The good Slytherin - Shades of Grey

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 131411

> Alla:
> 
> I am assuming based on Slytherins I met  in the books so far.
>  

Pippin:
::blinks:: Are you saying Jo could write, "All Slytherins are bad
because they're prejudiced" without any sense of irony?
I don't _think_  so. 

Anyway, modern thinking on prejudice is that we're all prejudiced
...it's part of the way our minds work. We're all descended from 
people who didn't wait to find out if this particular tiger was 
hungry. All we can do is become aware that we're prejudiced,
and then decide, if we have time, whether acting on 
prejudice is justified by the circumstances. After all,
it's still not a good idea to wait to see if the tiger is hungry.<g>

While it seems that Salazar chose people for his house
who shared his particular prejudice, in doing so he would
not necessarily be choosing people who were more likely 
to think or act uncritically. That would not be consistent 
with having a disregard for rules or being cunning.

But wizards of whatever house are taught that  their instincts 
are noble because they're wizards, (that's the lie of the
fountain) and Gryffindors believe their instincts are noble 
because they're Gryffindors. Since none of them evaluate their 
decisions for prejudice, (since they think they're too noble
to have any) they're likely to act on their prejudices without even 
thinking about it, for example, by not inviting any Slytherins to 
join the DA. 

That's something I see in Sirius also ,  very much so. As Jo says,
he spouts that the world isn't divided into good people and 
Death Eaters, but he never acts as though there might be
any latent good qualities in Snape.

Pippin