Scapegoating Slytherin (was:Punishing Draco )

[lagattalucianese]

No: HPFGUIDX 143979

> 
> What disturbed me was the characterization of a whole house based on
> stereotypes that, even including blood concerns, would make 
characters
> like Shylock or Fagin, if placed in the Potterverse, Slytherins.  
This
> was the realization I reluctantly came to.  Slytherin is the house 
in
> which all the negative stereotypes are collected.  To summarize the
> Sorting Hat, Slytherins are cunning, ambitious, power-hungry,
> concerned with family background, and capable of using any means to
> get what they want. The behavior of the Slytherins we have seen adds
> many more negative qualities to the Hat's list, such as opportunism,
> use of connections over hard work, slyness...  These qualities could
> apply to any villain, or to the Nazis, I guess.  But they are also
> often applied in fear to outsiders traditionally demonized by a
> dominant society: Jews, homosexuals, maybe the Gypsies to some 
degree,
> in the West 
 those of whom it was said their fate was deserved
> because of who they were.
> 
I think you have a good idea here, but it's gotten off the track. I 
don't think the Wizarding world demonizes the Death Eaters out of 
fear because they're outsiders. It demonizes the Death Eaters out of 
fear because the Death Eaters have an unfortunate habit of torturing 
and murdering and (at their least objectionable) manipulating  
(Lucius Malfoy's in with the MoM) to get what they want. They aren't 
just "different" people being persecuted because they aren't "just 
like us". They really are nasty, deadly, unprincipled power-grabbers 
who will do anything to seize control of the world. I am old enough 
to remember that in the decades following WWII (the Muggle one), it 
could be the ruin of a political figure to have it revealed that a 
parent or other near relative was high up in the NAZI regime. Does 
this mean that the NAZIs were being demonized by a dominant society 
because they were "different"? Or were they being demonized because 
they were demons who finally got what they had coming to them?
>
> The things in HBP which brought me to wonder about this were first,
> the depiction of the Gaunts as ape-like subhumans, similar to the
> manner in which marginalized groups have been drawn for centuries, 
and
> second, the all-Slytherin complicity in the murder of the sainted 
and
> probably sacrificial Dumbledore, in the context of Western and
> ostensibly Christian-themed books.  The thing in HPfGU which 
catalyzed
> this was the "deserve what they get" postings calling for 
retribution
> against certain characters based on supposed character traits and
> unforgivable actions.  It sounded to me like the Slytherins were the
> Jews, and they had killed Christ, so they deserved what they got.  
And
> look, they had a whole bunch of "not like us" characteristics which
> made it easier to hate and marginalize them.
> 
Erm... Except that most of the Slytherin families are anything but 
marginal. They are ancient, rich, powerful, the landed aristocracy of 
the Wizarding World. (It's been awhile since I encountered the 
Gaunts, but as I recall they are that standard trope beloved of 
Gothic literature, the noble house that has fallen into decay and 
unsavory habits. The Earnshaws in _Wuthering Heights_ spring to 
mind.) Those who go to the bad (and I would be the first to argue 
that *not* all Slytherins are evil) make common cause with a clever, 
murderous, utterly unscrupulous little nobody because they think he 
can confirm them in the power they already have and give them more at 
a time when the world is moving forward and they are in danger of 
becoming societal dodos, very much the way the German military elite 
fell into step behind Hitler as long as they thought he could do 
something for them.
>
> I see the Slytherins as marginalized and forced by this to band
> together.  Yes, the Slytherins form the bulk of the Death Eaters, a
> sinister international conspiracy to rule the world and remake it in
> their image.  They may espouse a pureblood ideology, but I don't 
think
> they are National Socialists, not even in a nascent, thuggish form -
-
> I think they are terrorists.  I also think most of them would get 
out
> if they could.
>  
??? 

I doubt it, right up to the time when they find themselves seriously 
losing.

And once again, while Slytherins may make up the bulk of the Death 
Eaters, I don't think Death Eaters make up the bulk of Slytherins.
> 
> ...The Death Eater exception of Peter Pettigrew, on the other hand, 
is meant
> to be especially heinous because he was one of the pure ones, one of
> the brave and daring.  It was probably out of incredible character
> weakness, or coercion as he suggests, or, who knows, impure lust for
> Lily, that he became one of the tainted ones.
> 
I'll grant you that Pettigrew is a thoroughly nasty little package. I 
think he goes in for impure lust generally, and follows Sirius around 
because he can gratify it voyeuristically. But this is a personal 
theory, influenced no doubt by a personal experience with a real-
life, equally nasty package.
> 
> None of the Slytherins overtly counters the broad negative 
stereotypes
> of the house, with the possible exception of Snape, *if* he is 
brave,
> loyal, more intelligent than cunning, and not a Judas, with whom I
> have seen him compared...
> 
I have my personal doubts about Snape. I suspect he is was sorted 
into Slytherin not because he was typical of the house (among other 
things, he's a half-blood) but because he was for some reason needed 
there, and in his case the Sorting Hat did as it was told.   
> 
> Yes, we haven't met all the Slytherins.  But six books into the
> series, we have only seen Slytherins who are, at their absolute 
best,
> opportunistic networkers or irresistibly drawn into the plans of
> others.  Is this the basis on which Slytherin will be integrated 
into
> the culture of Hogwarts as a whole?  It seems Rowling will have to
> develop some currently name-only characters or introduce a whole 
raft
> of new ones in book seven to tie up this and other dangling 
threads...
> 
> lealess
> 
I doubt we're going to see a late-breaking contingent of good 
Slytherins. JKR has already introduced the ones she needs to provide 
the conflict that drives the story. A pity, in a way, but the book 
isn't about Slytherin House, it's about Harry Potter, and Slytherin 
House is there mainly to provide him with some hissable antagonists.

--La Gatta