[HPforGrownups] Re: The good Slytherin - Shades of Grey

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 131472

--- dumbledore11214 <dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
>> Magda:
>>  
>> The line is drawn where thought becomes action.  Hate is not 
>> illegal (although I would argue that we have no proof that Slyths 
>> in general hate halfbloods and muggles, you're just assuming they 
>> do).
 
> Alla:
> 
> I am assuming based on Slytherins I met  in the books so far.


But you've just proved my point: JKR has carefully made sure we meet
few Slyths aside from Draco and his entourage.  If there are 250 kids
per House (JKR's figures, roughly, not mine), then we've "met" only a
fraction who've made an impression on Harry.

  

> Alla:
>  
> That was not a quote at all, that was paraphrasing.
>  
> Here is the exact quote.
>  
> "Why are some people in the wizarding world (e.g., Harry) 
> called 'half-blood' even though both their parents were magical?
>  
> The expressions 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' have 
> been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and
> express 
> their originators' prejudices. As far as somebody like Lucius
> Malfoy 
> is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as 'bad' as a Muggle. 
> Therefore Harry would be considered only 'half' wizard, because of 
> his mother's grandparents.
>  
> If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts 
> the Nazis used to show what constituted 'Aryan' or 'Jewish' blood.
> I 
> saw one in the Holocaust Museum in Washington when I had already 
> devised the 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' 
> definitions, and was chilled to see that the Nazis used precisely 
> the same warped logic as the Death Eaters. A single Jewish 
> grandparent 'polluted' the blood, according to their propaganda."

Well, as I read her quote, it refers to the pureblood extremisim of
the Malfoys of the WW, not the pureblood families as a whole.

 
>> Magda : 
>> You think he left it behind?  Not at all; Sirius rejected their
>> beliefs but he had a great deal of Black I-can-do-what-I-want
>> attitude which led to his most egregious mistakes.

> Alla:
>  
> I would like to see more proof on Sirius being proud of being a 
> Black, if you don't mind. We have a proof  that he was not proud of
> his family ( namely him leaving his family behind and never looking
> back). I don't see any proof to the contrary.

Alla, Alla, Alla - please read my above comment again.  I NEVER said
he was PROUD of being a Black.  I SAID that he retained a lot of the
attitudes of the Black Family even though he rejected their beliefs. 
Attitudes such as his nasty harping on Snape's physical traits during
the pensieve scene, his lack of appreciation of Kreacher's feelings
(yes, I know Kreacher is about as much fun as a Dementor to be around
but Sirius treated him as if he didn't matter at all and ignored
Dumbledore's very prescient warning that Kreacher could be dangerous)
and probably most obvious to me - his willingness to toss aside other
concerns if they conflicted with what he wanted to do (attitude to
the potential danger from Kreacher, attitude to Harry's fears for his
safety).


> 
> Alla:
> Just wanted to add that it also very telling to me that the most 
> sympathetically portrayed "pureblood" family in the books so far   
> ( IMO anyway) is the one whom wisarding society 
> calls "bloodtraitors". 

I assume you mean the Weasleys.  And "wizarding society" didn't call
them bloodtraitors - one dead woman's portrait and one demented house
elf did.  And the only other person who comes close to the same
expression is Lucius Malfoy, who is hardly all of wizarding society.

I repeat my earlier claim: that we are misreading the series if we
assume that the kind of pureblood extremism proclaimed by Lucius
Malfoy is the same as pureblood pride that permeats a significant
portion of the WW.  Until Voldemort came along and put his
megalomaniacal energy behind the effort, the sheer number of mixed
marriages in the WW was eroding pureblood families anyway. 
Voldemort's brand of extremism caught a lot of people by surprise.  

Magda

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