The good Slytherin - More Shades of Grey

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 131412

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Caius Marcius" <coriolan at w...>
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
> <horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:
> > 
> > But, just as various members of the other three houses have been 
> > varied in their reactions to Harry and his fight with Voldemort 
> > ... I'm sure  there will be varied reactions within Slytherin ...
> > 

> CMC:
>
> What then do you make of the fact that not a single Slytherin joined 
> Dumbledore's Army? In fact, no Slytherin even bothered to attend the 
> informational meeting at the Hogs Head. ...edited...
> 


bboyminn:

Well, you pretty much answered this yourself, although I snipped it
from your post. Slytherin weren't there because they weren't asked. As
the discussion between Alla and Betsy clearly establish, Harry and
friends have a very strong dislike of Slytherin, which in a very
childish boarding school way, might even be justified. So, I can't
imagine that any Slytherins were ever approached and asked to join the
DA Club. Especially, when the Slytherins gave the appearance of
supporting Umbridge.

However, my speculation relating the new DA Club with the Good
Slytherins assumes that it will be an officially sanctioned open club;
that is, school approved and open to all houses. Slytherins will join
then misbehave as they always do. At this time Draco and his
supporters will leave the club, but other non-Draco non-Voldemort
Slytherins will stay in the club. It will be these Slytherins that
show us that the Draco model, and Harry's preconceived notion of
Slytherin indeed do not define ALL Slytherins.

> > Betsy HP:
> > 
> > However, I do take issue with the idea that no Slytherin could 
> > *ever*  be sweetly good. (Actually, there's something a bit 
> > Slytherin in Mary Poppins herself, wouldn't you say? <g>)  

> CMC:
> 
> I agree: and here's some evidence:
> 
>    - CMC

bboyminn:

Notice, I didn't actually say that no Slytherin could every be truly
nice or sweetly good. I was making a point within a certain context,
and to do so, admittedly, I overstated that point to make it clear. 

I was attempting to counter the apparent assumption by many people
that a 'bad' Slytherin is uniformly and completely bad, and that
therefore any 'good' Slytherin would instantly be all butterflies and
rainbows. My appeal was to try and get people to view Slytherins, good
and bad, as a spectum that is more a model of real life, in which even
the best of us still has his shades of grey.

So, there certainly is room in my spectrum for a 'butterflies and
rainbows' Slytherin, just as there is room for a good but definitely
not nice Slytherin student. But more than likely, the Good Slytherins
are just going to be normal kids with the same virtues as well as
frailties and faults as any other kid. Further, I think that last
concept more accurately reflects Slytherin House, and reflects in far
more accurately than Draco's version of Slytherin, or Harry's highly
prejudice version of Slytherin House.

The conflicts between house can easily be understood in the childish
confines of the schoolyard. Houses are rivals, Slytherins are
arrogant, the other House take a certain joy in knocking Slytherin off
their high horse. But these are petty House Cup/Quidditch Cup
rivalries that make great sense and instill great passion in
schoolboys. But later on in life, in order for society to function,
the pettyness of the rivalries has to be dropped.

I'm reminded of the on-going/always was/never ending rivalry be
between Harvard and Yale Universities. Each thoroughly convinced that
/their/ university is the best, and that the other is nothing but a
bunch of ego-inflated over-rated hacks. And that's fine for
schoolboys, but once you are out in the business world, these things
can't be allowed. True the jibs, glib cutting remarks, and teasing
still continue, but when a Harvard man needs a new employee, and a
Yale man is obviously the best man for the job, he doesn't quibble
over schoolboy taunts, he takes a much more practical approach.

So my Harvard/Yale point is that these schoolboy preception seem
likely to fade in the years after Hogwarts. In post-Hogwarts years
kids are just kids, and men are just men, and House allegiance carries
very little weight beyond the gates of Hogwarts. Which again
re-enforces the postion that Slytherins are just kids going to school,
perhaps more ambitious, perhaps more eager for suscess, perhaps more
cunning, but in the end, they are just people, a complex grey spectrum
of people like any other. Though without a doubt, some of them are
obssessed with their own unique petty priorites, as are Hufflepuffs,
Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors.

So, in my eyes, I see that JKR is clearly setting up a sorting out of
Slytherins. She is setting the scene for the uniting of Hogwarts House
against a common enemy. When that time comes, we will see the
appearance of ambitious cunning Slytherins who think Draco is an
obnoxious prat, and Voldemort is the worst thing that could possibly
happen to their personal plans for success. They will run the range of
good, to so-so, and to not nice, but by the same token, not evil.

Again, find the answers in the shades of grey.

Steve/bboyminn