Shades of Grey/Good Slytherins/Draco

[Chris]

No: HPFGUIDX 131518

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" 
<gbannister10 at a...> wrote:
> I thought it might be useful to take a slightly wider view of these 
> discussions and stand back to get a better view.
> 
> One of the dangers into which we all fall from time to time is to 
> draw generalisations and try to make them apply to individual 
cases. 
> I have to admit that I am not fond of the USA as a country and, 
like 
> many of my UK compatriots, often think of the country as pushy, 
> arrogant and rather full of itself. This has not been helped 
recently 
> by the very mixed feelings in the UK about our involvement in the 
war 
> against Iraq.

  Chris: I would have to agree with you on this point, and I think 
its a generalization we have made in regards to this story. It is 
easy to take a look at the leader of a group, and characterize all of 
his people or follwers in the same vein as the leader. I for one am 
not pushy, arrogant, and full of myself. Yet, many people from other 
parts of the world would classify me that way because I'm American.
  I think we fall into the trap with the WW. Voldemort, Snape, Malfoy 
and his Cronies all fall to the left of center when it comes to Good 
and Evil. Yes, some are worse than others, but overall, we classify 
the whole of Slytherin as possessing those same qualities though we 
haven't even met or heard of the majority of them.
  We could say the same of Gryffindor. The characters we have met 
belonging to that house all seem to fall on the side of good. Yet 
have we met all of them? No, we haven't, so there may be an evil 
Gryffindor lurking in the mist.
  I root for the individual in these cases, and do not classify all 
members of a group as having the same qualities as their more popular 
examples. I do not think all Arabs are terrorists, all Americans are 
haughty and arrogant, etc. etc. I look for the individual who can 
stand out, step up, and say that he or she is different from the 
rest. 
  I think we will see this in the last two books, I hope so anyway. 
JKR does not write one-dimensional characters, and I hope that comes 
through in the last two.

Chris
labmystc

> 
> However, since I came onto HPFGU about two years ago, I have had 
> occasion to exchange emails off-group with several other members – 
> many of them living in the US and have found them to be pleasant, 
> friendly and sociable. So I have to remind myself that we are not 
all 
> identical copies of each other.
> 
> I think that there are parallels which can be drawn between 
Slytherin 
> house and Germany during the Hitler years. I am just old enough to 
> remember the end of the Second World War, having started going to 
> school at Easter that year. Obviously, my views as a child were 
> shaped by my home and friends and things I heard said. For many 
years 
> in the UK, there was no such thing as a good German whereas the 
> Allies were perfect. For years, war films were produced depicting 
the 
> Nazis as evil, brutish thugs and the Allies were always winning, 
> usually led by somebody such as John Wayne who did everything on 
his 
> own. :-)
> 
> As time went on, we began to see that one of our allies had been as 
> brutal a tyrant as Hitler and the Cold War soon shattered our 
> illusions about our relationships. We also began to see that our 
side 
> of the story was flawed. I, for one, have always deplored the 
bombing 
> of Dresden as but one example of questionable motives. There were 
> also folk in Germany who worked on the side of good – Dietrich 
> Bonhoeffer, one of the leading figures of the Confessing Church 
comes 
> to mind – and others who tried to bring down the Hitler regime 
> because they saw that it was destroying anything worthy and 
> honourable in the country.
> 
> Here we can see the points which have been made by those who want 
to  
> show that labelling all Slytherins as evil is a generalisation 
which 
> is as wrong as the real world cases mentioned above. The comparison 
> is not quite as direct as with the two sides in World War Two 
because 
> Voldemort is not the unchallenged leader of the Wizarding World but 
> he has polarised opinions into those who support the good and those 
> who lean towards evil.
> 
> As a side thought, I often wonder if JKR consciously paralleled 
> Voldemort with Hitler because we have here two dictators who 
espouse 
> ideals which they themselves do not fit – Hitler with his Aryan 
> obsession and Voldemort aiming for pureblood dominance when Hitler 
> wasn't tall, blond and blue-eyed and Voldemort isn't a pureblood
..
> 
> In a recent discussion on the question of being sorted into 
> Slytherin. I wrote as part of a reply in message 130929:
> "We need to remember that they didn't /choose/ the house, the 
Sorting 
> Hat placed them there. They may have accepted this because, at the 
> age of 11, they thought that this was what Hogwarts wanted and 
> couldn't be altered; so I wonder how many incoming pupils over the 
> years have challenged the Sorting Hat's thinking as Harry did?"
> 
> I suspect that there are many families with pupils in the house who 
> are not in favour of Voldemort, his Death Eaters and their 
pureblood 
> policy but are happy to leave their offspring there because they 
see 
> that, among other things, Slytherin is a house which encourages 
> cunning, ambition self-reliance and perhaps business acumen which, 
> used properly, are not in themselves wrong aims.
> 
> Finally, Draco. I have said on a number of occasions that I have a 
> sneaking sympathy for him. With eleven years of having no other 
view 
> than Voldemort's racism and his father's class snobbery poured into 
> his ears, it's surprising he's still sane. I have said also that, 
as 
> a Christian, I believe that no one is irredeemable unless they put 
> themselves into that position by their attitude and behaviour. 
After 
> all, Saul of Tarsus set out to crush the early Christian church 
but, 
> after he had the famous meeting with the risen Christ on the 
Damascus 
> road, he performed a complete volte-face and became one of the most 
> powerful advocates of the then-new Christian faith. I'm not 
> suggesting that Draco might have a Hogsmeade road experience – 
> although it could happen in real life – but he's sharp enough to 
see 
> which way the wind is blowing and might yet decide that being a 
Death 
> Eater isn't worth the hassle.
> 
> We are often reminded that were are seeing things from Harry's 
point 
> of view and he hasn't had a huge amount of interaction with folk 
from 
> all the other houses. We only see a small number of pupils named in 
> other houses. When I was at school in my teens, I didn't know 
> everyone in my year because I had a circle of close friends and I 
> knew a few other folk in the year because, maybe, they belonged to 
> the same school society, we got the same bus home or whatever. So 
any 
> analysis of Slytherin tendencies is drawn from too small and too 
> biased a sample for us to draw accurate conclusions. Time will tell.