[HPforGrownups] Re: Could Salazar Slytherin be nice?

[Bethany]

No: HPFGUIDX 26861


--- mellienel2 at yahoo.com wrote:
> > 
> > Right - I think Slytherin was indeed a good
> person. Just that each 
> > founder of the Hogwarts had different values and
> different code of 
> > ethics with "Ends justify the means" being
> whole-hartedly accepted 
> by 
> > Slytherins...
> 
> Could slytherin have possibly been a good person if
> he employed the 
> use of a basilisk to kill non pureblooded wizards,
> or hid it in 
> Hogwarts for his descendant to use?
> 
> I'm doubtful...
> 
> m. 
In all fairness, we really don't know the reason that
Salazar created the Chamber or placed the basilisk
within it. We know that around the time of his break
with the Founders, that there were problems with
persecution among Muggles. Perhaps it was meant as a
defence in case of something like the Burning Times,
but it was never used because either it's existence
wasn't known of, or it was too feared. In Fantastic
Beasts, the point is made that the basiisk is as
dangerous to most Dark Wizards as anyone else and only
a Parselmouth can control one. Perhaps Slytherin was
much like our beloved Hagrid and had a softspot for
monsters and never meant any harm. After he hatched
the basilisk he may have realized it was a mistake,
but have been unable to convince himself to destroy it
settling instead for locking it away in a chamber only
he or a protegee/descendant of his could open not
knowing that Riddle would use it for evil twice.
Everything else could have been made up by those that
came after he died.
 This is of course nothing more than speculation until
JKR opens the door a bit further and we are allowed to
glimpse a little more of what the Founders were like
other than qualities they wanted their students to
have. It very well could be that Slytherin was evil,
but until proven wrong, I prefer to think of him as an
okay guy who got a bad name.
~Bethany (who always looks for the good in the "bad
guy" esp. Severus Snape, Sirius Black, and Draco
Malfoy)  ;)


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