Mud-bloods, Half-bloods, Do we care too much? (Re: About Slytherin House)

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 33492

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Alexander <lav at t...> wrote:
>   Voldie was also a Slytherin heir, don't forget about that,
> too. He was not mudblood - only half-blood.

Statements like this begin to make me wonder. "Does it really matter? 
Do we see anyone in the book who cares?" Dumbledore respects 
everyone, and the Malfoys seem to hold to the one-drop rule. Fudge is 
not down right prejudiced, but seems to have a "first families" 
mentality. Do we see anyone who takes a long time sorting 
out "mudbloods" vs. "halfbloods"? Are they really that different? The 
point is there's a large section of the population that believes that 
both Hermione and Harry (and Tom Riddle, if they knew it) have 
ancestry problems to some degree. 

> For him, rules
> could easily be bent (if there were any - read below).

Isn't the essence of Slytherin breaking rules, anyway? 

> But
> what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't prove anything -
> and we are still free to assume that no mudbloods are sorted
> into Slytherin (or the other way around). Even more, there
> are still no examples of a Slytherin mudblood - I think a
> boy/girl of this ancestry would be oppressed enough in
> current Slytherin atmosphere, and it would be definitely
> worth noting somewhere during 4 years...

I doubt that in these times anyone with some sort of Muggle 
background would choose to go there. "Not Slytherin, Not Slytherin," 
might actually be a pretty common refrain. But Slytherin wasn't 
always so hostile. Tom Riddle, brought up in a Muggle orphanage with 
absolutely no Muggle background, would have been a target for Draco's 
teasings in these later days, but is described as charming, popular, 
and became Head Boy. BTW, I wonder if Riddle's schoolmates knew that 
he was even a halfblood. His mother died giving him birth, and the 
orphanage people were unlikely to explain his magical background to 
him, even at his mother's request. He probably only knew that his 
mother had died in an Oliver Twist situation, and the info. he could 
glean from the way she picked his name, "Tom" for his 
father, "Marvolio" for his grandfather, and his last name 
being "Riddle." (Which makes me wonder why the orphanage didn't try 
to track down that worthless Riddle Sr.?) Later information on his 
family was almost certainly acquired at Hogwarts. It might be a nice 
touch if he learnt it from Dumbledore, and then wen the other way 
than Harry.

Is this a good time to give my theory about Riddle? I think Riddle's 
mother was a Potter. It explains the similarity in looks between 
Riddle and Harry, Harry and James. It keeps the relationship (if 
there is one) on the wizarding side of things. It's telling that 
Riddle's mother dies in the Muggle world, completely forsaken by her 
family. What if Tom Riddle conceived his hatred of the Potters there? 

>   How many answers do you want? They could invite him even
> though they didn't like him and his views, for the sake of
> completeness.

That would be as dumb as inviting the KKK to help you run a 
school, "for the sake of completeness." Doesn't wash with me. 

> Or because they wanted to keep an eye on him.

Again, doesn't wash. 

> Or because he wasn't such jerk _at the start_.

More likely. 

>   Also, remember that there were medieval times then, and
> children were _not_ returning home for summer holidays. They
> were given away to the school that was damn long away - what
> security issues are you talking about? Muggle-parents could
> be easily left uninformed about their children "satanic"
> meddlings... :)

True, Muggle students would probably never be seen by their family 
again. I still think it's a security issue, though. The magical world 
taking kids away from their families is still very much a theme in 
our literature of "faerie", which almost suggests that memory charms 
were not quite as good back then as they are now. Salazar might have 
been pushing for complete separation to avoid all the head-aches and 
problems. (remember also our legends of people who want to go back 
again, or do go back again, and find "their friends all gone" - 
wizards have longer life expectations, we know that. Or go back and 
mess with Muggle affairs.)

>   Another reason is that if it was security issue, Salazar
> would definitely bring it into debate on whether mudbloods
> should be accepted - he was debating against "goodies", and
> it would be a much stronger argument than mudbloods general
> inability/stupidity/anything-else. 

Here, I don't follow you. What are "goodies"? 

>Still the legends tell us
> nothing about that (and they are not the legends, as magic
> society seems to have much more accurate recordings of that
> time).

I don't remember there be anything more than legends over the break-
up. And, I don't remember there be anything about what Salazar and 
Godric's arguments were. Just that Salazar and Godric quarrelled over 
whether to take people in from non-magical backgrounds. Is there 
anything more in canon than this? 
 
> > But apparently he eventually got to the point that he wanted to 
leave
> > a monster behind that would kill all the "mudbloods". Or did he? 
We
> > only have legends of unknown accuracy to show that it was really
> > Salazar Slytherin who built the Chamber of Secrets & put the 
basilisk
> > in it.
>   And only a parseltongue can tame basilisk, and we know
> Salazar being parseltongue for sure. And the monster is
> hiding in Salazar's statue. I would say that if not Salazar,
> then at least one of his heirs (this is even more probable,
> as building his own statue is more like in Lockhart's style,
> but not Salazar, Voldemort or anybody else I know from
> Slytherin).

Oh, I don't know. Anyone who would call themselves "Lord" Voldemort 
(especially since he was brought up in the Muggle world, and knows 
darn well how sillily we use the prefix for our fictional evil 
overlords), has a huge dose of ego. I feel pretty sure that Salazar 
Slytherin built the Chamber of Secrets, but why must we conclude he 
built it to kill all the "mudbloods"? After all, it's a pretty 
pathetic and useless way of going about it. Isn't it more likely that 
he left the basilisk as a weapon for his heir, whenever he arrived, 
to make use of as needed? And was Tom Riddle using it to 
kill "mudbloods"? To me, at least, it seemed that Myrtle's death was 
an accident. He hadn't planned for her to be in the washroom at that 
point, but she had to die after that. It shut down his plans for 
awhile. He never was able to properly utilize the basilisk. When he 
starts up his campaign of terror again, he seems to hit people by 
chance. He could very well have petrified a "pureblood" student, eg. 
look at how Hermione and Penelope got it. He focused on getting 
people like Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletcherly b/c their 
deaths would be much more useful in discrediting Dumbledore etc., but 
he really didn't care much and never will care much about blood-
distinction. He hates all the good guys. Period. 

>   We can judge Salazar quite effectively by the students of
> his House. Don't forget that the Sorting Hat only sorts
> those to Slytherin who deserve that from the point of view
> of Salazar - it was he among the other three who put some of
> his thinking and personality into the Hat.

But Slytherin has produced a range of people from Snape to Draco. Not 
everyone in Slytherin has to share Draco's bigoted views, even though 
Draco may fit very well in Slytherin. 

>   That's all cool and good, of course, but there's still
> ambiguity. Can a mudblood be sorted into Slytherin is still
> unknown.

Certainly. But I vote, "Yes!"

Eileen