[HPforGrownups] The Falling-Out of the Hogwarts Four

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 126010

  Steve wrote:
>Given that Hogwarts was founded during a time of great oppression and
>persecution of wizards, the apprentice method had probably not only
>become impractical but dangerous. In addition, I'm sure the Founders
>saw that under the old method, they simply could not train all the
>available magical children. So, the idea of a central common school
>for all magical children was born.

>Now to one very important point, we have NO real evidence that
>Slytherin was the pureblood-Nazi he is made out to be. All we really
>know is that he didn't trust muggles, and given the times and
>circumstances, that distrust was well founded, and note again, the
>stakes were very high if anything went wrong.

(Much snippage)

I've speculated (can't remember if it was on-list or not) about this also.

Consider how the material culture of the WW and the Muggle world in the 10th
century might have differed and the implications for this for the newly
founded Hogwarts.

On one side of the new intake there are the wizard born kids. They speak
wizard-Latin as a lingua franca. They (perhaps) know each other already.
Their parents, being wizarding folk, have been able to provide them with the
robes, books, etc they needs. They are literate and numerate. They
understand what's going on.

On the other side are the Muggle borns. They are mostly peasants. They speak
(perhaps) seven different dialects of English, five of Irish, Irish, four of
Welsh, Cornish, Cumbrian, Pictish, Gaelic, Manx, and Scots (but not Latin,
any of them) so that they don't understand each other, leave alone the
teachers. They don't understand what's going on, except that they've been
abducted by witches and wizards and (according to what the priest has told
them) they are going to be murdered and sacrificed to the devil. They are
illiterate and innumerate. They consider magic to be dangerous and
(possibly) evil. They have no material stuff, just what rags they stand up
in. They are dirty, verminous, barefoot, and smelly.

Potentially, they are just as magical as the wizard borns.

But if Slytherin's mental picture of the school was an academy for the
wizard born children who already knew the basics, then I can understand why
this reality came as a shock. There's no point teaching someone the uses of
dragon's blood if they don't know the use of fleabane or what a toilet is
for.

As Steve says, it's quite possible that others over the centuries have
pinned their own political theories on Slytherin. I can criticise him for
elitism, but, faced with the situation he was faced with, how many of us
today would end up with Helga and how many with Salazar?

I wonder

Cheers

Ffred


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