Societal reactions to Voldemort(was First meetings)

[slytherinspirit]

No: HPFGUIDX 71380

jenny from ravenclaw 
> 
> Okay, even though I tend to agree with you that both Sirius and 
> Pettigrew were in Gryffindor, there is no canon evidence to back 
that 
> up.  It is possible that they were both in Slytherin.  I certainly 
got 
> the feeling that all of the previous Blacks were Slytherins, but 
> again, no canon proof for that either.
> 

Me -

You're right there is no specific canon assertion that they were all 
Gryffindors (although I believe they were since we so no real 
examples of strong cross-house friendships, dating yes, friendships 
no) but Sirius has a serious (pardon the pun) anti-Slytherin chip. 
there is no way (imo) he could have been in Slytherin. Peter's house 
is certainly more doubtful but since at the time Hagrid (and the rest 
of the WW) was working on the assumption Peter was a dead hero then 
it doesn't really affect my arguement that Hagrid knew that not all 
dark wizards were in Slythein but he deliberately gave Harry that 
impression anyway.


jenny from ravenclaw 
> 
> I'm not sure I follow you here.  Where have we seen a Slytherin who 
> might be good or neutral?  How do we *know* they are not encouraged 
to 
> state their views?  
Me -

Well my arguement here is losing some of its coherency because i'm 
arguing it on two threads and keep forgetting what I've said where. 
Read the Good Slytherin thread for a complete view of what I am 
arguing but I will summarise it here. I will try and address all your 
points but some of them don't actually make sense when put with the 
fuller version of my arguement anyway. Please point out any I totally 
miss though and I'll explain further.

I am not arguing about the moral correctness of keeping one's mouth 
shut in the face of evil so much as pointing out that it is human 
nature and that while acting out of fear and allowing others to die 
is wrong it doesn't (IMO) put you in quite the same league as the 
*active* participents in genocide. I agree that those people bear a 
certain amount of responsibility for the actions of a regime they are 
not actively opposing but I was trying to point out that whereas 
darrin seemed to be arguing that either you actively work for Albus 
(as la Snape) *or* you are actively following Voldemort. I was trying 
to point out that in reality there are mahy shades of grey and that 
the majority of the WW (Slytherins included) will probably actually 
fall in the middle somewhere. For example in the first struggle 
against Voldemort the Weasleys are not mentioned as being in the 
Order. What were they doing? Well they had a young family and were 
probably just starting out in life so they were probably trying to 
keep out of it and protect themselves and their family. If 
Gryffindors do that that it isn't unreasonable to expect that the 
other houses do it to. Even being incredibly generous in guessing the 
numbers of DEs who have died over the years and including the ones we 
know about. The majority of Slytherins over the last 50 years (since 
Riddle left school and became Voldemort) haven't been Death Eaters so 
it is not unreasonable to assume that they were doing the same thing 
the Weasleys were. It may not be the morally courageous thing to do 
but in a regime like Voldemort is trying to establish or like Hitler 
did establish the majority of people will keep their mouths shut, try 
not to get involved and thank God that the maniac in charge is 
persecuting someone other than you and your family. It may not be 
heroic but it *is* human nature.

Secondly (this is becoming a full blown essay, sorry) by good and 
neutral Slytherins I was trying to draw a distinction between those 
who actively disagree with the philosophy (the good slyths) and those 
who believe fully in the superiority of purebloods over all those 
nast halfbloods, mudbloods and muggles but don't espouse killing all 
those they consider inferior (those would be the neutrals. they are 
not nice people, they are racist, but they are nowhere near in the 
league of Voldemort). As to why we don't see them my arguement is 
that ebcause of the way the WW is structured they cannot easily speak 
out - hence we wouldn't see them. That they are invisible is the sort 
of point of my arguement.

