The good Slytherin (mild TBAY)

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 131650

Neri wrote:
"You still didn't give any explanation. In Hagrid's case the
explanation is obvious: he was a stupid and lonely 13 yrs old kid.
Moreover, Hagrid's baby monster complex is painted as a rather amusing
flaw in a person who is otherwise good and kind,"

Del replies:
In PS/SS, Hagrid keeps a baby dragon (classified XXXXX) in his hut,
and lets 3 11-year-old kids come close to it and even handle it.
In CoS, he sends 2 12-year-old kids to the lair of a tribe of
fully-grown Acromantulas (XXXXX).
In PoA, he makes 13-year-old kids interact with fully-grown
Hippogriffs (XXX).
In GoF, he breeds the Blast-Ended Skrewts (not classified as Hagrid
created them, but their "parents" are classified respectively XXXXX
(Manticore) and XXX (Fire-crab)), and then has 14-year-old kids take
care of them.
In OoP, he asks a couple of 15-year-old kids to take care of a
fully-grown Giant (extremely dangerous and violent beings, who are
immune to many spells).

This is way more than just a "baby monster complex", and though it is
sometimes amusing, it is also often amazingly dangerous, even
life-threatening. 

Neri wrote:
"but Salazar's basilisk fits right there with his pureblood mania, his
monumental self-portrait and his noble heir, as corroborated by
multiple canon sources such as the Sorting Hat, Binns, Dumbledore and
Riddle."

Del replies:
Salazar never unleashed his basilisk, which was kept shut inside the
mouth of the statue inside the CoS and who had to be called, and he
never made anyone look at his statue. Those things remained hidden for
many hundreds of years. The basilisk was completely HARMLESS as long
as nobody went and looked for it, and then *decided to use it*. As for
the Heir of Slytherin, CoS seems to imply that it is Tom who went and
looked for the CoS, not Slytherin who went and recruited Tom.

In short: it is TOM who unleashed the Basilisk, it is TOM who gave
flesh to the legend of the Heir of Slytherin. NOT Salazar. Sure
Salazar put the Basilisk in the CoS to start with (or so it seems
anyway), but we have only second-hand accounts as to WHY he did it,
and what it intended it to do.

Neri wrote:
"I agree about the family part, less so about the friends."

Del replies:
Which is why it is particularly unfair to judge Theo by his family,
since JKR made a point to tell us that he is NOT one of Malfoy's gang.
That doesn't automatically mean that he doesn't agree with Malfoy,
granted, but he is NOT one of his friends.

Neri wrote:
"We are mainly supposed to judge people by their choices and actions,
which we can't do if the author tells us nothing about them."

Del replies:
Exactly! This is why I object so strongly to judging characters we
know next-to-nothing about.

Neri wrote:
"I wasn't judging an individual here. I was judging an institution,
Slytherin House, by the many things we were told about many of its
members. "

Del replies:
Many?? 20 people, you call that many?? By that standard, all Whites
are racist, all Christians are anti-semitic, and all Germans were Nazis.

Does Slytherin House spawn lots of Dark Wizards? Yes, it does, we know
that from the very beginning. But:

1. All Dark Wizards are not necessarily supporters of LV, as shown by
the example of the Blacks.

2. Even if half of Slytherin turns out Dark, that doesn't say anything
about the other half.

Neri wrote:
"As you say, we know almost nothing about them, and the little we do
know isn't nice."

Del replies:
Hum no, I said that 3 out of 11 could be construed as not-nice, and
that's only because they did ONE bad action.

Neri wrote:
"But why do you need to bother with them at all? The 1000 years period
that my statistics covers must include many thousands of Slytherins
who were never mentioned by name, and maybe they were all saints. That
would screw up the statistics even worse.
But this is fiction, and JKR can't tell us about all these people. She
needs to paint a reliable picture of a whole world by showing us a
relatively small number of details and people. JKR chose which
Slytherins to show us, and she chose to describe nearly all of them as
baddies. "

Del replies:
Many problems in your reasoning:

1. JKR did NOT describe nearly all the Slytherins we have met as
baddies. 20 out of 31 (if I got my numbers right) is not "nearly all",
and even among those 20, quite a few are not Eeevil, just not-nice. 

