The good Slytherin / Salazar

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 132429

zgirnius: 
>Actually, a Half-Blood who is cunning and ambitious would go into 
>Slytherin. At least, if his name happened to be Tom Riddle... ;-) 
>Which makes me wonder, where would a cunning, ambitious Muggleborn 
> go? 

a_svirn:
> Cunning, ambitious muggleborn? To Gryffindor, at least, if her 
> name happens to be Hermione Granger.


zgirnius replies:
Hey, I can't argue with you there! (Nor would I argue with anyone who supposes she belongs in Ravenclaw, quite the mind there, or 
Hufflepuff, quite the work ethic...) I'm not sure what criteria the 
Sorting Hat uses. My personal favorite theory regarding Hermione is 
that she asked the SH for Gryffindor and it, for whatever reasons, 
agreed. We know from SS that Hermione had already read up on Hogwarts before ever arriving, and thought Gryffindor sounded best, in part because Dumbledore was a Gryffindor. This would allow us to suppose she had a preference to give the Hat. Why did the Hat go along with her? Maybe it just does, or maybe her crusading spirit is enough of a Gryffindor trait. (SPEW, etc...)

I was wondering about generic cunning, ambitious Muggleborns in the 
context of the discussion that a "good Slytherin" will emerge in HBP, now that the WW knows that LV and his Death Eaters are back in 
business. That discussion is now immensely long and I could not hope 
to attribute all the nuances from each poster, but I would summarize 
the opinions as falling into three camps:

1) There will be no "good Slytherin", the house is just evil, or 
keeping all Slytherins we see "bad guys" is a literary device JKR is 
going to use.

2) There will be a "good Slytherin". BUT:
   a) Because that House's traditions and ideology and trait are just plain evil, this Slytherin will not be "typical" and will reject SLytherinness.
   b) The good SLythering will be a "true Slytherin" and proud of it, whatever, exactly, that means.

I personally find 2) b) the most attractive possibility. To me it 
justifies the Sorting Hat's position that Hogwarts must unite, and 
the original founders' decision to keep Slytherin House in the school after Salazar Slytherin's departure. It must mean that the House has something of use or value to contribute to the School, and Wizarding society (or else why keep an evil and useless institution around? Why unite with it?) 2) a) does not in my view suffice for this purpose.  There are good people (and bad people) everywhere, this provides no justification for Slytherin House as an institution.

So where would the "good, but genuine/proud Slytherins" come from? To me is seems a natural guess that these might be Muggleborn or mixed-blood Slytherins. Opposing LV and the DEs is certainly their only move if they wish to advance. And they could use "Slytherin" tactics in opposing others within their house who go along with the pureblood ideology of Slytherins like Draco.

zgirnius