Serpents and Parseltongue

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 46864

Julie wrote:
<snip examples of good snakes>
> So -- Maybe Harry did get his Parselmouth fluency during 
> Voldemort's attack, but the fear it inspires among other wizards 
> seems based completely on prejudice due to the Slytherin crowd 
> having used it to control serpents and make weapons of them.   

[changing into metathinking mode] Yes, the way the series are going, I 
think JKR has somewhere in her list to demeonstrate that snakes are not 
bad, just animals, and that being able to talk to them just means that 
you're extremelly lucky to have the oportunity to have a pet you can 
speak with.[turn of metathinking mode]

After all, snakes are like any other animal: neither good nor bad. 
They're dangerous, but so are most animals, in one way or another (with 
the possible exception of goldfish). The fact that you can speak to the 
animal does introduce morality into the issue, but the morality of the 
actions of the snake at that point depends on the morality of the 
orders themselves. A snake will attack and kill if hungry, but you 
cannot acuse it of being evil for that. On the other hand, if you train 
it to attack and kill (even when not hungry) then *you* are evil. 

I have from time to time heard of animals which will attack for "the 
pure pleasure of the hunt" (for example, velocirraptors in Jurasic 
Park), but I have never actually seen such animal in real life, nor (I 
think) have ever heard of such species. Maybe someone can enlighten me 
here. But certainly none of the species of Snake I've heard of would 
ever attack without provocation.

> Could there be other good Parselmouths besides Harry?  

There is at least one other: Voldemort, but I don't think that's the 
answer you were looking for... Anyway, the answer is: yes, there could. 
It's a rare gift, but we have not given indication of if "rare", in 
this case, means "three or four per generation" or "one every three or 
four generations". As I have pointed out before, though, the fact that 
Slytherin looked for students with the gift for Slytherin seems to 
indicate that such children could be found and thus that there can be 
more than one wizard with parseltongue at the same time.

>  And, will we see wizards who can speak other animal languages, for 
> good and/or evil?
> 
> Julie

I think we can discount that one, except from a legal point of view: 
both mermaids and centaurs are technically animals, and you can speak 
to both, and at least the mermaids have their own language, which you 
can learn to speak, since Dumbledore knows it. Also, Fantastical Beasts 
tells us that other magical species have their own language (fairies 
spring to mind). Without considering that (flimsy) excuse, (after all, 
we are talking about "muggle" animals), the answer is, IMO, no: if 
wizards could speak other animals in their own language, parseltongue 
wouldn't be as feared, and the ability itself wouldn't be considered as 
strange.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf