Slytherin-Ever So Evil after all?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 69523

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "darrin_burnett" 
<bard7696 at a...> wrote:
> Jasmyn: 
> 
> > 
> > Tom 'Lord V' Riddle was not a pureblood and was in 
Slytherin.  I 
> >think the hat doesn't care if you are pureblood, but is looking 
for 
> >other 'Slytherin qualities'.  It may be that the 'good Slytherins' 
> >that people know must exist are in fact the ones who are not 
> purebloods and are not part of Malfoy's circle. 
> 
> 1) We aren't 100.00 percent sure V-Mort was a Slyth.
> 
> 2) Even if he was, we're talking about a kid directly descended 
from  Salazar AND who had rejected all things Muggle. Sounds 
close enough  to pureblood for government work.



> 3) Until the good Slyths are written in canon, they don't exist. 
> There is no requirement that they have to exist. Again, the 
argument 
> always seems to come back to, "but, they HAVE to exist."
> 
> And I say: Says who?

Well, the Hat says so. It says Hogwarts must unite to meet the 
external deadly foe. That would seem to indicate that the foe 
within is not the same as the foe outside. Slytherin left the school 
but his House didn't. Some, like Sirius's family, weren't prepared 
to go as far as Salazar himself.  I'm sure that among the 
unworthy whom Slytherin intended his heir to drive out of the 
school were the successors of those in his own House who 
didn't support him.

>From what we saw of the tapestry, there are probably thousands 
of descendants of Salazar, wizard and Muggle both, but they 
don't exist for pedigree purposes because their ancestry 
can't be traced. Tom shouldn't qualify either--but who says 
bigots are logical?  Rowling's whole point is that bigotry is 
illogical. Just as there's no consistent definition of halfblood, 
there's no consistent definition of pureblood either. 

Secondly, Slytherins aren't terribly wedded to principles, even 
their own. Any means to achieve their ends, remember? If that 
means overlooking a blemish or two on the family tree, or putting 
up with  do-gooder notions about equality--what's to stop them?

Harry hasn't started looking for  good Slytherins yet.  The 
narrative arc which begins with the Hat's song threatens the 
ultimate destruction of Hogwarts unless the school unites. That 
means it can't play out till book 7. In book 5 it's merely necessary 
for JKR to show us how deeply the  houses are divided. She's 
not going to make it easy for Harry to get over his engrained 
distrust of Slytherin House and she's not going to have the  
Slytherins make it easy for him either.

Like Ginny's feistiness, and Sirius's impending death, once JKR 
has stopped pulling the narrative wool over our eyes, I expect 
we'll be able to find hints of good Slytherins all over the place.

Pippin