Slytherin & sorting (was: Sirius's house [among other things])

[smokyant41]

No: HPFGUIDX 41686

Having major, and annoying, email problems here. I *hate* Yahell!
Groups. And having to read/reply via website. Anyway:

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Sirius Kase" <siriuskase at e...> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> IMHO,  the book makes no official charge that Slytherans 
are bad, this is just one of Harry's prejudices.  I'm still sitting 
back waiting for the good Slytheran to stand up and be noticed.  Of 
course, Harry would probably assume evil intent.<<<<<<<<<<

Slytherin seems to be a weird sort of Force(TM)-type house: there is 
the power, yes, but with power comes temptation to the Dark Side(TM). 
At some point in CoS, which I cannot accurately reference because I 
left it at work (hey, I have to have something interesting to do 
there), Dumbledore tells Harry that Salazar Slytherin's most prized 
students possessed all the traits he admired: resourcefulness, 
determination, and a disregard for rules. These are qualities that 
Harry has in spades, of course, Dumbledore says, and they *are* 
admirable traits, to an extent. But then, an excess of virtue turns 
to virtue after a while.

The ambiguity of Slytherin comes from the lore and, as you say, 
prejudice surrounding it. Its House symbol is a snake, most likely 
because SS was a Parselmouth -- but the snake is a pretty fraught 
symbol, embodying wisdom, deceitfulness, cunning, et cetera. 
Slytherin himself is from the fen, a place in circa 900s Britain 
considered to be the dwelling of devils and outlaws. In Harry's 
class, a thousand years later, the Slytherins just aren't nice 
people; Malfoy's a little so-and-so, Crabbe and Goyle (how they 
*ever* got sorted into a House that espouses cunning is beyond me, 
unless they've got mental faculties they haven't yet exhibited) are 
10 IQ points short of a moron, Pansy is annoying, and Millicent will 
pound the tar out of you.

But I'm sure they're nice people. Really <g>.

It would be interesting to hear about any other Slytherins that 
*aren't* nasty, brutish, and short (cf. Hobbes), and who have done 
something public-spirited and commendable, just to balance out the 
scales as they currently stand. The way things look now, it almost 
forces one to wonder why Hogwarts still has four houses and hasn't 
dissolved Slytherin, or done something about its penchant for power-
seeking. Of course, that's probably why Slytherin is still around in 
the first place -- it's better to keep the devil you know in your 
sight, rather than let it go wandering off.

SK again:
>>>>>>> Well, there it is, one of my little pet theories.  The two 
most common reasons for switching houses is getting closer to a 
girlfriend (Rowling said Lily was a Gryfindor) and getting out of an 
unbearable roommate situation (Dumbledore says James and Snape got 
along as well as Harry and Draco.  Can you see them as roommates?)
<<<<<<<<<<

Yes. I find it amusing <g>.

However, I don't think that a re-sorting would necessarily take place 
under such circumstances -- if so, it would have to be as a last 
resort. (I'm taking your above statement to be a theory, rather than 
absolute, stated, canon fact, and I hope I'm reading that properly.) 
It would probably take something very dramatic -- a complete change 
in mindset or character -- to enable a 'formal' resorting by Sorting 
Hat, rather than, "Well, I really think Girl X is a hot chick."

I have an easier time seeing the unbearable roommate thing, although 
this is probably because I've dealt with them before. However, I 
think in a closed situation, such as a boarding school, there would 
have to be a very definite expectation set down by the faculty that 
the two disputing parties behave with some modicum of maturity. Of 
course, none of my roommates has ever tried to hex me (I think), but 
this seems to be an issue the faculty would have to address in depth 
first. And roommate problems may be related to...

The Sorting seems to be based on a subconscious strata, operating at 
a level of which the Sortee is unaware (at least in some instances -- 
Draco *knows* he's going to be in Slytherin.) Hermione, on surface 
glance, would be much better suited to Ravenclaw, but JKR took care 
to draw out her nerve and guts to make it clear she's a Gryffindor. 
Neville probably demonstrates his Gryffindor-ness when he tries to 
stop the trio from sneaking out again in PS/SS. The Hat picks up on 
Harry's Slytherin-like qualities, qualities of which Harry is 
unaware, but capitulates to Harry's fervent wish to be anything but 
Slytherin.

Given that, I don't think anyone would be re-Sorted unless it was for 
*very* good and sufficient reasons, not just personal problems. If 
someone decided, in the very core of their soul, that they refused to 
be patient and unafraid of toil and wanted to use any means to 
achieve their ends... then yeah. Hell, why not?

SK again:
> In 7 years, things can change.  If Rowling really approved that 
scene in the movie, James played at both seeker and chaser and spent 
some time in Gryffindor.  Could be that Snape was the Seeker and when 
James switched houses, he became a more perfect rival.<<<<<<<<<<<

Well, there is the issue of comparative Quidditch skill raised -- 
Lupin (I think) mentions that Snape couldn't stand James partially 
because of James' talent on the pitch, in addition to that whole 
saving-of-lives thing. One of the things I've always wondered, 
though, is why James's house is never mentioned -- it seems a bit 
weird that, if he was in Slytherin, that fact wouldn't be brought up 
by *somebody*, whether it would be Snape making a smart-assed 
comment, Sirius referring to their pranks together, or Dumbledore 
reminiscing about the previous Potter generation's antics at school.

Also, I think the way talent is distributed among the students, or 
the way students are described, probably shouldn't be taken to 
necessarily mean that they belong to one house or another unless it's 
stated specifically. Sirius and James were the cleverest students of 
their year -- that could mean they're in Ravenclaw. However, they 
break rules and sneak around cunningly -- therefore, they could be in 
Slytherin! But then, they *do* become Animagi in order to help out 
Remus, so that could make them Hufflepuff as well. And they're both 
quite courageous and self-sacrificing, and that would make them 
Gryffindor...

See the problem? I don't think the Houses are as discrete as we would 
like to think them, at least on the level of some observable behavior 
or characteristics. There has to be a bit more mining done, I think, 
to get to the core of why one person is chosen for a House, as 
opposed to another (and why twins like Parvati and Padma are in 
different Houses, when Fred and George are in the same.)

HF.