Salazar & Slytherin - Quality of Qualities.

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 121971



Alla wrote:
"How do you know that Draco is nastier than usual Slytherin, since he
 is the ONLY Slytherin we can can consider among the kids for now?"

Del replies:
Precisely because we don't see any other Slytherin being as nasty.
Well, maybe Pansy Parkinson. Where nastiness is concerned, Draco and
Pansy are leaders, they are one of the extremes in the group
"Slytherin", which means that the average Slytherin is necessarily
less nasty than they are (sorry, my -very basic- statistical training
coming up again : any group contains extremes, and the majority of the
items in the group are *usually* somewhere between those two extremes).

Alla wrote:
"What do you mean you would consider "typical Slytherin" as Sorting 
Hat presents him?

Sorting Hat does not give us any new characters, it only gives us 
traits or "qualities" by which it supposedly chooses Slytherins"

Del replies:
Exactly. I would personally follow those traits when judging the
Slytherins in general, rather than the specific traits of *one*
Slytherin. The Hat tells us that the Slytherins are ambitious, cunning
and so on, and those traits are those that matter to me when talking
Slytherin, not Draco's traits. We don't know how closely Draco adheres
or differs from the typical Slytherin (though we do know that the Hat
put him there without any hesitation, but just like in Harry's case,
we don't know how much Draco's desire influenced the Hat). Just like
Neville, the Twins and Hermione represent 3 very different types of
Gryffindors, and like Luna and Cho represent 2 very different types of
Ravenclaws, I would say that Draco most probably represents only one
of several different types of Slytherins.

Alla wrote:
"I would say all Slytherins we KNOW so far, not just heard their
names, believe in pureblood ideology or believed at one point of their
lives. (I am talking about Snape and Regulus)"

Del replies:
I agree. But I see it as the other way around : the only Slytherins we
get to see are the most visible ones, and they are visible precisely
because they are extremists in their actions : they *act* on their
beliefs, so we know they hold those beliefs. But that doesn't in any
way mean that all the other Slytherins believe in the pureblood
ideology to the same extent.

I see it a bit like religious beliefs. Let's call a religion X for the
sake of this example. I will assimilate believing in religion X in RL
to the Slytherins believing in the pureblood ideology in the WW.
So there are some people who truly, deeply, fanatically (in the good
sense of the term) believe in X, who go to church several times a
week, who do acts of worship every day and who make their entire life
revolve around this religion. This would be LV.
Then you have the faithful believers, who go to church every week, try
to obey all the commandments, say their prayers every day, but don't
center their life around their religion. X is very important in their
life, but it is not the most important thing. This could be Lucius
Malfoy for example.
Then there are people who sincerely believe in X, but who can't be
bothered to worship too much : they go to church once or twice a
month, they vote according to their beliefs, but they don't obey all
the commandments and several days can pass between two times they
think of their beliefs. Typically, those people are usually very happy
and proud when one of their children becomes a faithful type or a
fanatic type (a missionary, for example). That could be the Blacks for
example.
Then you have the "excuse-believers", those that say that they believe
in X, but they go to church once or twice a year for the biggest
events, they have only a superficial knowledge of what their religion
teaches, they basically believe in X because their parents did, they
would never dream of applying their religion in their every day life,
even though they are relieved when other people make laws turn to
their advantage, and they use their religion of birth as an excuse not
to listen to preachers from other religions because they couldn't care
less about religion in general. That could be the case of many
Slytherins : they believe in the pureblood superiority ideology in a
very shallow manner, but they use it as an easy excuse when someone or
something would try and force them to reconsider.
And finally you have the forced-believers : they are mostly found
among the young people. They were raised in religion X so they always
took it for the truth, but as they grow up it makes less and less
sense to them. But their family won't let them leave the religion, so
they have to keep the pretense, at least until they are of age. And
even then, many will keep pretending if they have no strong motive to
oppose their family (like finding the truth in another religion). I do
suspect that there are such Slytherins among the kids as Hogwarts. It
wouldn't make sense statistically if there weren't any, because only a
brain-washing can create such a vaccuum, and brain-washing would go
against the principle of free will that JKR keeps putting at the
center of her story.
Oh, and there are also the post-X, who got out of X and don't want to
hear about it anymore, and the anti-X : those who got out of the
religion and now oppose it. I wonder if we'll ever run into a
Slytherin fighting against the pureblood ideology? Or at least a
Slytherin not caring about it?

I'm not sure I'm making much sense to you, and if I'm not, I apologise.

Alla wrote:
"I believe and of course it is only my opinion that by making Draco so
visible Rowling means for us to consider him as a typical Slytherin."

Del replies:
She could be doing just that, but I would be very disappointed,
because that would mean that it's not just Draco that is very 2D, it's
all the Slytherins, it's Slytherin House itself.

Alla wrote:
"Remember that password to Slytherin dorms was "pure blood" in CoS? I
 think it hints at something."

Del replies:
Do we know who chooses the passwords? It's not impossible that a
single pureblood ideologist Prefect chose that password. After all,
"Mimbulus Nimbletonia" in OoP seems to have been chosen (by Hermione?)
for the benefit of a single student : Neville.
And we *do* know that, in Gryffindor at least, the students do not get
to vote on the passwords.
Moreover, we have to remember the very special atmosphere that was
enveloping Hogwarts at the time when "pure-blood" was the Slytherin
password: the whole issue of blood was in everybody's mind, and the
monster of Slytherin was chasing the Muggleborns. Slytherin was being
set apart from the other Houses whether they wanted to or not, so they
might have chosen that password as a reaction of scorn (you know, the
very immature reaction many teenagers have : you think I'm such and
such, so I might as well really be such and such).

Del