Salazar & Slytherin - Quality of Qualities.

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 121964


Alla wrote:
"I am not so sure that resourcefullness and disregard for rules is
associated exclusively with Slytherin . As I said earlier I believe it
could be that those qualitites are associated just as much with
Gryffindor."

Del replies:
For that matter, those qualities can also be Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw
qualities. Cedric was a Hufflepuff, and yet he was the Hogwarts TWT
champion, which to me indicates quite a lot of resourcefulness. All
those Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who joined the DA proved they had a
healthy disregard for rules. Inversely, Hermione and Ernie are very
good students, which is supposed to be a Ravenclaw trait, an assorted
variety of students of all the Houses are courageous, which is
supposed to be a Gryffindor trait, and quite a lot are also loyal and
hard-working which are supposed to be Hufflepuff traits.

I personally think that it's a stupid concept to separate qualities
into arbitrary bags to start with, but once this is done, we have to
go with the bags as they are. Resourcefulness and disregard for the
rules have been presented by DD as Slytherin qualities, not
Gryffindor's. It's obvious that many non-Slytherin students will
possess those qualities, but that doesn't change the fact that they
have been stamped "Slytherin". Just like uncontrolled ambition is a
Slytherin trait, even though we know of at least one Gryffindor who
possesses that trait : that doesn't make it a Gryffindor trait.

Alla wrote:  
"Call me  sceptical and I would welcome if JKR plants the big red 
herring with this, but I for now inclined to take her words that
Gryffindor is her favourite House at face value. I am just not so sure
that she associates that many good qualities with Slytherin House  in
the first place. I hope I am wrong."

Del replies:
Gryffindor is her favourite House because she values courage above
everything else and courage is *the* Gryffindor trait. But I'm sure
she also values loyalty, hard work, and hard study, for example, so
I'm sure she also likes Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, even if they are not
her favourite House. So there's no reason she wouldn't attribute some
good qualities to Slytherin too. Unless we bring up the harsh morality
issues again, and we conclude that Slytherin is an all-around no-good
House because JKR considers all the Slytherins as profoundly bad by
the time they are 11. I prefer not to think of this, which is why I
think that JKR did give positive traits to Slytherin, including
resourcefulness and a healthy disregard for the rules.

Alla wrote:
"Sorry, it is just "selfishness" carries very negative, BAD  
connotation to me. I guess I would agree " for his own purpose". I  
don't see anything BAD  in his desire to talk to Sirius."

Del replies:
Ah, OK. I agree that there was nothing bad in Harry's desire to talk
to Sirius. And I also notice that I wasn't clear enough : I wasn't
talking about the time at the end of the book when Harry tried to
check on Sirius, I meant the time when he was troubled about the
Pensieve scene and wanted to clear things up with Sirius and Remus. In
this case, it's quite clear to me that Harry broke a rule in his own
interest only, there was no greater cause.

Alla wrote:
"But there are NO other Slytherins to use so far, am I right? Are we
suppose to pick the character who is just a name for now?"

Del replies:
No. Personally I would consider the typical Slytherin *as the Sorting
Hat presents him*. I don't consider any of the Gryffindors to be the
typical Gryffindor, so when talking about the typical Gryffindor, I
wouldn't use any of them as the perfect example. Similarly, I don't
consider Draco to be the typical Slytherin : to me he's quite
obviously much nastier than an average Slytherin, or than the typical
Slytherin (the Sorting Hat does mention "use any means to achieve
their ends", but it doesn't expressly mention utter nastiness, which
is in fact counter-productive, as Lucius tried to teach his son in CoS).

Alla wrote:  
"Actually, I don't completely agree. I think that we may not know 
COMPLETE story about Slytherins and why they do things, but we were 
given some motifs for their action (pureblood ideology for example) 
and to me they are clear as night and day."

Del replies:
How many Slytherins do we know *for sure* believe in the pureblood
ideology? Draco is the only one, as far as I can remember. So I
wouldn't assume that all Slytherins strongly believe in this ideology,
especially not the older ones.

Moreover, even if they do believe in it, that doesn't mean that it is
a *motive* to their actions. Pureblood ideology was a motive for LV :
he based his plans for the future on this ideology. But for someone
like Draco, it's more a tool than a motive : he uses it to hurt
Hermione, but it's not the main reason he dislikes Hermione, and he
doesn't make his life revolve around a particular desire to trample
the Muggleborns like Tom did. As for the other Slytherins, none of
them has ever shown that they were basing any of their actions on a
particular dislike of the Muggles or the Muggleborns. So I really
don't think that the pureblood ideology is a motive for most of the
Slytherins.

In fact, even the Sorting Hat doesn't say that a belief in the
pureblood ideology is a motive for the typical Slytherin. It says that
the typical Slytherin believes in that ideology (but it doesn't say to
what extent), but it doesn't say that the typical Slytherin will ever
make this ideology a basis for his actions. Believing in something,
and acting on that belief are two very different things. Just look at
the Blacks : they believed in the pureblood ideology, they thought
that LV had the right *idea*, but they refused to follow in his
*actions* : their ideology wasn't enough of a motive for them to act.

Del