The good Slytherin - Shades of Grey

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 131425

 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. 
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I think she can go either way, Pippin. I think she can easily get 
> away with doing exactly that.
> 
> Only I would form it not "All Slytherins are bad because they are 
> prejudiced", but because they share this particular form of 
> prejudice.
> 

> Would I personally be happy with such direction? Not really, BUT 
> that is only when I look at the story from outside and would ask 
> myself again " could it be that so many kids in WW are predestined 
> to be bad?"
> 
Pippin:
Unless you are saying people with pureblood prejudice find it 
harder to compensate  than people with other kinds of prejudice,
(and I don't see any justification for that in canon), I cannot
see that the type of prejudice makes any difference. 

Alla:

> When I look at the story from within, I don't really care if all 
> Slytherins would end up being bad. Why? Because so far ( thanks to 
> JKR :-)) I had been led to dislike all Slytherins I saw in the 
> books  or at most love/hate them at the same time ( Snape).
> 
> 
> Now, she can of course go into other direction, but again she had
no  problem stating that Gryffindor is her favorite house  and she 
 values courage beyond anything in the world ( paraphrase).
> 
> I don't see why it would be problematic for her to portray House 
> which seems to be the opposite of Gryffindor as villains. ( again, 
> not very realistic to me, but JKR can do whatever she  wants, no?)

Pippin:
The fact that you see it as not realistic, ie, against what
you have come to expect of JKR's world, indicates to me that
it would be problematic. So far Harry hasn't met any
Slytherins he likes -- big deal. He doesn't even know the
names of most of them.

Jo might well think that an education in Gryffindor mores 
plus innate courage is more likely to yield a wizard of 
superior virtue, while the combination of a cowardly temperarment
and an education in Slytherin mores is  more likely to  yield  a
twisted one. But that does not imply that all Slytherins must be 
twisted,or that a Slytherin who had no objection to pureblood 
prejudice as an eleven year old might not have a change of heart 
later.


> Pippin:
> > 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.
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Well, the word "latent" tells me that you have to look hard  to
find  those qualities. I am not really surprised that Sirius was not 
willing to look very hard in Snape's soul to find them. :-), giving 
their history.

Pippin:
Given Snape's history, are you really not surprised that he is not
willing to look very hard  in Harry's soul to find good qualities in 
Harry?

Pippin