Scapegoating Slytherin (was:Punishing Draco )

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 143959

> >>Nora:
> Actually, I think there *is* a greater propensity for evil in 
> Slytherin House, plain and simple.

Betsy Hp:
And black and white, and basically doing exactly as Sydney and 
Lealess spoke of -- creating a scapegoat that everyone can jeer at 
and hate and comfort themselves by saying "Oh yes, those Slytherins, 
bad sort them".  And diametrically opposed to everything Dumbledore, 
and I believe JKR, has been saying all along.

Because if you're right than it means that blood does shape a 
person.  It's just that Slytherin chose the wrong blood to champion 
and Gryffindor picked the right one.

(Oh, and please ignore the little rat-like man behind the curtain. 
<g>)

> >> Nora: 
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
Girl, your vocabulary!  Thank goodness for online dictionaries! <g>  
I guess you're trying to say that all those who say Slytherin is not 
the universal source of all evil are avoiding the blood issue.  And 
yes, that was Slytherin's bugaboo.

But it's an interest that *can* be positive.  An interest in your 
family, your culture, your traditions; a desire to maintain such 
things; all of that can be positive.  Draco's love of his family is 
positive.  Percy's rejection of same is considered bad form.  
Everyone gets on Harry for not being more interested in his parents, 
his blood.  For that matter, Dumbledore uses Harry's blood to 
protect him.  

An interest in bloodlines can certainly be used negatively, but it's 
not necessarily negative or evil in and of itself.  (Or should I 
tell my grandmother to stop researching our family tree?  Should the 
various Highland games that occur all over the USA be stopped as a 
bad idea?  Should Native Americans get over their desire to teach 
their children their own culture and language?)

[Actually, I think it goes towards Slytherin being the feminine 
house (water, potions, etc.) keeper of the hearth, etc.]

> >>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.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Exactly.  And even Hufflepuff encouraged its students to give up 
their individuality for the sake of the group.  Each form of 
discrimination would be ugly if left totally on its own.  Someone 
once picked out "dark lords" throughout history and sorted them into 
each house. (Does this ring any bells for anyone, 'cause I can't 
remember who or where.)  It really brought home the fact that each 
house has its negative aspect that is actually tempered by the other 
houses.


> >>Betsy Hp:
> > I'm trying to figure out what's "generous" about courage.

> >>Nora:
> Courage puts oneself on the line, facing difficulty and danger,   
> quite often not only for one's sole benefit. One can be courageous 
> for oneself, but it's more often in the service of a group        
> endeavour.

Betsy Hp:
Courage is an individual trait.  It's not inherently generous.  It 
*can* be generous, but it doesn't have to be.  Just as ambition can 
be generous, though it doesn't have to be.  Again, both are just 
qualities, neither better nor lesser than the other, both able to be 
used for good or ill.

> >>Nora:
> I think (I think) JKR tends to think of the qualities of
> Gryffindor as tending to positive uses more often than negative...

Betsy Hp:
Ah, so we really *are* ignoring Peter Pettigrew than?  I'm more of 
the opinion that JKR likes the qualities of Gryffindor better.  
She's more comfortable with those aspects of herself, IOW.  But I 
don't think she's saying that Gryffindor is inherently *better* than 
all the other houses.  Or if she is trying to say that, she's being 
incredibly unclear. 

> >>Nora:
> ...while ambition is inherently genuinely amoral: it has no 
> regulation even implied.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Actually, young Tom Riddle, striding into magical London all by his 
little eleven year old self, or confronting his father when only 
sixteen, could be seen as quite courageous.  Harry wanting to be a 
great quidditch captain, or taking NEWT level Potions could be seen 
as quite ambitious.

They're both rather neutral, in the end.
 
> >>Jen: 
> <snip> 
> 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.

Betsy Hp
Which is why I think JKR does admire the Slytherin qualities.  She 
loads her most beloved characters down with them, after all.  Though 
I think the fact that Dumbledore is so balanced between his 
Gryffindor self and his Slytherin self is what made him such a 
formidable foe to Voldemort.

I think Harry will have all four houses behind him, both within 
himself and represented by those around him, when he confronts 
Voldemort.  And that is what will allow him to win.  (Unless he 
tries to repress his Slytherin side as evil or unclean, which would 
reverse everything he learned in HBP, so it ain't going to happen.)

Betsy Hp