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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 138028

> >> Betsy Hp:
> > <snip>
> > 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.
> > <snip>

> >>Alla:
> Heee. I disagree . :-)

Betsy Hp:
What?!?  I *don't* believe it!! =D

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> 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. :-)
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
One word: Fake!Moody.  You do say, in the part I snip, that if JKR 
holds information back from Harry then he's not so good at judging, 
but I've not noticed that he's all that hip to what makes the 
Slytherin's tick.

I'd also point out his general displeasure in having Luna and 
Neville along for his great MoM raid in OotP (something about them 
being the last DA members he'd choose?).  And they end up serving 
him quite well.  Neville shows himself to be quite a good little 
soldier, IIRC.  And, of course, Luna and Neville are the only 
returning DA members (outside of Harry's inner circle) to take part 
in the Hogwarts battle in HBP.

I'm not saying Harry is a complete dunder-head when it comes to 
judging people (he does quite well with Scrimgeour).  But he does 
have his biases.  Though they *are* starting to break down.  Thank 
goodness.

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

Betsy Hp:
Well, there's Draco, and... erm...  There's Draco.  Has Harry 
conversed with any other Slytherin?  I mean, aside from Quidditch 
barbs?  And HBP showed us that Harry doesn't know Draco all that 
well.  He seemed rather shocked to find Draco crying in the boys 
room.  And I'm sure he disagreed with Dumbledore when Dumbledore 
first told Draco that he wasn't a killer.

Yes, Harry knew Draco was up to something.  (Which, quite frankly, 
wasn't all that hard to figure out.  I mean, Draco practically 
said, "Hey! I'm up to something!")  And Harry at least realized that 
Draco was a bit more formidable than either Hermione or Ron 
allowed.  But I don't think Harry *ever* considered that Draco might 
actually be a victim of Voldemort's.

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
Dumbledore certainly believed him.  And Arthur went looking for some 
sort of proof he could take back to the Ministry, so actually, the 
only ones *not* believing Harry were Ron and Hermione.  (IIRC, 
Arthur's main issue was with the idea of Draco being an actual Death 
Eater - something that's still up in the air by the end of HBP.)

> >>Alla:
> <snip> 
> I'd say Harry is able to reassess his conclusions.

Betsy Hp:
Well, yes of course he is.  That was my main point.  As Harry has 
gotten to know various members of each of the houses he's reassessed 
the stereotype he's had about that particular house.  In HBP he's 
starting to reassess Slytherin.  I think that will continue into 
book 7.

> >>Alla:
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
Yeah, that's a theory of mine.  Voldemort took the worst aspects of 
Slytherin and twisted them to his own use: recruiting Death Eaters.  
Just as he was hoping to do with the entire school of Hogwarts when 
he started working on getting the DADA job.

> >>Alla: 
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
I think this quote counters your theory:

"You'll be Gryffindor like her, I suppose?  Yes, it usually goes in 
families." (HBP scholastic p.70)

Tom *was* Slytherin's last surviving heir, after all.

> >>Alla: [quoting from JKR interview]
> <snip>
> 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. 

Betsy Hp:
Now normally, as I'm sure you know Alla <g>, I don't hold much to 
the interviews, especially when they're interpertive.  If she can't 
say it in her book, then she ain't saying it, is my opinion.  But, 
since I'm not above a little hypocrisy now and then, and since this 
is pretty much *exactly* what I was saying, I'm going to point to 
this part.  Without Slytherin and the qualities it offers, Hogwarts 
would not have harmony.  It would, in my opinion, fall apart from 
within.  I think the Founders (being the clever people they were) 
realized this and kept Slytherin as an important part of their 
school.

It *also* backs my theory that Harry will need the help of Slytherin 
(however it's represented) to defeat Voldemort, who certainly 
symbolizes a lack of harmony, IMO.

> >>Alla: [more JKR quotes]
> 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.

> >>[Now Alla's thoughts]
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
This is where I get hung up on folks running to the interviews.  
You're doing an awful lot of parsing of words that JKR used in a 
verbal interview, IMO. (In other words, in a format where she 
couldn't go back and say, oh I could have said this more clearly, 
etc.)  Yes, Harry has only witnessed Draco (and to a lesser extent 
Crabbe and Goyle) as representative of Slytherin, and he's only 
witnessed Draco as a child of Death Eaters.  But it's also true that 
we've only seen Slytherin from *Harry's perspective*.  No, JKR 
doesn't come out and say that.  She doesn't have to.  Her books are 
written from Harry's POV, and she (as the author) knows this.

Though I would agree, what we see *is* correct, but it's *huge* that 
we're not seeing everything.  That's what every murder mystery book 
hinges on.  Have we, the readers, seen everything?  Are we putting 
together what we've seen correctly?  Because once it all comes 
together suddenly the sweet little old lady is shown to have a 
ruthless side that enabled her to kill her grandson, and the hard-
eyed tart he was dating really wasn't all that bad after all.

Yes, Draco is plotting to kill someone.  That's correct.  Harry was 
right about that.  But he's being *forced* to do it by a mad-man 
willing to kill his entire family if Draco fails.  That changes the 
picture somewhat.  At least, in my opinion.

> >>Prep0strus: 
> > > <SNIP>
> > > 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.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Just out of curiousty, Alla, who has Harry liked that you have not?  
My point was, if Harry likes a person, that throws an awful lot of 
weight into the "likable" side of the scale.  Because Harry's 
running around seeing all these neat things about the person, and 
weren't they nice to do that?  And wasn't their joke the funniest?  
And wow, aren't they super brave?  It's hard for a reader to stand 
up to that sort of pressure from their POV guy.  Especially if the 
author is on his side.  (Of course it *can* happen.  Witness the 
varying views of Ginny Weasley.)

> >>Alla:
> <snip> 
> 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.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Oh ick.  I hope not.  I'm not sure how harmony is achieved when all 
the instruments are taken away.  Of course, I'm a fan of the house 
system, so obviously, YMMV. :)

Betsy Hp