Thirdly - the responsibility or otherwise of the WW in creating a 
support base for Voldemort. Now please take note of this before you 
read further - at no point am I advocating granting absolution to the 
Slytherins in my examples, I am merely asking for the WW to sit up 
and take notice of the fact that they are not blameless in this whole 
situation. 
I have two parallels I can draw to illustrate this. Firstly, it is my 
contention that the Slytherins are mistrusted by the rest of the 
students especially. By alienating them from the other houses they 
mean that a Slytherin who wishes to break away from his family in the 
way that the Gryffindor (probably) Sirius Black did is likely to be 
totally lacking the support network that he had. I was comparing 
Slytherin House to a street gang. the gang offers support and a sense 
of pride in what you are. Street gangs tend to occur where the youth 
fell disillusioned by society, they feel that belonging to the gang 
is the only way to gain a sense of family and pride. This does not 
excuse a gang member who takes a gun and shoots an opposing gang 
member, I never said it did. But while holding the individual members 
responsible for their actions you cannot ignore the role that society 
plays in creating the situation in the first place. I agree with the 
Hat btw the Houses need to unite - that unity wouldhelp those 
Slytherins who (theoretically) want to break away but can't.

My other (and imo) slightly better example is pre-WWII 
Germany.Germany was isolated froom the World Community, ostracized 
and made to take the blame for something that it did not feel was 
it's responsibility. the National Socialists gained popularity 
because they offered people a sense of pride in who they were, the 
feeling that they were in control over their own destiny and a 
scapegoat in the form of the Jews. This is what Voldemort does - he 
offers a sense of racial pride in the face of a community which 
automatically assumes that Slytherin and Dark Wizard/Witch are 
synonomous. He says ignore those mudbloods and their sympathisers, 
stand up and be proud that you are a pure blood, you are abouve these 
petty individuals; and he offers them a scapegoat for their problems -
 blame everything on the mudbloods and their kind and those blood 
traitors that support them. The inner Circle of death Eaters, like 
Hitler's inner circle, are rabid blood purists who are supporters of 
genocide, the masses are swept along on a wave of enthusiasm and when 
reality bites (as it always does eventually) they realise that there 
is no way out. Sirius brother, for example, realised that the DEs 
were going further than he wanted and was killed for his efforts. A 
few, like Snape (presumably, for all I know his motives could be 
anythig but pure, but for the sake of the example let's assume he's 
supporting Albus for no other reason than he knows oldsemort is 
wrong) stand up for what they believe and risk thier lives for it. 
But in any society people capable of heroism like that are few, 
people who will risk their lives for others are to be admired but 
they are seriously in the minority and people who will risjk their 
lives for a society that is going to assume you are evil and mistrust 
you no matter what are even fewer. Risking your life for someone is 
rare, risking your life for someone who sees tyou only as an enemy is 
rarer. The majority of wizards confronted with the reality that 
Voldemort is a psycopath and his movement far more evil than they 
realised will not stand up and be counted. they will, as I said 
before, stay silent and pray that he keeps persecuting 'someone else'.

Again I am not excusing the actions of those Slytherins who don't 
stand up and be counted - merely insisting that Wizarding society 
needs to wake up and smell the coffee and realise that they have a 
share of the responsibility for both the rise of Voldemort and the 
unwillingness for Slytherins to fight against him. I am by no means 
arguing that all Slytherins are good or even that all Slytherins are 
not evil. My point is that Wizarding society by its distrust and 
suspicion of Slytherins creates both a situation where Slytherins can 
be sucked into the whole Voldemort movement and then be uinable to 
escape and that by lumping all Slytheins together they make it harder 
for individual Slytherins to escape that mold. I am trying to make no 
moral judgements here at all only point out the negative consequences 
of the isolation of Slytherin House form the rest of the school.

Would you believe that this was meant to be the short versio of this 
arguement? For anyone who made it this far, congratulations. 50 
points to the house of your choice :)

Now I am going to go and try and answer the post I intended to reply 
to over an hour ago when I sat down to check my mail!

K