Dumbledore and Sytherin's Bad Rap

[draco382]

No: HPFGUIDX 41871

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., John McCutcheon <johnryanmcc at y...> wrote:
> I agree with what you say.  Look at Harry for example.
>  The sorting hat wanted to put him into Slytherin. 
> Did that necessarily mean he would have turned out bad
> in the end?  While the qualities that Slytherin prized
> over the other three founders would more often tend to
> be found in less than honorable people, that doesn't
> necessarily make them all bad.  I'm sure Dumbledore
> would eliminate the house completely if all he thought
> that Hogwarts was doing was cranking out more DE's to
> fight.  Unfortunately JKR does nothing to show that
> there are decent people in the Slytherin class.  At
> the very least we can see that Snape, while formerly a
> DE, seems to have turned out right.  


This is a very interesting thread that has pulled me out of lurkdom.  
JKR does have a very strong under-current of "don't judge a book by 
its cover" running through the story.  For example, Hagrid may look  
towering, formidable and scary, but as we all know his persona is 
gentle, emotional and almost motherly.  Tom Riddle was not a cool, 
handsome model student, but actually...well...Voldemort.  And Mad-Eye 
Moody was well, you get my point.  

I somehow feel (I just can't back this up with canon) that the 
portrayal of Slytherins is meant solely to carry the reader off 
track.  It is pretty hard to believe that the members of Slytherin 
have absolutely no good characteristics.  That would be just too one-
dimensional for JKR...and canon has shown us that she just doesn't 
create one-dimensional people.  Heck, even her animals have several 
dimensions to them.  JKR has the wonderful talent of creating 
believeable, seemingly realistic people in her stories and so far the 
Slytherin's haven't really evolved in that way...but there's still 
three more books to go, and they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Okay, I think i'm rambling now...and I better get to class.
~draco382