Salazar Slytherin and the Chamber of the Basilisk (was;-oh come on)

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 46019

Chris writes; 
<< 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. >>

Founded Durmstrang. I like this idea! 

To me, one of the major flaws in the Harry Potter series (there aren't many, 
but there are a couple) is that the tight focus on Harry's own experience and 
the limits of viewpoint the reader is given from being so deeply embedded in 
it means that as long and detailed as the information we have is, we seem to 
get no sense of a living, developing history for the wizarding world as 
Rowling has presented it. For all her slinging around of blythe statements 
about; "A thousand years ago..." we get no real impression that wizards, in 
general, at any point in their history, ever thought, acted or believed in 
any manner other than they do today. This is sound insofar that, no, human 
nature does not change. But human thought, and human perception certainly do.

Harry is going through a very deep process of learning to recognize and 
evaluate the nature of good and evil. But he is dealing spcifically with the 
face of evil as it presents itself today. Rowling has not found it necessary 
to blur the image she show by allowing the considerations that the face, if 
not the nature of evil changes over time as much as anything else in human 
civilization does. We have been denied the luxury of being given a historical 
context.

We have been told that Slytherin wanted to bar Muggle-born students from 
attending Hogwarts Acadamy. We have been told that the other founders having 
overruled him on this issue was the reason for his breaking with them and 
leaving the school. We are deliperately given the impression that Slytherin 
was motivated in this by the same sort of blind, unthinking, unsupported 
prejudice displayed in the current era by Malfoy and his ilk. While this is 
not impossible, I find it very difficult to swallow. I am too aware that 
conditions and prevailing viewpoints change in a thousand years to be able to 
accept that simplistic a summing up of the events. This is, IMHO, the very 
*worst* sort of history. (Rowling's presentation of the wizarding world's 
treatment of the subject of History throughout is dismissive, disrespectful 
and just plain BAD. I am suspecting that she has a reason for this which will 
ultimately be made known to us.) 

Without any solid context, it is impossible to know why Slytherin was opposed 
to the admission of Muggle-born students. Yes, he could have been a spiteful 
old bigot. He could have just as easily been a paranoid in the style of 
Mad-Eye Moody and saw Muggles in mobs as a serious threat who must be given 
no clue that the school existed. He could have been a half a dozen other 
things. We only know that he opposed their admission and that when he was 
overruled by the bold (and possibly rash) Gryffandor and the other founders, 
he refused to work with them any more and left. (In a high-perch dudgeon.)

Something which no one seems to have brought up so far is the fact that a 
basilisk is a magical creature which is created artificially. (And in 
Rowling's interpretation appears to be immortal until killed.) Slytherin did 
not find, he *created* that basilisk. We do not know why and we do not know 
when. 

We could come up with any number of possible scenareos.

1. He was in the process of creating a basilisk for an unspecified project. 
The basilisk hadn't hatched yet when he was "forced out" and it was an 
internal Slytherin family story that said that it was left behind for his 
heir. In a thousand years of telling the story mutated and details (like the 
location of the Chamber) were lost.

2. He decided to create a basilisk (a monster which he knew he could control) 
to use against the other founders and thereafter run the school as he saw 
fit. He was forced out before it hatched. Family story as above. 

3. He had already created the basilisk, either for an unknown project or just 
because he could (Note: Rowling has shown us ample evidence that wizards can 
have a really skewed notion of what is appropriate). A basilisk is not a 
kneezle, you can't just casualy take it traveling about with you around 
Europe. He put it into an enchanted sleep and left it in the Chamber, 
antcipating that one of his decendents would someday find and revive it. 
Family story as above.

In any event, while Tom Riddle, who we've *seen* is as mad as a hatter, seems 
eager to reason backwards to "prove" that everything HE considers important 
*must* have been what Slytherin considered important because he is 
Slytherin's *heir*, I am less than totally convinced of that as well. (Note: 
even Riddle's *anagrams* are biased. How the hell likely is it that his 
mother actually named him "Tom" rather than "Thomas"? Huh? Especially if he 
was named after a Muggle father.) 

Speaking of the "Heir" of Slytherin; does it occur to anyone else on the list 
that by this time, through cumulative exchanges of blood, power, very 
specific magical gifts and even some of his original personal qualities Harry 
has enough on his account to make at least a viable claim to be considered as 
*one* of Slytherin's heirs?

What if this hypothetical "Prophesy" that Voldemort is trying to stamp out 
was of the "Mirror, mirror on the wall" variety, stating that HE might be the 
last *decendent* of Salizar, but that Slytherin had another *Heir* who would 
supplant him? Wouldn't it be just too, too terribly in accordance with 
tradition if every action Voldemort has taken to escape this fate has 
contributed instead to bringing it to fulfilment?

-JOdel (who remembers the Kipling punch line; "A pot is a pot, and I am the 
son of a potter!")