Only Children/ Likeable Slytherins?

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 38018

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Hana" <gohana_chan02 at l...> wrote:
> >The Sorting Hat itself doesn't give much away, only telling us of 
>their ambition, although the first Sorting Hat song does make the 
>chilling assertion that they will use any means to achieve their 
>ends.
> >
> >Eloise
> 
> I find this statement interesting.  The part about ambition isn't a 
problem -- after all, just because someone is ambitious, doesn't mean 
they're evil.  Wanting to eliminate evil threats, or stop wars, or 
become the best wizard/witch are all ambitions that might be 
considered noble.
> 
> The part about the ends justifying the means being "chilling" is 
really interesting.  You're making it sound very evil (which, granted 
it can be) but isn't that what Harry and friends do in every single 
book?  In PS/SS they sneak out after hours, they enter the forbidden 
corridor, they snoop for information when told not to (many times), 
they break past the traps to get to the stone, they trick Hagrid into 
giving information away etc.  The end result -- keeping the stone 
from Voldemort -- is very noble but they break a lot of rules to do 
so, not caring about the means as long as Voldemort is stopped. 
> 
> There are a lot of other examples -- the polyjuice potion and all 
the stolen ingredients, Ron and Harry using the car to get to 
Hogwarts, helping Norbert escape, cheating by cooperating to find out 
how to do the tasks in GoF -- the list goes on and on.  If those 
aren't examples of the ends justifying the means I don't know what 
are.  
> 

Well, some ends justify some means, but to use *any* means to achieve 
your end? That *is* chilling (I'm relying on the above quote, I 
haven't the books here with me). 

Besides, the things you enumerate are really very mild rule breaking 
on H R& R part. The point about the Slytherins is, I think, that they 
are willing to do things that are clearly not moral in order to 
achieve their goals. Any person might sometimes ventures into morally 
grey areas, especially when trying to achieve an important goal, but 
the Slytherins are depicted as people who easily go into morally 
black (=obviously wrong) areas when it comes to fulfilling an 
ambition. 


Naama
taking this opportunity to agree with Jo about Draco, nasty little 
brute that he is!