Scapegoating Slytherin - The Moral Majority

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 144382

> >>Bookworm:
> I would argue that the Slytherins don't see themselves as           
> stigmatized or suffering `negative traits'.

Betsy Hp:
See, if I were an eleven year old kid, just having been sorted into my 
new house, and I was hissed at by upper classmen I didn't even know, I 
think I'd pick up that my house is not well liked by the school in 
general.  Especially if the hissing occured only when my house name 
was called out and it was treated as par for the course by staff and 
faculty.  Of course, I was an extremely clever eleven year old <eg>.

> >>Bookworm:
> > Given the attitudes we have seen from Draco and company, they see  
> > themselves as better than everyone else. It is only students in    
> > the other house who we have seen through Harry's point of view,    
> > who seem to think less of them.  

> >>Magpie:
> <snip>
> I mean, isn't it natural for any group that's hated by
> another to decide they are, in fact, superior? Nobody wants to be
> stigmatized.

Betsy Hp:
Exactly.  You hate me, think I'm the reason for all the ill in the 
world. I can either buy into your beliefs, or decide you suck.  
Slytherins have decided that, in general, the rest of Hogwarts sucks.  
That's why the problem is so malignant; it's a rather vicious circle.

> >>Bookworm:
> We don't have an unbiased opinion from either Slytherins who are not 
> Draco's cronies, or the many non-Slytherins Harry doesn't socialize 
> with, to get an accurate picture about any stigmatization.

Betsy Hp:
Magpie, in the portion of her comment I snipped, gave some good 
examples of Slytherins being thought badly of as a group.  But I think 
the best example is what happened when Umbridge came to the school.  
She was assulting Hogwarts.  I think everyone realized that.  And she 
was hostile to Snape, so it wasn't like she was chums with Slytherin 
house.  (I kinda suspect she was a Ravenclaw.) And yet, Slytherin 
house joined with her, almost en masse.  And I think it's because they 
saw themselves as the outsiders, so why help out the school that 
thinks so little of them?  And of course, the rest of the school 
thinks little of them because they joined with the enemy.... As I 
said, vicious cycle.  And one I hope gets broken in book 7.

Betsy hp