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

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 33548

  Greetings, Eileen!

> --- 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?"

  IMHO a damn lot of them.

  Discussion has drifted from the question "can a mudblood
be sorted into Slytherin" to the general discussion of
mudbloods and their status in the Wizarding World. This is
not what I meant initially, but then I don't control other
people's sayings... ;)

  Hmm... perhaps a voting could help - could anybody bother
to start a Poll, or to tell me what I should do to start one
(that is, to beg the moderators, to chase list elves with my
petty demands or whatever else)?

  So far there are no arguments that muggle-borns can be
sorted into Slytherin, only inner beliefs of some people. On
the other hand, we have no direct proof that they can NOT be
sorted there. We know of no muggle-blood who was sorted into
Slytherin, but we don't know for sure none was. We have
Salazar's objections against muggle-borns, but still don't
have a clue whether he would admit a muggle-born with a good
potential. We know of only one half-blood there - Voldemort,
but he can easily be an exception from the general rule due
to his heritage. A lot of speculation is possible here.

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

  My IMHO is that Slytherin essence is ambition. After all,
this is the quality Sorting Hat keeps mentioning each year.
They hold less respect for rules (if any), but many
Gryffindors have the same qualities.

> 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.

  Only if the muggle-born in question is aware of the
problem of mudblood vs pureblood. From what I have read it
seems quite probable that most muggle-borns only meet this
problem much later. Harry himself met the problem only due
to a chance. And it is not written in any of the
schoolbooks, I think, or else neither Harry nor Hermione
wouldn't be so surprised when they faced it the first time.

> 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? 

  But what about Dumbledore? In the end of CS he states
quite firmly (though undirectly... interesting...) that
Harry is no heir of Salazar. Even an undirect lie is not
something I would expect from Dumbledore.

[ "He looked into the old man's eyes, and was nearly       ]
[ pushed back. There was Light in his eyes, the Light so   ]
[ bright that it was blinding and almost indiscernible     ]
[ from Darkness..."                                        ]
[   Sergei Lukyanenko, "Night Watch", my quote translation ]

>>   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. 

  Hmm... if I was given a choice of whether to accept a
trouble-making collage in united school, or face the problem
of independent school training potential dark mages, I would
definitely choose the first option. Just for that reason -
to keep the eye on the bastar... well... opponents. :)

>>   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"? 

  "Goodies" are those who are "good". :) Gryffindor,
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff the names.
  Not meaning that all of them were good from our point of
view, only from the point of view of Salazar.

> 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? 

  CS9, professor Binns lesson on History of Magic. Arguments
of Salazar are quite accurately described there, and there
is no mentioning of security issue.
  We have nothing more but a legend about their arguments,
indeed.

> 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.

  From the point of view of effectiveness-oriented XXth
century, true. But most of villains in Potterverse seem to
like drama a lot, and such a move is indeed cool from the
point of view of a man who is the least bit romantic.
  Throughout the books many characters act not the most
effective way possible. As someone has stated here in the
newsgroup, this is what makes the books realistic and
interesting indeed - nobody is perfect.

> 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. 

  A very interesting sequence of arguments, but the
conclusion is IMHO undeservedly simplified. Never I could
imagine Voldemort acting out of such primitive idea as just
to "hate all good guys".
  Don't forget that in both cases it's a 16-year-old youth
who tries to do the best he can. Of course he's not acting
the best way possible. If he was Voldemort at the peak of
his power, I would expect him to be more effective.
  In short: never underestimate the Dark Lord, or you may
end up on the wrong side of his wand... :)

> 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. 

  This "range of people" is quite limited, though. Of all
the characters about whom we know they are from Slytherin,
only Snape shows some hints of goodness, still being nothing
more but a bigot in usual circumstances (and in critical,
too). I know nothing about his motivation, of course, but as
Sirius said in GoF: "we can judge people by the way they
treat their minors". Cannot guarantee correct quote, as I'm
translating it back into english...

Sincerely yours,
Alexander Lomski,
(Gryffindor/Slytherin crossbreed),
always happy to throw weird ideas into the community.