[HPforGrownups] Re: Only Children/ Likeable Slytherins?

[heidit at netbox.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38020

: 
> --- 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.
> >>
> 

Penny wrote

> >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). 
> 

Playing devil's advocate here, I have to make a few points about the above 
argument:
1. That was only in the Sorting Hat's song first year - that concept wasn't 
in the song during their 4th year, although ambition was mentioned then. 
Would a 1st year who only hears that year's song think "Yes! I am ambitious! 
And I want to be with other ambitious people! Please! Slytherin! I'm not as 
clever as the ravenclaws or as brave as tehe Gryffindors or as hard working 
as the Hufflepuffs.I just want to be a best-selling romance novelist! Yes, I 
have ambition! Put me in Slytherin!" And if the Sorting Hat did the same 
thing it had done for Harry, would some sweet yet ambitious kid end up in 
Slytherin as a fluke? And what would happen to him once he did? The any means 
to achieve their ends thing would be completely unknown to them when they 
made their "wish", and the reign of Voldemort and Darkness might seem so 
remote as to not be a factor in the thinking about the houses. Even Hermione, 
when discussing houses in Book 1, never says, "And I wouldn't want to be in 
Slytherin - they're all dark and evil!" which might imply that even in 1991, 
what happened 10 years before is remote enough to not be an issue. Draco says 
he wants to be in Slytherin because all his family had been, not because 
they're all dark and evil. 

2. Yes, using any means to achieve one's ends could be a chilling concept; 
again, it depends on how you define it. And there are all sorts of wonderful 
goals in this world that have terrible potential pre-steps to achieving them. 
You want to cure all types of cancer? Great goal! But what if the main 
ingredient of the cure is fresh water - and you have to deplete the planet's 
stockpile to do it.  What if your goal is destroying an evil terrorist and 
his henchmen? Great goal! But what if you have to drop an atomic bomb on a 
city of one hundred thousand innocent people to do it? WHat if your goal is 
feeding all the hungry in the world? Great goal! But what if you have to feed 
them the dead bodies of other people to do it?

Ewww. 

But what if you want to get an illegal dragon off school propery? Great goal! 
But you have to sneak out of your down afterhours to do it. How many people 
on this list would think you evil? Or that you're using any means to achieve 
your ends? Quite.
But what if you want to enforce school rules? Great goal! But you have to 
sneak out of your dorm afterhours to do it. Not a problem! (see above) 
Unless, of course, you're in Slytherin, in which case it seems to be deemed a 
greater level of rulebreaking than the sneaking out that Harry did to get to 
the mirror of erised, or to send Norbert away, or to stop Snape from getting 
the stone (I know they didn't actually, but that's what they thought they 
were sneaking out to do).

I guess on an empirical level, taking someone else's Remembrall to stick it 
(unbroken!) up a tree is worse than stealing potions supplies from a 
professor so you can make a potion so you can sneak into someone else's dorm 
room so you can learn if he's the Heir of Slytherin. And it's possible that 
reporting a teacher to a staff member for being involved in a plot to steal a 
valuable stone is not as bad as trying to get a teacher fired from his 
position for incompetence. And kicking a cat is certainly not as bad as 
trying to get a Hippogryff decapitated, no matter what that Hippogryff did to 
you. 

And knocking a classmate out isn't as bad as insulting him.

Oh, wait, um, no. I'm not so sure about that last one.  Given that the 
stunning was inadvertent, and caused because of the simultaneous set of 
spells rather than the individual spells themselves, I can't personally 
determine that one is worse than another. But that's just because I still 
believe that "Sticks & Stones" rhyme, and think that giving someone the 
Furnunculus curse because he insulted you isn't as practical as shoving him 
out the door and spell-locking it so he can't get back in. But that 
wouldn't've been half as dramatic as it was.  

> 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

Okay, I clearly missed this part among the students who are currently there. 
Can you show me some scenes in canon which show Slytherins doing things (i.e. 
not just *saying* things)  in which they're venturing into morally black 
areas? I guess possibly the scene where 4 of them dress as Dementors to freak 
Harry out, but they clearly knew they wouldn't be able to have the power to 
suck out his happy thoughts and make him see horrible things, and they 
already knew that Dumbledore would be able to stop him if he fell.  And I 
certainly don't think that Dumbledore considered some of the things that 
H-R-H do as mild rulebreaking - look at his reaction when Ron and Harry flew 
to school! 

All this is meant to say is that I don't think that we can look at Slytherins 
as "all black" (no reference to the NZ team here) without seeing a little 
more of the current crop of students. 

heidi


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