Good Slytherin (Was: Re: Thestrals and Slytherins)

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 71308

> 
> Well the reason I said I was discussing the years when Harry is 
there is because we have no way of knowing how they won the cup in 
those years, but I d say that winning the Quidditch Cup for so many 
years had something to do with it since the scores in that seem to 
have quite a lot of weight where the house Cup is concerned.And 
Quidditch is the one area in which there seems to be no prejudice of 
any kind, it's decided ourely on skill.


Academics have something to do with it as well, and again, when 
Slytherin's strategy, as seen by Draco, who must have learned it 
somewhere, is to engineer other houses losing points. When someone 
such as McGonagall is in Gryffindor, it's not tough. Decent, fair 
people are easy to manipulate.
 
Me:  
> Again, the Slytherins, being the jocks, the children of influence, 
> having enough brains to win academic points and the ones most 
likley 
> to succeed because of the purity of their blood, are closer to the 
> Ruling Clique of Hogwarts than any other, before poor Harry the 
> Orphan and his dirt-poor friend Ron and his mudblood friend 
Hermione 
> show up.
> 


> But they're not the ruling clique of Hogwarts because the other 
three houses write them all off as evil. They are excluded from by 
the other houses and mistrusted.

Ever seen Heathers? The ruling clique can be thought of as evil and 
still hold power. The ruling clique can be mistrusted and still hold 
power.

Anyone who has won several years in a row, which means they are 
producing the alumni with the top resumes, and just increasing their 
influence, has clout. 


> They are lumped together in one group - which was my point 
actually. I was saying that the Slytherins who might be inclined to 
support> Dumbledore and the 'good' guys have no incentive to do so 
because they are universally mistrusted outside of their own house. 
If you're going to be blamed for doing something then you might as 
well go ahead and do it anyway (if it's to your advantage). Why 
bother trying to fight against the views of people like Draco if all 
it will do is alienate your housemates and you'll  in all liklihood 
>*still* be mistrusted by the other houses. 

Because it's the right thing to do. Nothing more, nothing less.

If Snape truly has turned -- and in OoP there is enough shading to 
make that a question -- then that is what he did. He turned because 
it was the right thing to do.

And if any Slytherin who doesn't agree with Draco's views -- which 
include, but are not limited to, GENOCIDE -- is swayed by the fact 
that Ron Weasley doesn't trust him or her, but screw it, D-Dore 
doesn't need those wimps anyway.

When it comes time to stand and be counted, the Slyths will have to 
choose, and it will be THEIR choice and "well, the Gryffs didn't like 
me" ain't good enough.


 
> Considering that Quirrell couldn't touch Harry, literally, couldn't 
> touch Harry, I'd say Harry's pocket was safer than the mirror. We 
> don't know that V-Mort - the cleverest student Hogwarts has ever 
> produced -- wouldn't have, given enough time, figured out a way 
> around the mirror.
> 
>
> Btw is there canon for him being the brightest student Hogwarts has 
ever produced?

Just Dumbledore's words. Again, if the mirror was all that, why 
bother with the other obstacles? 

And Quirrell was still there. We know V-Mort can "turn off" his 
active presence, or else Harry's scar would have been hurting all 
year. V-Mort take a nap, Quirrell gets the stone just for finding 
purposes, and all is well in V-Mort's world.



> They were told they were wrong *which they were* but they didn't 
want to believe it. they were acting like foolish children so you 
>can't fault McGonagall for treating them like it.

They weren't wrong. V-Mort was soon to be standing in front of the 
mirror and was pondering what to do. That can't be a good thing, no 
matter what. So, McGonagall didn't even consider the possibility that 
these kids might be onto something and post an extra guard that night

And they had evidence. Hagrid had given up the secret of Fluffy, 
which means someone was making an attempt on the stone. They knew 
Snape was talking to Quirrell, and they misinterpreted that, but had 
McGonagall heard it, she might have realized that whatever Snape was 
doing, it wasn't working. It all adds up to a high-speed owl to D-
Dore to see what to do -- which the kids had to do, not McG -- and he 
would have come racing back.

> Me -
> 
> I didn't say that Harry was the only one to blame for Quirrel's 
death or that his death was necessarily preventible. I merely pointed 
out that he died because he touched Harry and if Harry hadnt been 
there it couldn't have happened.
 
And pointing this out did not insinuate at all that poor Quirrell 
would somehow have been saved if Harry hadn't gone down there. 

Even though Snape had been confronting him from Halloween on, Snape 
and D-Dore hadn't made a move to try to "save" Quirrell.

Good people need not apologize for defending themselves against evil 
people. If the evil people get hurt, well, them's the breaks.

If Ron and Harry hadn't gone to Lockhart to ask for his help, he 
never would have lost his memory, so in that case, Ron and Harry's 
respect for teachers cost a man his memory.
 

> Me -
> 
> He didn't get punished because he didn't get caught. They *both* 
should have been punished for breaking the rules, but what actually 
happened is Draco got away with it and Harry was rewarded.I was only 
mentioning the cases where they broke the rules and were rewarded for 
it - I didn;t think I had
> time to go in to all the other occasions that they broke the rules 
and got away scot free.

Draco got away with stealing and flying without supervision. That's a 
reward. Harry's SKILL was rewarded, not his rulebreaking. If Draco 
had flown like that, maybe Snape would have seen it and made Draco a 
seeker.

Draco's reward was not getting punished, but when you're a spoiled 
brat member of a ruling clique, I can see why that would be small 
comfort.

Darrin
-- The Spoiled Brat Members of The Ruling Cliques of The High School 
would be a great name for a band.