Not Slytherin, not Slytherin

[dicentra63 <dicentra@xmission.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51328

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "derannimer <susannahlm at y...>"
<susannahlm at y...> wrote:
> Oh dear.
> 
> I don't think I've explained myself properly. 
> 
> See, in your original post, Dicentra, I got the distinct impression 
> that *you* thought that all the Slyths were bad. You wrote: 
> 
> >JKR hasn't marked the Slyths as bad just to prop up a shallow 
> >dualism--she's setting up the central conflict of the series:
> >Muggle-lovers vs. Muggle-haters. Inclusion vs. Elitism. Acceptance 
> >vs. Genocide. Love vs. Bigotry.
> 
> Which gave me the idea that you thought all Slyths were bad. 

Nah.  What I was trying to point out in that post was that people who
defend the Slyths [Oh, hi Eileen! Heh. Didn't see you there. :D] seem
to forget that the Slyths are not just the token bad guys in this
conflict, they're the representatives of a truly hateful value system.  

As David said, they're not functioning entirely as real people in the
series--they've got symbolic baggage to lug around.  

Not long after we went the rounds with "Dissin the Slyths" (early last
May) Pippin said something cool in 38807 about this very thing: 

********************
Perspective in a novel, like perspective in art, is an illusion....
This illusion, like the illusion of perspective on a stage, can only
work from certain points of view.

If you leave the author's chosen viewpoint and go poking around
backstage as it were, you will find the illusion spoiled. It is like
looking at a backdrop up close.... [M]uch of Rowling's world is not
realistically rendered after all. Certainly the Slytherins are not.

The young Slytherins are one dimensional and most of their
atmospheric and symbolic contribution to the Potterverse rests
in this. However, Slytherin's artificiality has to remain
imperceptible to the characters themselves.... Of course Dumbledore
can not recognize this either.... He can't very well explain to them
that they are part of a literary construct <g>.

Of course this means that Hogwarts is delightfully dysfunctional,
another thing the characters can't be allowed to grasp without
ruining the fun....

As long as the Slytherins are part of the background, their one
dimensionality is appropriate to the story....

The moment I try to conceive of them as morally complicated,
however, their situation makes no sense. Are they Slytherins
because the Hat recognizes that at the age of eleven they are
"criminally incurable"? OTOH, if they aren't hard cases, why treat
them as if they were? I don't think Rowling can show us
Dumbledore or Hermione or anyone else trying to redeem the
Slytherins. The Slytherins aren't there to be redeemed. They
aren't real enough for that. 

********************

I also have to include Pippin's acronym, which she coined in 38486,
just as a kind of neener neener: 

"Wanting the Slytherins to be more complex than they're shown to be is
fine with me, but I wouldn't say Dumbledore's characterization is weak
or misguided because it isn't conducive to a sentimental conception of
Slytherin that JKR didn't put there. I'd call that 
S.L.O.P.P.Y.R.E.A.D.I.N.G. :-)(Slytherin-Lovers, Over Protecting
Prideful Youngsters, Redefine Evil, Asserting Dumbledore Is No Good)"

--Dicentra, who should be more mature but can't seem to pull it off