[HPforGrownups] Wearing Green (was Colors-McGonagall-Harry's Eyes)

[wynnde1 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 48617

Silver Dawn wrote:

>So, my question is...why does McGonagall, the head of griffindor, 
>wear emerald green? (PS/SS 113) She even writes in "emerald green" 
>(PS/SS).  Is it because she is evil?  Also, what house was she in 
>when she was at Hogwarts.  Naturally, I assumed Gryffindor, but was 
>she in SLytherin?  Does anyone know?

Now me:

Mwahhahahaha! There are those here who do belive that McGonagall is evil. For 
a look at that theory, start by reading post #s 39470, 38783, and 39495. 
Although I can't take credit for writing any of these posts (wish I could! <g>
), I'm among those won't be at all surprised if Minerva turns out to be evil.

HOWEVER . . . having said that, I don't believe that wearing green is a sign 
of being evil. Snape wears green on one occasion in canon (a Quidditch match, 
the one between Slytherin and Gryffindor in PoA, IIRC). This is hardly 
surprising, as he's Head of Slytherin House. Still, I *don't* believe that 
Snape is evil, nor do I believe that Slytherin House and all it's students 
and alumni can be considered evil (or even suspect) simply by virtue of being 
in Slytherin. Although much of what JKR has written about the House does seem 
to point in that direction, I really rebel against the notion that one of the 
four houses is simply "evil." I'm not even convinced yet that Salazar 
Slytherin himself was evil - I don't feel we yet have enough information 
about him in canon to make that sort of judgement. So, for me, the notion 
that Green=Slytherin=Evil does not work.

But, for those who may not be satisfied by this, and belive that the 
Slytherins are, indeed, suspect, there is one other person who springs to my 
mind as wearing green in canon: Arthur Weasley is described as wearing "long 
green robes" when he comes out of the fireplace at the Dursley's house in 
Chapter Four of GoF. And, much as I love to speculate that nearly everybody 
*might* turn out to be evil, sweet, muggle-loving Arthur Weasley has *never* 
made it on my list! <G> So, unless we are in for a *big* surprise regarding 
Arthur, I think it's safe to say that wearing green in the Potterverse is not 
automatically a sign of being evil.

Regarding the question of why McGonagall seems to like green so much if she's 
not a) Evil or b) a Slytherin who ended up as Head of Gryffindor House: Okay, 
now here's a bit of what may turn out to be dodgy speculation - I've always 
thought that Minerva uses green ink because she has green eyes. I'm not aware 
of anywhere in canon which states this, but I make the assumption based on 
the fact that I remember reading something somewhere about Dumbledore using 
ink the same shade of blue as *his* eyes, in which case this could be a 
common thing to do in the WW. And a pretty nifty idea, IMO. HOWEVER - I've 
looked through the books and the HP Lexicon, and can find no mention of this 
at all, so I'm thinking it may be a bit of fanfiction contamination from the 
days when I was still reading it. In which case my speculation is, indeed, 
dodgy, although not necessarily untrue - just not proveable with the canon we 
have to date. In any case, if Minerva does have green eyes, she would 
probably find green a flattering colour for her to wear, which explains the 
green robes. 

Does anyone out there remember if there *is* anything in canon about the 
colour of Dumbledore's ink?

:-)
Wendy
(Who is rather annoyed with herself over this Dumbledore/ink thing. She 
stopped reading fanfiction nearly a year ago precisely because she found 
herself having trouble remembering what was canon and what were merely clever 
things from fanfiction. - "What? I *remember* reading that Snape is Harry's 
real father!" <GGG> - For something like this to slip in after all this time 
is disconcerting. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the fanfiction - some 
of it was fantastic! So for those out there who enjoy it, these comments are 
*not* meant to be disparaging or anti-fanfic. I just found it confusing to 
*me* - much as TCTTMNBN has compromised my ability to remember the real 
details from PS/SS, and now finds reading the book to be filled with 
surprises: "oh, that's right . . . Ron never did go into the Forbidden Forest 
in Book One!" <G>).


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