Scapegoating Slytherin (was:Punishing Draco (was:Re: Snape, Hagrid and Animals)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 143985

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sydney" <sydpad at y...> wrote:

> 
> So anyways the subject that started this was Slytherin House, that 
> is the Shadow side of the wider society;  they are the repository of 
> all the negative traits and live in a dungeon and are excluded from 
> the community of the rest of the school.  This is where JKR, IMO, 
> runs into a bit of trouble because the symbolic role of Slytherin, 
> which necessitates them actually being full of negative, ugly, nasty 
> things, is colliding uncomfortably with the surface role of being a 
> bunch of kids sorted in there at age 11.  

Pippin:
Wonderful post, Sydney! 

I think we need to be very careful in distinguishing the reputations of
the Houses from the criteria which the Hat actually uses to select. I
think we will discover that Slytherin's reputation has become unfairly
tarnished, and Gryffindor's unfairly bright. Gryffindor is being judged
by the best of the individuals that join it, and Slytherin by the worst.
That is hardly fair.

The Sorting Hat tells us that the each of the Houses "divided, sought to rule". 
The substance of their quarrel, according to Binns, was that Slytherin 
thought the purebloods were most to be trusted with power. But if all 
four sought to rule, then *all* were elitist. Each thought the members of 
their own House were most to be trusted. And they were *all* wrong, because
 Dumbledore tells us that only those very rare individuals who are
pure of soul can truly be trusted with power and *none* of the Founders
were selecting for that.

 It might be that the pure of soul are drawn to Gryffindor 
because courage is a marker for purity. Perfect love has been said to
cast out fear. But courage can also arise from recklessness, 
as we've seen. Likewise, those whose instincts are bent towards 
cruelty and domination may gravitate to Slytherin
because ambition is a marker for the will to dominate. But ambition
may also arise from the innocent desire to better oneself, as it
does in Harry. 

In any case, purity of soul is rare, and so, fortunately,
are eleven year olds who have rejected love and dedicated themselves
solely to the pursuit of cruelty and power. Slytherin himself was
not such a person, if his friendship with Gryffindor was any guide.
If he turned Dark, it must have been later, out of fear, and in the mistaken 
belief  that those of pure blood were inherently noble and could not 
succumb to evil. 

Slytherin was surely mistaken to think that blood was a guarantee of
virtue, but IMO, the other Founders were just as wrong to think it was
guaranteed by egalitarianism, or intelligence or even courage. So to
me it's elitism based on false criteria that has caused the separation
of the Houses, and they all need to lower their pride and admit 
that there are few in any House  who can be trusted with power.

For some of us in the real world, the idea of race as a guarantee of 
virtue has been so thoroughly discredited that it's difficult to imagine 
any well-meaning person could believe such a thing. But you don't
have to go very far back into the past to find  highly respected
individuals (who are used as examples of good character *to this day*)
who believed just that, though the history books aren't always
careful to mention it.  

I don't think JKR is saying that racism is worse than other kinds of
elitism based on false criteria. I think she used it because  it's very 
easy for us Western liberal types to recognize that it's false. But I think the
wizarding world is largely ignorant of the change in Muggle thinking
that happened post 1945, a year which Wizards seem to remember 
mostly for the fall of Grindelwald, so it's unfair to judge them as if
they should know better.  

>From what Dumbledore says, it is almost certain that those who
have power will abuse it.  IMO, courage is important to JKR not 
because it's a guarantee of virtue but because it gives us the strength to
resist abuse, which we can do even if we're not pure of soul ourselves.

Pippin