Dissin' the Gryffs - Slytherin and the Reader

[melclaros <melclaros@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51291

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, 

Eileen <lucky_kari at y...> wrote one of the best posts I've read here 
since joining! Brava!

:
> The question is now coming up.  Aren't we supposed to
> cheer on the Gryffindor team, agonize over Harry's
> defeats, celebrate with him when he wins? And what is
> it with those people who cheer the Slytherin team on? 
> Like me. 


And me....and I'm absolutely sure I'd have been sorted into Ravenclaw 
(Not Gryffindor, please not Gryffindor!)


Things I PARTICULARLY Agree on:

> The current canon
> Slytherins do not impress me in the least. I can't
> stand Draco. 
> 
 
No further elaboration needed. The kid is a twit. If he were mine I'd 
have belted some sense into him long ago.



> 
> If Harry does not naturally and fairly lose a game in
> OotP, I shall be even more fed up than I am at this
> point. It's just not good writing, imho. You can't
> keep up a sense of excitement, of rivalry, with this
> lame competition, this knowledge that Harry will
> always cruise to victory over the Slytherin seeker.
> While there are plenty of laughs still, the Quidditch
> suplot is  becoming for me rapidly more and more
> boring. I was relieved to see it gone in GoF if that
> meant no more spectacular Gryffindor victories. 


Interesting conversation I had with my (then) 10 year old son after 
reading GoF together.
He: But there was no Quidditch cup!
Me: Oh but it would have been the same old thing...Gryffindor     
    against Slytherin and Harry catching the snitch at the last min.
He: Oh, they'd have to have something different this time, wouldn't
    they?
Me: (to myself) one can only hope, son.



> 
> And I'm not sure that JKR is entirely innocent here.
> I'm sorry but you just do not write characters as
> having silvery blond hair ...


Or silky, dark voices and sweeping black robes for that matter, eh?



> And the Slytherin students never, ever, get to win.
> Neither does the Slytherin Head of House. Even their
> temporary victories are few. As noted above, Slytherin
> has not won one Quidditch game on-screen. They're
> derided by the other Houses. They get "dissed" by
> Dumbledore at the end of PS/SS. Lucius gets the team
> Nimbus 2001s and Harry outstrips Draco on a Firebolt.
> Malcom Baddock is hissed when he's sorted into
> Slytherin. Snape loses his Order of Merlin. It's the
> Slytherins who suffer most when Harry and Ron throw a
> firework into one of the cauldrons. Hey, even in PoA,
> it's a Slytherin who has to be alone and friendless at
> the Christmas dinner. 

    <snip>
> 
> Similarly, the end of PoA is just heartbreaking for
> many people, empathizing with what Snape is going
> through. 


And this situation is FOSTERED by the Headmaster (not to start the 
Leaving Feast debate ALL OVER again...) I really do have that fantasy 
of standing behind Snape and prodding him into demanding DD listen to 
him JUST ONCE! "Severus, either stand up for yourself here and now, 
or put us all out of our misery and explain why you take this year 
after year!"




> 
> 4. Bad Move, JKR!
> 
> I've mentioned this a bit above, but I'll make it very
> explicit here. Sometimes, what makes people feel for
> the Slytherins is the feeling that JKR is making bad
> artistic decisions in portraying the Slytherins. 

Alhough, to be fair (if that is the right word here) she does this 
across the board. With very few exceptions her characters are one-
dimensional. HARRY is one dimensional and Draco struggles to manage 
even that. For her to manage a fully developed human Slytherin would 
be a major undertaking. Unless one of the trio starts dating a Slyth 
we are unlikely to see any real characters come out of any of the 
other three houses.



. 
> 
> But this  is a matter of opinion. I found the ending
> of PS/SS very, very weak.  
       <snip>
> I felt that Rowling was trying to squeeze out the
> emotion with a cheap trick, a trick which revealed her
> as a unrepentant dualist of the worst variety. 

       <snip>
> 
> I continued with the series because of Severus Snape,
> who mysteriously wasn't the badguy, wasn't that nice
> either, and was a Slytherin. 

 
I have to do it...just this once: ME TOO! This remains true. I can 
honestly say right now I care less about what happened to Harry on 
Oct 31 than what Severus Snape had to do with it. As far as I'm 
concerned HP was a bystander...ok a bysitter.  I care less what 
happens to Harry in OoP than finding out what Severus Snape was sent 
to do at the end of GoF. I'm going to try, really try to read the 
book cover to cover, but I can already see myself flipping through to 
find out "what's Snape up to?"


> Scott wrote:
> >I truly believe that if JKR had wanted us to know 
> >that there were a large majority of Slytherins who 
> >weren't jerks, she would have at LEAST introduced us 
> >to one Slytherin who was not a jerk.
> 
> A hit, a palpable hit!
> 
> But you know what my response would be? JKR is a fool.


There is still hope...who knows, we may still find out Sirius Black 
was a Slyth. (Ducking for cover)



> And then, there's Bugs Bunny. If you want to see a
> real Slytherin at work, rent a few of the great Warner
> Brothers cartoons. 

ROFL! True! So very true! Although, Wile E Coyote strikes me as more 
JKR's idea of a Slytherin. Albus Dumbledore's as well.



> 
> 10. The Great Unknown
> 
> We know so little about Slytherin. Our imaginations
> are free to conceive the house as we wish. And that's
> very appealing. 

Amen!


Melpomene...not a Slytherin dammit.