Can Slytherins be ALL bad?

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 143687

Bart wrote:
>snip<
> 
> The point is that in real life, 25% of the population are NOT a 
>bunch of 
> worthless jerks, and there are definitely positive aspects of the 
> Slytherin personality; JKR just seems to be reluctant to show them.

Potioncat:
Oops, I think I snipped too much!

(Sounds of List-Elf whispering, "You can never snip too much.")

Good post, Bart. I agree that JKR doesn't go out of her way to 
demonstrate "normal" Slytherins. But take a look at her comments 
about Slytherin House:

BEGIN INTERVIEW*******************************

The Leaky Cauldron Mugglenet Interview 16 July 2005

JKR: But they're not all bad. They literally are not all bad. 
[Pause.] Well, the deeper answer, the non-flippant answer, would be 
that you have to embrace all of a person, you have to take them with 
their flaws, and everyone's got them. It's the same way with the 
student body. If only they could achieve perfect unity, you would 
have an absolute unstoppable force, and I suppose it's that craving 
for unity and wholeness that means that they keep that quarter of the 
school that maybe does not encapsulate the most generous and noble 
qualities, in the hope, in the very Dumbledore-esque hope that they 
will achieve union, and they will achieve harmony. Harmony is the 
word.

>snip<

ES: Couldn't they just put them into the other three houses, and 
maybe it wouldn't be a perfect fit for all of them, but a close 
enough fit that they would get by and wouldn't be in such a negative 
environment?

JKR: They could. But you must remember, I have thought about this —

ES: Even their common room is a gloomy dark room—

JKR: Well, I don't know, because I think the Slytherin common room 
has a spooky beauty.

ES: It's gotta be a bad idea to stick all the Death Eaters' kids 
together in one place.

JKR: But they're not all — don't think I don't take your point, but — 
we, the reader, and I as the writer, because I'm leading you all 
there — you are seeing Slytherin house always from the perspective of 
Death Eaters' children. They are a small fraction of the total 
Slytherin population. I'm not saying all the other Slytherins are 
adorable, but they're certainly not Draco, they're certainly not, you 
know, Crabbe and Goyle. They're not all like that, that would be too 
brutal for words, wouldn't it?

ES: But there aren't a lot of Death Eater children in the other 
houses, are there?

JKR: You will have people connected with Death Eaters in the other 
houses, yeah, absolutely.

ES: Just in lesser numbers.

JKR: Probably. I hear you. It is the tradition to have four houses, 
but in this case, I wanted them to correspond roughly to the four 
elements. So Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is 
earth, and Slytherin is water, hence the fact that their common room 
is under the lake. So again, it was this idea of harmony and balance, 
that you had four necessary components and by integrating them you 
would make a very strong place. But they remain fragmented, as we 
know.

END INTERVIEW*************************************

If you take away the Pureblood Superiority Ideology, you have 
cunning, ambitious individuals. And where would we be without some 
ambitious people in our society? 

It appears that JKR doesn't view Slytherin House with the limited 
view we have....but perhaps she hasn't felt the need to go into the 
details of the Houses. It makes sense to me that the DA wouldn't have 
Slytherin members, I don't think the Trio would have trusted them. 

To me a prime Slytherin type would be the surgeon, famous for the new 
procedures he developes and high risk cases he takes on. He's doing 
it as much for the glory as for the benefit to mankind. 

Potioncat, old enough to know better, but old enough to think of 
a "surgeon" as a "he."