2. JKR deliberately did NOT extrapolate on some very significant
Slytherin characters, namely Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini, and Daphne
Greengrass. She took the pain of letting us know that they exist, that
they are Slytherins in Harry's year, that Harry has many classes with
them but never interacts with them, and that he didn't even know the
name of one of them until his 5th year. I call that MAJOR information.

3. JKR mainly introduces us to the people who *interact* with Harry.
We don't know the names of most Gryffindors because Harry doesn't
interact with them. We learned about Luna when Harry discovered her,
even though Neville, for example, already knew about her. So it makes
perfect sense that we shouldn't know about most Slytherins, quite
simply because Harry doesn't interact with them. 

Moreover, it makes perfect sense that almost all the Slytherins we do
know should be baddies, since this is the REASON Harry interacts with
them! Harry knows about Crabbe and Goyle because they are Malfoy's
cronies. Harry knows about Pansy Parkinson because she supports
Malfoy. Harry knows about the DEs because they are LV's supporters.

Of course, the next question is then: how come Harry never interacts
positively with a Slytherin? Good question, I grant you that THIS is
suspect. However, if you take a look at the "political" situation in
Hogwarts, you'll see that this is very unlikely, because of one thing:
Malfoy.

Who are the Slytherins Harry could interact positively with? They are
mostly those he has classes with. But most of those Slytherins belong
to Malfoy's gang. We know that Theo Nott is a loner, which means that
he is not interested in being in Malfoy's gang, but then he has no
reason to befriend Harry either precisely because he is a loner.
Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass both seem to keep under Harry's
radar, and it is very probable that they would try to keep under
Draco's radar too, because nobody would want to have the main bully of
their House on their case.

What other Slytherins could positively interact with Harry? Harry
doesn't belong to any club, except for Quidditch, which is a
*competitive* club, so inter-House befriending is pretty hard there
(romance is another matter). Slytherin and Gryffindor sit on opposite
sides in the Great Hall, they live as far away from each other as they
 could (Gryffindor up a tower, Slytherin in the dungeons). Any
Slytherin who would want to befriend Harry would have to do so in the
open, they would have to go out of their way to go and see Harry, and
that would inevitably be told to Draco at one time or the other.
Considering Draco's power, I have no problem seeing why no Slytherin
would bother trying to befriend Harry. I mean, it's not like they have
a *reason* to purposely befriend Harry, do they?

Neri wrote:
"Moreover, JKR chose to show us that the values of Slytherin House,
the ends-over-means and the pureblood prejudice, are the very things
that the good guys are fighting against. JKR shows us the evil
overlord as the boy who was a prefect in Slytherin house. She seems to
draw a direct line from all those petty Quidditch fouls to the
Slytherin official ideology of "using any means to achieve their
ends", and from there it's not very far to "there's no good and evil,
only power and those too weak to seek it". The deeds of the
individuals, in all the different levels of evil, mesh perfectly with
the ideology of the house. "

Del replies:
I agree. But I also notice that JKR showed us non-Slytherins fitting
the Slytherin ideology: Peter Pettigrew ("no good or evil"), Percy
Weasley ("any means to achieve their ends"), who were both
*Gryffindors* and so supposedly counter-Slytherins. She showed us
members of each of the 3 Houses who don't clearly fit the stereotype
of their House (Percy and Peter, Luna, and Zacharias Smith). So I have
really no problem envisioning that several Slytherins might be far
from the Stereotypical Bad Slytherin.

Neri wrote:
"Well, my lousy reading is based on 20 Slytherins on which we have
lots of canon, from diverse sources over 5 books. On what is your
imagination based? "

Del replies:

1. On 3 individual Slytherins whom we SHOULD have seen acting badly
towards Harry or Hermione by now, and who are still yet unknowns. That
speaks LOADS to me.

2. On the fact that none of the other 3 Houses is anything like an
ideological block.

3. On the fact that the biggest student bully in the school is in
Slytherin, which is a big explanation as to why the more peaceful and
friendly Slytherins would keep their heads low.

