you don't
have something against reading slash?

My Lilyfic is going to show Peter's downfall as it happens, that is
**IF* I ever finish the Snapefic and go back to working on the Lilyfic.

Monika wrote:
> And that's a canon statement that keeps 
> bothering me. OK for the greasy hair, but 
> "slimy" and "oily"? I'm not a native speaker 
> (yes, I know you've guessed it already, reading
> my semi-English posts), but my vocabulary explains
> that "slimy" is "disgustingly dishonest, flattering,
> hipocritical" and "oily" means "trying to hard to
> win favour by flattery" [Oxford Advanced Learner's 
> Dictionary, 1989]. That may describe Snape's 
> attitude torwards Malfoy well, but in my opinion 
> Snape wasn't trying hard to win Hermione's favour 
> when he told her: "I can see no difference" :-) 

I guess I accept your dictionary's definition of 'oily' in the
metaphorical sense: I would say 'oily' to describe the way Nott spoke to
Voldemort in the Death Eater circle in the graveyard: giving the soft
answer that turns away wrath. (If I punned on 'soft-soap answer', most
of the native speakers of English wouldn't understand it either.) I feel
more emphasis on the avoidance of punishment than on the winning of
favor, and using more forms of manipulation than just flattery alone.

I took Sirius's 'oily' to be as literal a description of Snape's skin as
'greasy' was of his hair, altho' there could also be an implication of a
kid who unfairly gets the teachers on his side, such as tattling on his
enemies so they get punished, but fast-talking his way out of his own
punishment. That type of oily person only spends the oil on important
people, his superiors (permanent superior: the Headmaster, temporary
superior: the man who is pointing a loaded gun at him) and doesn't waste
it on his inferiors (such as students).

Sirius probably said 'slimy' just to mean 'disgusting', rather than
specifying what type of disgusting. I can't agree with your dictionary
about the definition of 'slimy' in the metaphorical sense. It means
disgusting. Like saying to an unwanted suitor: "Get your slimy hands off
me before I vomit!" It also means 'disgustingly dishonest' and sometimes
'hypocritical', as in saying about a politician: "I hate being on the
same side as someone so slimy". "Disgustingly dishonest' but not
particularly 'hypocritical' is saying "His business practises are so
slimy that I don't know how he can stand to look in the mirror when he
shaves". I just don't find anything about flattery in the word 'slimy'. 
------------------------------------------------------------------
R ighteous
A ttractive
V ictorious
E ager
N atural
C lassy
L echerous
A mazing
W ise
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