Rowling's Roster System (Was: Re: "Good Slyth" (was: stereotypes)

[serenadust]

No: HPFGUIDX 57660


I (Serenadust) wrote: 

> <in the "Harry Potter and Me" screen captures in 
> > the Photos section, the first symbol after each students' name 
is a 
> > circle or a square, which is either left white, or blacked out.  
> > Unlike either Crabbe or Goyle or Tracey Davis (whose squares are 
> > blacked out) Millicent's circle is left white>
> > 
> > JKR stated that the entries by the names in her notes indicate 
the 
> > students in Harry's year, their backgrounds, and allegiances.  
The 
> > last column obviously indicates the house the student is sorted 
> > into, the second symbol seems to indicate parentage (ie; 
pureblood, 
> > half-blood, muggle-born), but it's unclear what the first symbol 
> > means.  I think that it's a hint as to where the various 
student's 
> > loyalties will lie.  Following this theory, Millicent (and one 
other 
> > Slyth whose name is unclear and hasn't been mentioned in the 
books, 
> > yet) could very well end up supporting the good guys.


Rach responded:

> I'm not theorizing on the "good slyth" topic; instead, I've taken 
a closer look at 
> the screen grabs mentioned by serenadust above.  I believe the 
first symbol 
> merely indicates gender (hollow circle=female, filled in 
box=male).  Looking 
> at the two pages shown in the screen grabs, this theory holds.  
Thus, the first 
> symbol is not indicative of loyalty. 


Actually the screen grabs only show the top and bottom halves of the 
same page.  You are right that the empty circle=female, filled 
box=male is consistent for this one page.  I just have a hard time 
believing that JKR needs to use one entire column to keep track of 
the genders of the student.  Except for the androgynous Blaise Z. 
and *possibly* Tracey Davis, their respective sex is apparent from 
their names. It just seems to me that these symbols must be more 
significant than that.


Rach continued:
 
>  Another reason to throw out this symbol=loyalty theory is the 
fact that while 
> Millicent's is hollow and Crabb and Goyle's are filled in (makes 
sense if 
> Millicent is a "good slyth), but Seamus Finnigan and Justin Fitch-
Fletchley's 
> symbols are filled in squares as well.  Is it likely that a half-
Muggle and a 
> Muggle-born would side with Lord Voldemort, given his hatred of 
Muggles?  I 
> honestly think not. 

Well, I wouldn't rule it out at all.  I can't believe that *all* the 
Slytherns and *all* DEs are pure-bloods.  There simply aren't enough 
pure-bloods to go around.  Ron points out in CoS, "most wizards 
these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn't married Muggles 
we'd've died out."  CoS, Chapter 7
Tom Riddle/Voldy himself is half-blood, after all.  I've been 
suspicious of Seamus ever since PS/SS when the hat took nearly a 
whole minute before putting him in Gryffindor.  If there's going to 
be a *bad* Gryffindor (which I think is very likely), he's my 
candidate at this point.

Rach wrote:
 Sorry serena, but I think its back to the drawing board 
> (though Millicent may be good, who knows?)

Well, I can't dispute that the first column on the first page is 
consistent with student gender, but I don't buy that it has *no* 
other significance ;-).  I sure wish we'd gotten a look at page 2, 
though.

Thanks for your response. You may well be right, but I still can't 
see why JKR needs a column just to keep track of boys vs girls.

Jo Serenadust