JKR's dismay at favourite fansite Slytherins

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 100090


> 
> LOL! Just a brief comment, Kneasy. I am NOT looking for redemption of 
> the Slytherin house as it stands now. As it is now, it is quite 
> disgusting as clique of pureblooded bigots, but I find (as I said 
> earlier) that it is very primitive to mark eleven year olds every 
> year as future death eaters. Even if we suppose that those kids come 
> to school with the racist ideas in their heads, I take offence at the 
> suggestion that those values cannot be unlearned when you are eleven.
> 
> Putting them in the environment, which encourages such garbage, is 
> idiotic at least. I know, we should blame Sorting Hat for that. :o)
> 
> 
> By the way, I do remember JRK saying that Lucius and Draco are "lost 
> causes" and Amen to that, but I don't recall her putting Snape aside 
> as the lost cause.
> 
> 
> Alla

Hi, Alla,

I like your posts, so I thought I'd pass along parts of a post I made
back in May (#99587).  It was, admittedly, kind of long, but it
addresses the ideas in this thread, about what JKR may have been
thinking when she created Slytherin house.  Here are a few excerpts:
------------------------------------------------------
The causes of the situation, then, are these:

1)The Founders made the decision to sort their new schools students by
their own preferred criteria (something that, as has been pointed out,
can have advantages and disadvantages).

2)Salazar Slytherin's criteria result in at least the tendency for his
house, and his alone, to have students with similar character flaws.

3)Members of a group who share many of the same faults will tend to
have those faults reinforced and strengthened.

How can JKR justify doing this, when one of her themes is supposed to
be the importance of personal choices?

[...]
I'm not sure what JKR means to do with Slytherin in the future. I
think Harry will indeed have reason to rethink his early judgments. I
think JKR's scenario of the perniciousness of labelling people and of
the dangers of group mentality is a valid point for her to bring up,
even though it's more subtle than having "fair" Houses where each
student is more likely to be judged on his or her own merits.

I also think that some of her dismay at people identifying with
Slytherin may stem from being worried that they are actually happy
with the status quo. If she wants to make a point about the way
Slytherin is sorted, people will miss it if they don't think
anything's wrong to begin with. She may also not realise how much
some Slytherin fans may be rooting for the "underdog," which is
exactly what those students are in a very real sense.

By the way, this is not to let Draco off the hook. True, he is at a
disadvantage in that both at home and at school his faults have been
encouraged. His choice, if he ever makes it, to be "good" will
necessarily be much harder than your average Hufflepuff's choice. He
may not actually be at heart any more evil to begin with than many
others who look much better. Still, the choice is ultimately his to make.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Besides all that, I don't think Jo means that every Slytherin will
turn out evil, just as not every evil wizard was a Slytherin.  I just
think she intends that SSlytherin's choices have resulted in a house
that turns out noticably more evil wizards.

Somewhere in that post, in a piece I didn't quote, I theorised that
the 11-year-old Slytherins didn't arrive with any more faults than the
rest, but that their faults were uniquely encouraged by their house. 
This leaves one to wonder why Dumbledore hasn't done something about
that. Either he's powerless to meddle with the Sorting Hat (though it
would seem simple just to leave it in his office), or he believes that
the ultimate choice between good and evil lies with the students
themselves, regardless of where they're sorted.

Salazar Slytherin's choices and the split between the Founders are
obviously (IMO) going to be important, which means I'm not worried
about what Jo's done so far -- though I am a bit surprised she hasn't
moved the idea forward at all *yet.*  Of course, I had to wait till
book 5 to begin seeing what I'd expected out of Neville and McGonagall!

Annemehr