House Choice doesn't Equal Personality for Life

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 85384

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "HunterGreen" <patientx3 at a...> 
wrote:
> But by saying that MWPP were in Slytherin you're endorsing the 
> whole 'mean=Slytherin' idea. 

Jen R: How, exactly? Do you think of the MWPP as mean people? I 
don't. My point was that we know for sure (except for Wormtail) that 
the others were not evil or DE's. So for Sirius, James and Lupin to 
be in Slytherin, that would discount that all Slytherins are evil.

HunterGreen:
Of the four of them are any 
> particularily ambitious? I will agree that Peter isn't exactly 
brave, 
> but he could be in the future (others have pointed out that it was 
> brave to argue with VD in the opening chapter of GoF, which I 
agree 
> with). Look what Phineas says about Slytherins in OoP (chpt23)
>  
> "It looks to me as though you would have been better off in my own 
> house. We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, 
> given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks."
> 
> Maybe Peter fits in to that criterea, but Lupin and (especially) 
> Sirius and James don't fit into that at all. 

Jen R: It's not that I don't think MWPP have characteristics of 
Gryffindors, I just wouldn't be *surprised* to find out they were 
Slytherin. Slytherins are resourceful, determined, and have "a 
certain disregard for rules" as DD tells Harry in COS (US, chap. 18, 
p. 333). Becoming illegal animagi certainly fits that description. 
Making a complex Map of Hogwarts was certainly resourceful.

And the Order is, if nothing else, full of resourceful people with a 
certain disregard for the rules! They are all extremely brave, too, 
and obviously willing to die for their cause. If the MWPP were in 
Slytherin, they obviously channeled their cunning and detrmination 
for a cause greater than saving their own necks--and that would make 
my point that a person sorted at age 11 still makes choices on how 
to use their strongest characteristics.

So, I do think there's evidence MWPP could have been in Slytherin 
and would even go so far as to say their friendship and efforts in 
that house actually led to them being extremely resourceful in the 
Order later on.