[HPforGrownups] Re: Heir of other houses

[Troels Forchhammer]

No: HPFGUIDX 84874

At 23:03 12-11-03 +0000, you wrote:
>Troels wrote:
> > The conflict between Gryffindor and Slytherin seems to me to
> > represent, to some extend, the conflict between good and evil
> > in the magical world.
> > The conflict between good and evil might be said to, in the
> > magical world, be fought by proxy through the inter-house
> > conflict. In that respect the cause of Gryffindor might be
> > just that; to oppose Slytherin. To the extend that there is
> > an "Heir of Slytherin" the Gryffindor (current or old) who
> > opposes this Slytherin can be said to inherit the role of the
> > house founder; that of opposing Slytherin.
>
>Surely this view is an oversimplification.

Of course it is an oversimplification - that's what it is
all about, IMO. Discussing the trends must necessarily rely
on generalities rather than specifics. In this case it is,
however, very obvious that the primary conflict is between
Gryffindor and Slytherin, and that these two houses represent
the good and the evil aspects respectively.

>For one thing, it leaves out Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, which would
>also be "good" in this view.

No - they just are.
Again that is obviously an oversimplification, but as houses
they are neutral in the primary conflict, even if individual
students aren't.

Please note that I'm not speaking of my personal attitude
towards the virtues of each house - that would be far more
nuanced, but I rather speak of how the houses, as principles
almost, place themselves with respect to the primary good vs.
evil conflict in Potterverse.

In that respect Gryffindor (despite Percy) does represent
"Good" and Slytherin represents "Evil" (this doesn't put
any contraints on the individual students - only on the
mass of students as a whole).

>Look at Dolores Umbridge, who is indisputably evil, but neither a
>Slytherin nor a Death Eater.

Do we have any evidence as to her house?
(My OotP is on loan at the moment).

>Look at Dumbledore's words to Harry (I think they're DD's--correct
>me if I'm wrong): "The world is not divided into good people and
>Death Eaters."

That's Sirius saying it, but that doesn't matter.

The world /is/ divided into good, evil and neutral people
(no hard lines, I know, but sometimes the only way to speak
of things is to simplify them), and that division is,
however the individual members behave, represented by the
four Hogwarts houses. Individual Slytherins are /mostly/
evil or at the very least despicable, while Gryffindors are
/mostly/ noble and good.

>Look at the words of the Sorting Hat in OotP: Godric Gryffindor and
>Salazar Slytherin were the best of friends.

But they did not remain friends, and thus

>The conflict between them brought division to the school.

Exactly!

>The solution is not for the Slytherins to side with the Death
>Eaters and LV against the rest of the school but for the houses to
>unite and act as one to resist evil.

And how does our heroic (Gryffindor) trio react to that?

They think that it'd be OK with Hufflepuffs (who are usually
on good terms with the Gryffindors anyway) and the Ravenclaws,
but they have serious doubts about the Slytherins.

The problem here is that Rowling presents a solution; the
re-unification of the four houses, but by her characterisation
of Gryffindor and Slytherin in particular, she has made that
solution almost - if not entirely - unreachable. The schism
is too well established and the distrust too deep.

>The idea of an heir of any house now that the memory of Tom Riddle
>has been exorcised from the Chamber of Secrets and his diary destroyed
>is inimical to this vision of unity.

Precisely - and please don't write off the Heir of Slytherin,
he lives on and is ready to play his ancestry and his support
in his own house to divide the houses even further - if nothing
else then at least Slytherin vs. the rest as it has always been.

Whether we will see other heirs of founders or not really is
besides the point - there is a way in which Harry can be viewed
as an heir of Gryffindor, but it is, to me, utterly indifferent
whether he is ever called that in the books.

What I would like is to see a believable way of healing the
division of the four houses, but it would require not only a few
good Slytherins, but also, IMO, some Gryffindor Death Eaters (or
equivalent) - something to break up the stereotypical images we
have so far seen of the two houses.

>(I don't think it will happen, at least not till a lot of people have
>been killed in VW2, but nevertheless it's the ideal JKR would like to
>see achieved:

I quite agree - I just think that she has set herself a very
difficult task if she is going to persuade us that Slytherin, as
a house, will be willing to join the fight against Voldemort. The
way Slytherin has been presented so far, it seems to me far more
likely that a few Slytherins might join the fight against the Dark
Lord, but the house as such, the majority of the Slytherins, will
swell the ranks of the Death Eaters.

Likewise Gryffindor is, as it has been presented so far, the
logical place to find recruits to the Order of the Phoenix. Of the
members we know or strongly suspect the house of, at least 6 were
in Gryffindor (or are strongly suspected thereof), only one was
never at Hogwarts, and only one was in Slytherin. I have no idea
about the rest.

>Not just the houses but the various species of thinking beings from
>House Elves to Centaurs united against evil. Somehow the idea of
>Slytherin as the epitome of evil just doesn't fit this vision.

But it fits the description of Slytherin in the books so far.

Somehow a complete reformation of the magical community seems
a bit unrealistic to me - social inertia ought to ensure that
the attempt to bring acceptance of e.g. Centaurs, Merpeople
and house-elves will fail, but fortunately this is fiction so
Rowling may decide to take other roads, but it will, IMO, be
difficult to do it in a believable way. It'll be interesting
to see how she's going to pull it off ;-)

Troels