Salazar & Slytherin - Quality of Qualities.

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 121978


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: 
Sorry for beating the same horse over and over again, but I just want 
to understand. We don't see any other Slytherins doing ANYTHING yet 
(basically) - we don't see them doing anything GOOD or anything truly 
NASTY.

They only exist in the story as extras, so far, IMO only. Croud, 
which form house Slytherin.
 
Since we don't see them acting either positively or negatively, why 
are you so sure that Draco and Pansy are the extremes and not typical?
 
And actually, as nameless croud, Slytherins do not act very nicely - 
Nora couple days ago gave the example of Slytherins not stopping 
Draco when he insults Hermione, we also talked about Quidditch and 
even though you said yesterday that basically nobody plays nice in 
Quidditch, I am thinking more about fairness and I would say that 
Gryffindor ( and two other houses) play much more fair than Slytherin 
does.
You don't see Slytherin offering  the remach, because the Seeker of 
the other team was hurt, for example.

Alla wrote previosly:
"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:

Not sure I follow. Are you saying that typical Slytherin has only 
those traits of character Sorting Hat names? Wouldn't it make 
placement even more simplistic than I think it already is? :)
 
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.
 
> 
> Alla:
 
OK, I got it I think. You make the positive reference, because you 
don't see other Slytherin croud acting negatively. TO ME and to me 
only it is more logical to make a negative reference based on those 
characters JKR already introduced in the story.
I don't think I can infer that other Slytherins  are much better than 
Draco, because I don't see any of them. To me it would be to think 
the best of those people, because I WANT them to be better than Draco 
and Pansy, but this is not MY story :o), this is JKR's story and 
unless I SEE good Slytherins, I am uncapable of thinking that they 
exist only because I would like them to.

Del:
 huge snip
  
I'm not sure I'm making much sense to you, and if I'm not, I 
apologise.
 
Alla:
 
I snipped your excellent statistic explanation and I think it makes 
perfect sense in  the real world. I am not sure if at least some of 
those various Slytherin types exist in JKR world. They should and I 
hope they are, but till I see them, I am not sure that JKR wants them 
to be.

Alla wrote previously:
"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:
 
Yes, I will be dissapointed too.

  
Alla wrote previously:
"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?)
or the benefit of a single student : Neville.
 
Alla:
 
Possible, but again, I think it can also be hint at general 
atmosphere in the Slytherin.


Just my opinion,

Alla