Sorting Hat/Likeable Slytherin

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38035

I wrote (on the Sorting Hat choosing for the students):
> 
> > Maybe Parvati had always relied on Padma to do the thinking and 
> > Padma relied on Parvati to do the talking; both would develop
> > better if forced to rely on themselves.
> 
To which Catlady responded:

> Why didn't the same happen to Fred and George?
> 
I think the problem here is where to put the other twin.  Ambitious as I 
think they are, I can't see Fred going off to Slytherin; I think he could go 
astray rather easily there.  Ravenclaw, perhaps, based on their wit, but F&G 
are a two-man comedy team and it might have lost its punch.  No, I think the 
Sorting Hat couldn't find any other good fit for either of the twins.  
Nevertheless, I think it would have been a good idea to separate them  
(extrapolating from my own childhood experience where twins were always 
separated in school with, I think good results, and my own daughter's 
school's reluctance to separate twins and consequent classroom difficulties 
with their classroom behavior).

I wrote:
> 
> > Might the Sorting Hat be the agent of this plan? The Founders 
> > invested the hat with their collective wisdom (and, I'll bet, a
> > good chunk of their formidable magical powers). 
> 
Catlady:

> I am reluctant to trust a plan that includes Salazar Slytherin's 
> wisdom. The other Founders eventually threw him out...  
> 
Actually, I thought about whether it was a concern that some of Salazar's 
brains are in the Sorting Hat. But the Founders had to have put together the 
Sorting Hat before the rift developed between Salazar and the others.  Prof. 
Binns states that the founders worked in harmony together for a few years 
before the disagreement arose between Salazar and the others on the pureblood 
issue.  Binns says Salazar believed muggle-borns to be untrustworthy; Binns 
also says that it was a time when witches and wizards suffered much 
persecution, so concern about the trustworthiness of Muggle-borns does not 
seem like an indicator of evil; it sounds like a legitimate (though wrong) 
point of view.  Binns does not say that Slytherin was thrown out, only that 
he left, but obviously under such antipathy that he built the Chamber of 
Secrets, I assume for revenge. So I don't think the chain of events leads 
inevitably to the conclusion that Slytherin was inherently evil, since the 
other founders worked amicably with him for years, and since the timeline 
suggests that this was when the Sorting Hat was created.  If they had done it 
later, Slytherin would have been left out of the hat altogether, and he 
clearly was not or there would be no Slytherin House.

Also, the hat itself belonged to Godric Gryffindor, which gives me some 
comfort.

Heidi on evilly ambitious Slytherins:

> 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 
> 

The phrasing of Slytherin characteristics in PS/SS really bothers me, as it 
suggests that the defining characteristic of Slytherin house is the lack of 
moral guidelines to one's decisionmaking; anything is acceptable if necessary 
to achieve one's objectives, whatever they may be.  Nevertheless, nowhere 
does it say in canon that all Slytherins are evil (and Sirius doubted that 
even Snape was a DE).  But whether or not the statement should be taken at 
face value, ambition is more morally ambiguous than the defining 
characteristics of the other houses; thus it is likely that persons of lesser 
moral scruples will be well suited to Slytherin.  Thus, the Slytherins we see 
seem to have a harder edge than some of the others.  These are not people I'd 
like to spend time negotiating with.  But I think the Hat doesn't let the 
student choose (and the sweetly ambitious future romance novelist is a great 
example of why they shouldn't be allowed to choose for themselves).

> 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 
> 

These arguments are interesting, but they look only at the action and not at 
the motivation.  What the reader is seeing in these episodes is that Draco is 
acting out of the purely self-serving purpose of getting Harry & Co (where he 
is sneaking outside to catch HRH) or Hagrid (in the Buckbeak episode) into 
trouble.  You rightly point out that HRH broke a serious rule -- I would call 
causing an explosion in a classroom so you can steal from a professor a 
serious transgression -- for a seemingly trivial purpose.  But what underlies 
this chain of events is their conviction that students' lives are at risk -- 
including Hermione's -- and that in the weighing of conscience, they came 
down on the side of rulebreaking.  There were mistakes in judgement here, 
which should have earned them punishment if they had been caught; however, 
their goal is entirely moral.  So I perceive an enormous moral difference in 
their rulebreaking and Draco's.

Nevertheless, I sometimes get concerned about Dumbledore's response to 
Harry's rulebreaking.  For example, the Mirror of Erised was a powerful draw 
for Harry, so we know why he goes, but he wasn't supposed to be there.  Yet 
there is no mention of punishment.  However we justify Harry's rulebreaking 
(and with the exception of sneaking into Hogsmeade, which had no 
justification other than fun, his rulebreaking has a moral explanation behind 
it), the rules are selectively enforced at Hogwarts, at least for Harry.  
Maybe Dumbledore doesn't act because Harry's actions are part of a greater 
plan.  I just don't know.

Debbie


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