Not Slytherin, not Slytherin
dicentra63 <dicentra@xmission.com>
dicentra at xmission.com
Fri Jan 31 23:37:23 UTC 2003
No: HPFGUIDX 51309
--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "derannimer <susannahlm at y...>"
<susannahlm at y...> wrote:
> Dicentra 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.
>
Derannimer:
>
> Yes, and that's exactly the problem I have with her portrayal of the
> Slytherins.
>
> The Sorting Hat does not put the biased in Slytherin; it puts the
> *ambitious* in Slytherin. Ambition is, canonically, the standard the
> Hat uses to Sort the Slytherins. So why is it that all the ambitious
> just happen to also be all the bigoted?
In the movie _Ghandi_, after seeing Ghandi's campaign to liberate
India, an American told him, "You're an ambitious man." Ghandi's
response: "I sincerely hope not."
The two men were not using the same definition of "ambition," and
Ghandi knew it. The American was using the word to refer to the
enormity of Ghandi's goal, but Ghandi was using the definition that
appears as the *first* definition in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary: "an
ardent desire for rank, fame, or power." The more general definition,
"desire to achieve a particular end," is second.
We Americans tend to use "ambition" in the second sense, but I believe
that Salazar Slytherin preferred the first. Ambition has typically
implied self-promotion, getting ahead *of the other guy* (not getting
ahead of your former self), making it to the top of the social
pyramid, and acquiring power over others.
The Sorting Hat points out Slytherin's definition of ambition in its
two songs:
"Those cunning folk use any means / To achieve their ends." [PS]
and
"And power-hungry Slytherin / loved those of great ambition." [GoF]
If you crave power for power's sake, and you're a wizard, you are
going to acquire as much *magical* power as possible, and that means
turning to the Dark Arts, the way Tom Riddle did. And if you're
aspiring to be on the top of the wizard totem pole, there's no reason
to consort with Muggles, because those powerless stiffs can't help you
rise to the top. And if you want to be at the top, you have to define
a bottom: might as well be the Muggle-born and Muggle-lovers. Why
*anyone* would want to associate with or defend Muggles would be
beyond you.
>
> Why wouldn't there be studious bigots, or brave bigots, or hard-
> working bigots?
We don't know for sure that the bigotry is confined to House
Slytherin, nor do we know for sure that all Slytherins are bigots.
They are most certainly all pure-blood, but so are the Weasleys, and
they aren't bigots.
> This is one of the biggest problems I have with the story: the
> conflation of the school rivalries and the larger struggle. *Why* is
> it that all the Bad Guys are coming out of *one House in a boarding
> school?* The one house, moreover, that Harry most wants to beat at
> Quidditch?
Again, we don't know how bad all Slytherins are. Snape, the head of
House Slytherin, is nasty but is turning out to be a rather moral
person. And we have the example of Gryffindor (we think) Peter
Pettigrew, who is single-handedly responsible both for the murder of
Harry's parents and for Voldemort's return (heh, pun intended).
Hagrid's statement that all the wizards who went bad were from
Slytherin probably reflects common wisdom rather than actual fact.
However, I doubt Slytherin came about its negative reputation by
accident. If they typically display the "old money" snobbery that we
see coming from the Malfoys, it's no wonder.
As for why Harry wants to defeat Slytherin at Quidditch, much of it
has to do with his dislike for Draco and Snape, and because he
perceives them as more likely to resort to dirty pool to win than the
other teams. I don't think he sees beating them at Quidditch as a
symbolic victory over Evil.
>
> I don't know; usually I enjoy the way the genres in the books
> interact, but the Boarding School/Fight Against Evil concurrences I
> find problematic. The Gryff/Slyth rivalries tend to reduce and
> *shrink* the broader conflict, for me.
>
Again, this shrinking might have more to do with Harry than with JKR.
His vision of the WW is limited to Hogwarts and the houses--it's easy
to see why *he* would conflate the two conflicts. It will be
interesting to see to what degree the house rivalries diverge from the
real-world conflict in the next three books, if at all.
--Dicentra, who sincerely hopes they will
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