[HPforGrownups] Slytherin, the Chamber and the Basilisk (Re: Choice over ...

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 46011

Iris:
> But this doesn’t explain why Slytherin put a Basilisk in the Chamber of 
> Secrets.
> 
> a)    We don’t have a canon proof he wanted to use it as a weapon to get 
> rid of some of the Hogwarts’ students. Or did he tamed it, trained it in 
> secret but didn’t have the time to put his plan into practice, whether he 
> died, whether the others (Gryffindor and Co) stopped him? So that he would 
> have rely on his heirs to finish the dirty work he had begun. That’s 
> classical, leaving the forthcoming generation the care of revenge; that 
> would also explain why only a heir of Slytherin is able to open the Chamber 
> of Secrets.
> 

(Oops - I thought I'd posted this yesterday!)

That sort of depends on what you mean by canon proof, doesn't it?
Canon tells us via Prof Binns, that the rift between the founders over the 
Muggle-born students issue was so great that Slytherin left the school (makes 
you wonder how come there's still a Slytherin House, really). Within the 
canon, this is *historical*.

Canon also tells us the legend that he had concealed a monster within a 
secret chamber which could only be opened by his true heir, precisely in 
order to purge the school of those unworthy to practise magic.

Now Prof Binns, for whatever reason, is adamant that this is only a legend. 
However he is proved wrong, in that the Chamber exists, has been opened by 
one who seems to be Slytherin's true heir and does contain a monster.

Why not then assume that the rest of the legend is also true and that his 
purpose was to carry on the work which he had failed to do himself whilst at 
Hogwarts?

If so, I suspect that he created and enchanted the Chamber and secreted the 
monster in advance, knowing that the rift was coming. It would be a nice 
piece of revenge on the other founders and their heirs. In earlier times, I 
can imagine that he caused a fair amount of real terror as before the story 
got relegated to the realms of myth, staff and students would live in fear of 
the arrival of the Heir and the release of the monster.

now adding on Christopher's comments,

>I'm not convinced that Sythenin was evil in the sense the Voldemort is.  For 
all we >know, he left the school and set up his own somewhere else.  He may 
have belived >that the inclusion of Muggle-borns meant that their parents - 
who at that time hated >magic - would discover the school's location and 
destroy it.  That is not a good view, >but it is a pragmatic one and one that 
would make sense today.  

As mentioned above, this discussion of the Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin 
and his monster rests on how much we believe of what we are told in CoS.

If Voldmort *is* Slytherin's true heir and if we are talking about heir in 
the sense of his true inheritor, in the sense of being the one *worthy* to be 
his successor (a 'chosen one') as I and others believe this to mean, then the 
mere fact of Voldemort being his heir tells us something about Slytherin's 
nature, I believe.

Slytherin may not have acted as Voldemort did, but perhaps that was down to 
the restraint of *three* other powerful wizards and witches whom he feared in 
the same way as Voldemort fears Dumbledore. In addition, magic has had a 
thousand years of development since his time and the tools available to 
Voldemort are no doubt greater than those available to Slytherin. The greater 
separation of the magical, and non-magical worlds perhaps also gave Voldemort 
greater freedom of operation (for instance, Muggles wouldn't explain a house 
collapse or the death of large numbers of people away as the result of a gas 
explosion in Slytherin's time).

> 
> We don't know why he left the baslick in the chamber.  It could have been 
> captured by him and he locked it in the chamber so that no one else would 
> be hurt by it.  Coming to think of it, what else is in the chamber? 

As I said above, I have no problem in believing the canon verion of events, 
accepting that the legend which had been dismissed for so many years had in 
fact been true. 
> 
> 
Eloise



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