[HPforGrownups] Re: Slytherin's Bad Rap

[Jacqueline Hendries]

No: HPFGUIDX 41914

Wendy wrote: [snip]

> > That last scene in PS/SS was horrible...when Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw 
> > and Gyffindor all stand up and cheer not so much because Gyffindor 
> > won, but because Slytherin LOST.  

[snip]
 
> > The rest of the school seems to hate the Slytherins, and I don't 
> > think it's completely justified.  The main reason why they hate 
> > them is because of the fact that their in Slytherin.  That's just 
> > not fair.  I think there's a scene where Fred and George actually 
> > HISS at a first year who just got sorted into Slytherin!  They 
> > didn't know anything about the little kid except for the fact he 
> > was in Slytherin.  Growing up in this sort of environment, how can 
> > a person NOT think that if Dumbledore can't protect them from this 
> > prejudice, then maybe Voldemort could?  

Well... to go a *tiny* bit OT, I kind of see it as a sports-like
rivalry. I will use baseball as my example. Being a Red Sox fan, I see
them as the Gryffindors (natch), and cast the ever-reviled Yankees as
the Slytherins. You can take your pick as to teams to be Hufflepuffs or
Ravenclaws. Now, fans of MANY, MANY teams dislike the Yankees because
they win so much, I see a similar situation with Slytherin pre-Harry -
the Slyths have won the last seven house cups in a row.

So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that the Ravenclaws are the
Cleveland Indians. Their fans stereotypically also have a distaste for
the Yankees. So, one might think that if the playoffs for the AL East
came down to Red Sox vs. Yankees, some Indians fans might root for the
Sox. Not because they particularly like the Red Sox (although perhaps
they find Nomar or Shea Hillenbrand charismatic as well), but more
because they are sick of the Yankees winning all the time. Or, more
bluntly, they just want to see the Yankees lose. :) It's a sort of
flawed analogy which ignores many of the finer points of both baseball
and the House Cup competition, but on a basic level, I think it works
decently (and please, no flames from Yanks fans!); it's the best way I
can think of to explain why all the other houses cheer the downfall of
Slytherin. 

Besides that, the extra points are quite deserved - they've just
prevented the return of Voldemort, for gad's sake. Maybe it's a
little... awkward of Dumbledore to award them at the house feast, but I
think JKR did that more for effect than anything else. I also think
that Dumbledore probably wanted to tell *everyone* in all the houses
what the Trio, and Neville, accomplished. In terms of fairness, I
personally feel that awarding 160 points for delaying the resurrection
of the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries is *much* more fair than
Snape's quite biased giving and taking of small quantities of points
throughout the year - and you have to admit, if you add them all up,
they're probably having the same impact on the Points totals.

~ Aloha (Rabid Sox Fan and Harry Potter Theorist)

=====
jackie04 at brandeis.edu

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