The Importance of the Houses and Harry's judgement ( LONG)

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 137954

>> Betsy Hp:
> Well yes, exactly.  And that's how Harry seems to see them in the 
> beginning.  Gryffindor was good; Slytherin was bad, and Hufflepuff 
> and Ravenclaw were... not on his radar really.  But as the years 
> have gone by and Harry has started to grow up his stereotypes 
about 
> the Houses and the people in them have begun breaking down.
> 
> Because it's incredibly hard to judge people with a cursory 
glance.  
> Or at least, to judge them accurately.  Slytherin is the last 
House 
> to break out of its stereotype because it's the house Harry had 
the 
> biggest grudge against.  He went into Hogwarts quite sure it was 
the 
> realm of all evil.  He's starting to realize, I think (and hope) 
> that this view is patently untrue.


Alla:

Heee. I disagree . :-) I may be just repeating my earlier arguments 
on this topic, but I think JKR's interview  and HBP somewhat 
provides a new twist.

I am still convinced that Harry's vision is NOT wrong per se. It is 
LIMITED,yes, but not wrong.

Lupinlore said ( I think) recently that with the amounts of evidence 
presented Harry judges extremely well, and I tend to agree with 
him. :-)

If something is withhold from Harry by other characters or by JKR's 
by extension, THEN mistakes can happen, but it is different from 
saying that Harry is wrong.

I am still convinced that  Harry judged correctly ALL people he met 
from Slytherin house ( which is not many, I definitely conceded).

I am not going to go back to when Harry met Draco in their first 
year, we had been through that many times, I just want to point out 
how wonderfully on target he was when pointing out to every adult 
and every friend of his that Draco is up to no good.

Hmmm, just when Harry starts to overcome his mistrust of adults, 
nobody believes him and what do you know, Draco was indeed planning 
Dumbledore assassination.

I also want to point out again that Harry was able to feel pity for 
Draco and to do so it was enough for Harry to witness ONE scene 
between Draco and Dumbledore.

I'd say Harry is able to reassess his conclusions.

Oh, I remembered something else from our earlier discussions on this 
topic ( sorry if you did not make this argument, but I think you did)

I think you said earlier that Voldemort twisted Slytherin values for 
the worst when he came to Slytherin, so before the House was pretty 
good overall.

I think this quote from HBP contradicts it.

"He was placed in Slytherin House almost the  moment that the 
Sorting Hat touched his head" - HBP, p.360.

I interpret this quote  that Tom's values when he just came to 
Hogwarts were already very similar to what Salazar looking for in 
his students.

We know that Tom showed very bad character at the tender age of 
eleven, so it seems to me that if Slytherin House was ready to 
embrace student like Tom, Slytherin's reputation got bad much 
earlier than Tom's school years.

Right, that was an aside.


Here is the quote from JKR's interview. Please note that even though 
she says "they are not all bad" (  and I DO hope that they are not), 
she says  that you are witnessing Slytherin from the perspective of 
DE children, NOT that you are witnessing Slytherin from Harry's 
perspective which is incorrect.

The way I interpret is that what you SEE is correct, but you are not 
seeing everything.



"ES: Yes! I mean, it's such a stigma.

JKR: But they're not all bad. They literally are not all bad. 
[Pause.] Well, the deeper answer, the non-flippant answer, would be 
that you have to embrace all of a person, you have to take them with 
their flaws, and everyone's got them. It's the same way with the 
student body. If only they could achieve perfect unity, you would 
have an absolute unstoppable force, and I suppose it's that craving 
for unity and wholeness that means that they keep that quarter of 
the school that maybe does not encapsulate the most generous and 
noble qualities, in the hope, in the very Dumbledore-esque hope that 
they will achieve union, and they will achieve harmony. Harmony is 
the word. 

ES: Couldn't —

JKR: Couldn't they just shoot them all? NO, Emerson, they really 
couldn't!

[All laugh]

ES: Couldn't they just put them into the other three houses, and 
maybe it wouldn't be a perfect fit for all of them, but a close 
enough fit that they would get by and wouldn't be in such a negative 
environment?

JKR: They could. But you must remember, I have thought about this
—

ES: Even their common room is a gloomy dark room— 

JKR: Well, I don't know, because I think the Slytherin common room 
has a spooky beauty.

ES: It's gotta be a bad idea to stick all the Death Eaters' kids 
together in one place.

[All crack up again ]

JKR: But they're not all — don't think I don't take your point,
but —
 we, the reader, and I as the writer, because I'm leading you all 
there — you are seeing Slytherin house always from the
perspective 
of Death Eaters' children. They are a small fraction of the total 
Slytherin population. I'm not saying all the other Slytherins are 
adorable, but they're certainly not Draco, they're certainly not, 
you know, Crabbe and Goyle. They're not all like that, that would be 
too brutal for words, wouldn't it?

ES: But there aren't a lot of Death Eater children in the other 
houses, are there?

JKR: You will have people connected with Death Eaters in the other 
houses, yeah,  absolutely.

ES: Just in lesser numbers.

JKR: Probably. I hear you. It is the tradition to have four houses, 
but in this case, I wanted them to correspond roughly to the four 
elements. So Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is 
earth, and Slytherin is water, hence the fact that their common room 
is under the lake. So again, it was this idea of harmony and 
balance, that you had four necessary components and by integrating 
them you would make a very strong place. But they remain fragmented, 
as we know."




> > >>Prep0strus: 
<SNIP>
 What I mean to say, I guess, is 'appealing', though    
> > that's a bit subjective.  I want a Slytherin I can LIKE.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Ahh, yes.  That is a different sort of request.  I think you'll 
meet 
> a Slytherin you can like when Harry meets a Slytherin he can 
like.  
<SNIP>

Alla:

Ooo, I so with Preposterous here. I want a Slytherin I would like 
and I have not met one yet, which I fully like ( and NO Betsy, I 
don't think it matters whether Harry would like this person or not 
in order for me to like him/her, but I suppose otherwise we would 
not meet such person in the first place.

It is funny, because I have a feeling that Slughorn is the best 
Slytherin we are going to get, but I think that in his portrayal JKR 
shows   the dangers of bad ambition ( by bad ambition I mean desire 
to succeed by any means possible, no matter whom you hurt into 
process).

So, yes, especially in light of interview I am even more convinced 
that at the end  the Houses will dissolve and will achieve that 
unity JKR is talking about.

Then it will be no need for Slytherin House  to boil in their own 
juices and all other houses will be able to integrate the best 
qualities from each other and downplay the worst.

Just my opinion of course,

Alla.