Scapegoating Slytherin (was:Punishing Draco )

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 143954

Nora:
> Actually, I think there *is* a greater propensity for evil in 
> Slytherin House, plain and simple.
> 
> I am not as sanguine as many readers in eliding out the blood
> factor, which seems to have faded from this whole consideration.
> But it's expurgation to do that.  Whether for safety or general
> bias, the Sorting Hat and Binns both tell us about Slytherin's
> principles.  The SH makes it pretty explicit, the valorization of
> bloodline.  *None* of the other Founders discriminated on similar
> categories.

Jen: There's no way around the fact all the Founders except 
Hufflepuff were discriminatory about who should go into their 
houses, based on what they believed to be most important. All were 
elitist whether it was the 'pure ancestry' of Slytherin, the 
intelligence of Ravenclaw or the brave deeds of Gryffindor. Rowling 
said at one time she values courage beyond almost anything, but her 
comments on unity and this statement here sound very Hufflepuff to 
me: "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." (TLC/MN)

When Hogwarts was built, there was fear of persecution for witches 
and wizards from non-magic folk, according to Binns, which may have 
contributed to Slytherin's initial desire to train only those of 
pure ancestry. And in the beginning the other founders didn't have 
any problem with his decision. Possibly Slytherin's had an initial 
desire to protect the WW, and that turned into an obsession with 
pure blood, starting the feud. And the obsession ran throughout the 
centuries, further corrupting itself in families like the Gaunts, 
and reaching its nadir in the form of Voldemort.

Nora:
> I think (I think) JKR tends to think of the qualities of
> Gryffindor as tending to positive uses more often than negative,
> while ambition is inherently genuinely amoral: it has no 
> regulation even implied. Courage and the Gryffindor like can be 
> twisted, yes, but they're thought of as virtues in the medieval
> sense instead of the Aristotelian for a reason, I think.

Jen: Is that why Dumbledore twinkles when he notes Harry has a 
certain disregard for the rules, and urges him to plumb the depths 
of his cunning for retireving the memory from Slughorn <g>? 
Ambition, cunning and a disregard for the rules have made Dumbledore 
who he is, too. He chose to use these very skills, along with 
immense courage and ingenuity, when he decided to take on Voldemort 
and to create a group like the OOTP outside the bureaucracy of the 
MOM. All skills are valuable, it's simply whether you choose to use 
them for the side of Good that matters in Rowlings world.

Jen

 
> -Nora finds the blood foundation of Slytherin House about as 
> distasteful, in the realm of education, as it gets

Jen, who agrees while noting that JKR said we are seeing Slytherin 
house mainly through the eyes of DE's children.