Why sort half-blood Riddle into Slytherin?

[kateydidnt2002]

No: HPFGUIDX 108561

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Cathy Drolet" <cldrolet at s...>
wrote:
> kmc
> 
> "Hi all,
> This question may have been answered but with the sorting hat's song in
> OOP I want to know how Tom Riddle with his half-blood hertitage got
sorted
> into Slytherin?
> 
> Could there be other "half-bloods" in Slytherin?
> 
> Thanks for the chance to ask this question,"
> 
>

Well, according to JKR's site the definition of a pureblood is quite
stringent and so by that definition Harry would be a halfblood-yet the
Hat still wanted to put him in Slytherin.

This is something I posted in response to a similar question a while ago:

Message 84538
*

I would call the sorting-hat's words a generalization. I doubt that
in the thousand or so years Hogwarts has been open that there has
*never* been a half blood or muggle born in slytherin. In books one
through four Slytherin is described as cunning, using any means to
achieve their own ends and such. *That* is the main criteria for
Slytherin house, and pureblood is a second consideration. It is my
thought that Tom Riddle's slytherin characteristics outweighed the
drawback of him being a halfblood.

*

I would further add this:

 "For instance, Slytherin / Took only pure-blood wizards / Of great
 cunning, just like him..." (OotP, pg. 205)
This is the quote from the Sorting Hat-I would hazard a guess that
while Slytherin himself was alive no half-blood was admitted to
Slytherin House, however despite Slytherin's wishes and ideas and the
Sorting Hat's recitation of these ideas, it does not necessarily mean
the *Sorting Hat* follows those guidelines--especially since
Gryffindor was the one to create the Sorting Hat.