Slytherin-Ever So Evil after all?

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 69536

Pippin:

>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.

Now this is an interesting argument. Does Sirius' family, because they weren't 
prepared to go as far as Voldemort did, qualify as good Slyths?

I guess it depends, for me that is, on what they did exactly. Did they reject V-
Mort entirely? Or did they just kind of skulk off, waiting to see who the victor 
would be? 

Did they actively oppose him? As I've said, neutrality when evil is running 
rampant is allowing evil to thrive.

I've long since modified my "all Slyths are bad" to "all Slyths post-Riddle are 
bad" because I just don't think it is logical that Slytherin would still be at 
Hogwarts if they were all nogoodniks from Salazar on down.

But, in the context of over 1,000 years, the post-Riddle era, about 40 years, 
isn't much.


> 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?

Oh, I could see Salazar overlooking Riddle's half-bloodness due to what was 
lurking inside Riddle's head. Waste not, want not.  But I think Salazar being 
directly connected to Riddle had something to do with it too.

 
> 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.

Entirely possible.  Of course, my point about it not happening YET is still there. 
I hope it does. I'm tired of these debates.

Darrin