Salazar & Slytherin(was Re: Draco and Slytherin House (was: Harsh Morality)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 121698


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:

<snip>

> The use of 'mudblood' *is* shorthand for a set of attitudes.  But 
> do you really think Slytherin is the only House with such 
> attitudes?  Out of curiosity - has any Slytherin other than Draco 
> been heard to use that word?)   

Young!Snape, in the Pensieve scene.  And while yes, he was under 
distress there, I think that JKR is broadly drawing our attention to 
a distinction between those who will use it, and those who won't.  
There are ideological lines being indicated in that scene, for while 
James Potter is a grade-A jerk there, he is also insistent that he 
would never call Lily THAT, and it is Snape's use of the word that 
really sets him off again.  To repeat myself, that word is a kind of 
shorthand that gives us some significant insight into a character's 
ideological orientation.  Maximal connotations with minimal effort on 
JKR's part--a nice literary combination.  Elegant instead of clunky.

Slytherin may not be the only House where such attitudes exist, but 
it's the only one that, to a certain extent, enshrines them 
institutionally.  "Pure blood" as a password is another case where a 
little thing is used to tell us a lot. 

There is something rotten in the WW, not unique to Slytherin House, 
but so far our evidence is that it is tolerated in that House to an 
extent (we've never heard Mudblood jokes in Gryffindor House, and 
there are Muggleborns in Hufflepuff that we know of; so the problem 
is that we have *texual* basis for Slytherin attitudes, and only the 
possibility for such attitudes in the other Houses.  I will argue 
based on what we know rather than what we speculate or would like to 
see.), and that House has produced a good number of fanatical 
followers of that idea.

I agree that we need a positive Slytherin; but I think that person(s) 
will have to disavow the ideology of the current reigning clique in 
the House.

-Nora watches the snow come down...