Neri wrote:
"Slytherin House can be viewed as a mere collection of individuals,
but it can also be viewed as an institution with a 1000 years old
celebrated tradition, or even as an abstract concept representing a
way of life that a person might choose to embrace or to reject. And
JKR indeed describes Slytherin house as such in several key places in
the series. "

Del replies:
It is obvious that people like Draco or Sirius did indeed see
Slytherin House that way. Just like the Weasleys seem to see more in
Gryffindor than just a House. But that doesn't in any way mean that
everyone who is Sorted into Slytherin sees that House that way. The
Sorting Hat, in particular, doesn't seem to consider Slytherin House
in that strict view.

Neri wrote:
"The number of the DEs is limited."

Del replies:
By what? I counted 23 people on the Original Order of the Phoenix
picture, and they were supposed to have been out-numbered 20 to one.
That's roughly 400 DEs. Way enough room to include all of Slytherin House.

Neri wrote:
"Of course not all Slytherins will become DEs. But Voldemort (and the
story) also need supporters who aren't DEs, and almost all Slytherins
in canon, even those who aren't DEs, demonstrate that they would
gladly support people like Umbridge."

Del replies:
How do they demonstrate that?? It's pretty much Draco's usual gang
that enrolls in the IS, and they are FAR from being a majority in
Slytherin House.

I know I use their names a lot, but can you show me ANYWHERE in the
canon where it says that Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini or Daphne Greengrass
support people like Umbridge?

Neri wrote:
"But I noticed you didn't address my point at all, so may I ask you,
who will the war be fought against? Who will be Voldemort's soldiers
and supporters? "

Del replies:
What about those people who joined in the Muggle-torture at the QWC?

For that matter, who were LV's soldiers and supporters last time around?

Neri wrote:
"They're both rare exceptions to their houses, and they both seem to
change their ways *despite* their house's ideology, not because of it.
Snape and Wormtail show that people have free will and can act against
the institutions they belong to. But do they also show that the
institutions don't exist or that they aren't important? "

Del replies:

* Peter Pettigrew did NOT change. He was always sucking up to the
biggest bully on the field, according to Sirius and Remus.

* We don't know why Snape changed sides, and we definitely do NOT know
if he changed anything in his thinking. He obviously still thinks that
niceness and fairness are not necessary, and that any means, no matter
how petty, is allowed to achieve his ends (breaking Harry's vial so he
can give him a zero and get some revenge, for example).

As for the existence and importance of the institutions: I never said
they don't exist or don't matter. I just said that we can't simply
assume that someone buys into an institution's ideology wholesale
simply because they belong to it. Especially since in the case of
Slytherin and purebloodism, it never says anywhere that one has to
BELIEVE in purebloodism to become a Slytherin. It seems logical that
all those who do believe in it will end up in Slytherin, but there is
no proof that the reverse is true (ie that all those who end up in
Slytherin believe in purebloodism).

Neri wrote:
"Noble sentiments (to quote one notable Slytherin <g>). But when you
write children's books (to quote the Author now) you need to be
ruthless. In order to make your important point above in a convincing
and dramatic way, JKR first need to have a *real* enemy. And the more
believable, well-developed, numerous and evil the enemy, the more
dramatic will be the realization that some of it aren't really enemies. "

Del replies:
OK, that I can agree with :) However, I don't think there is any more
need to show Slytherin as the enemy. It has been showcased in that
light right from the beginning. The school bully is a Slytherin, and
he becomes Harry's personal enemy very quickly. The Slytherin
Quidditch team is the only one who resorts to fouls. Slytherin creates
the "Potter stinks" badges and spreads them around. Hufflepuff and
Ravenclaw often side with Gryffindor against Slytherin. Big Bad
Slytherin is presented as something of a monster (complete with the
monkey-like face on his statue). And so forth and so on.

Now I think it's time Harry got to know the Slytherins a bit better,
and realised they are not all Draco's followers, nor would-be DEs. And
maybe, just maybe, some of them will even turn out to be very decent
people, and yet proud to be Slytherins :)

Del