Slughorn "clearly good"?

[mompowered]

No: HPFGUIDX 137808

Prep0strus wrote:
> JKR seems to be saying we've met pretty much all the major 
> characters.  If that's true, I don't see how there will ever be a 
> Slytherin who I will be able to like and root for.  In a world 
that 
> contains so much grey, I don't know why this has to be so black 
and 
> white.  We've met unpleasant Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and 
> Hufflepuffs.  There must be a pleasant Slytherin.  Or purge the 
> school of them!!!
> 
> I do agree with Marianne S., who (I think it was her) gave a great 
> list of how he serves the story.  I think he's an interesting 
> character who has added and will continue to add to the story.  I 
> think I'm just still irritated by my inability to understand what 
JKR 
> is trying to do with her house system and what she's trying to say 
> about the people in each house.
> 
> ~Prep0strus

Cheryl writes:

I think the house system is, overall, a divisive tool and hope it is 
elimitated from Hogwarts at the end of book 7.  People have many 
different characteristics, despite their house, and seem to be 
sorted into houses based on what the Sorting Hat determines to be 
their primary qualities.  However, the effect might be a self-
fulfilling prophecy. After all, everyone "knows" Slytherins are bad, 
slimy, self-serving, and ambitions using any means to achieve their 
ends, everyone "knows" Gryffindors are brave, etc... and Slytherins 
are all grouped together in a house with similar types which might 
only bring out the worst in them.  Yes, a person's characteristics 
determine which house they are sorted into, but might also a 
student's house affect their development, their behaviour, their 
self-perception and perception by others?  What would happen if 
there were no such sorting, and thus, students did not have these 
labels placed upon them?

Cheryl