Was it Slughorn? (was: The potion maker)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 141450

Siriusly Snapey Susan


> Anyway, what intrigued me was the resounding support for Slughorn as 
> a pretty decent chap -- perhaps even the "good Slytherin" so many 
> have longed to meet.  I sat in the session, looking around at all 
> those who felt this way, feeling vaguely uncomfortable with the 
> conclusion but unable to articulate quite why, beyond a notion that 
> his level of self-interest was awfully high. 

Magpie:

I have to say that I think sometimes fandom, possibly in its desire to 
see that "Good Slytherin" makes Slughorn into a much better man than 
he is.  Or maybe not. But to me, while Slughorn isn't a villain, what 
he stands for is something very real and not particularly in keeping 
with some of the other ideas of the book.

Slughorn runs his Slug Club on the same ideas as the Ivy Leagues run 
their admissions (and having just read an article that broke down how 
that worked I'm even more convinced of this).  Slughorn looks for kids 
that fit what he wants "Slug Club" to mean: they seem like they're 
going to be a success in terms of money, power and fame.  This does 
not have to mean a special talent or good character, it just means 
they seem like they've got better chances of being rich and famous.  

He's not, as I've seen argued elsewhere, someone who is admirable 
because he judges on abilities and not blood or anything like that.  
Blood matters to Slughorn--plenty of his kids are chosen for their 
bloodlines first, just as the Ivy League focuses a lot on legacies 
(both Draco's father and grandfather were friends of Slughorn, and 
Draco himself would have been a shoe-in for the club had Slughorn not 
been avoiding DE children specifically this year).  We know he buys 
the Pureblood superiority idea--even Harry picks up on how "surprised" 
he sounds at Lily's talent.  He avoids the children of DEs at the 
moment for political reasons, but does not seem to have ever had a 
problem with including students supporting Pureblood ideology in the 
past.

Exceptional Muggleborns are let in, but preference is certainly given 
to Purebloods from known families (is Hermione the only current 
Muggleborn?  Was Lily the only one in her day?)  There's a mixture of 
things Slughorn is looking for, and sometimes one thing overrules 
another.  Neville is invited originally for his family connections, 
but seems to rule himself right back out by being unexceptional and 
awkward.  Belby is also too nervous and awkward to make a good 
impression, and when it turns out his family connections are useless 
too, he's rudely ignored.  Neville and Belby could both grow up to be 
brilliant herbologists, but it's not glamorous, so not interesting to 
Slughorn, I'd guess.  Far from being a teacher who recognizes talent 
no matter who has it, Slughorn is comically uninterested in talent if 
it comes in the wrong person.   

It's ironic, really, that despite all the years of Snape's favoring 
Slytherin the biggest example of teacher favoritism we get is from 
Slughorn towards Harry. Once he's rejected someone he just doesn't 
care about them.  Imagine being in a class where the teacher fawns 
over one student all the time, keeps talking about how much he liked 
his mother.  A class where one time you're given a a hard assignment 
that whole class kills themselves on, and the favorite can't do it at 
all and gives a joke answer, the teacher still holds him up as an 
example!  I don't know...this just doesn't seem like a decent chap at 
all. I don't think Harry would like it if he wasn't benefitting from 
it.

That in itself doesn't make him a bad guy, obviously, but then there's 
the idea of his "helping others."  He does enjoy networking, bringing 
his famous friends together to make them more well-connected and so 
himself more well-connected.  But if we're looking for a Slytherin who 
was in any way good I'm going to have to hold out hoping for some of 
our fallen Slytherins who may have made greater mistakes and done 
worse things than Slughorn at first, but at least may also have made a 
decision to do something right for the right reason.

Slughorn's self-interest is such that he does not make this choice, no 
matter how much easier it should be.  This is a guy who presided over 
Tom Riddle's original network, has mentored any number of Death 
Eaters.  He comes to Hogwarts in sixth year not to help anyone but for 
his own reasons: he wants Harry for his collection and he wants the 
protection of Hogwarts.  DD wants him there for his own reasons as 
well: he wants the Horcrux memory.  

The thing is, Slughorn doesn't give it to him.  The guy may be too 
passive and self-interested to join Voldemort so that by default makes 
him not one of the bad guys, but does it really make him a good guy?  
Someone who would sit on that kind of information, tamper with a 
memory Dumbledore has said was important to fighting Voldemort, refuse 
to hand it over when asked because it makes him look bad?  When Harry 
finally gets the memory he tricks it out of a drunk Slughorn who won't 
remember it in the morning.

Can Slughorn be that good and still 100% selfish?  As a teacher 
doesn't he essentially stand for the very same things are troubling 
elsewhere--a small elite group of "winners" who hold themselves above 
others?  When McClaggen thinks Harry should let him on the Quidditch 
team because they're both Slug Clubbers Harry thinks he's crazy, but 
in fact that's what the Club is about.  Personally, I find Hermione's 
love of the Club a little disturbing, as well (and I like that I do).  
She seems to be quite flattered by the attention, and given that it's 
Hermione I wouldn't say the *only* reason she's there is that she's 
Harry's friend.  But still, there's something a little humiliating in 
thinking that she's the one person who takes the Club seriously, while 
Harry's the one who knows just how Slughorn feels about Muggleborns. 

To put it more simply, yes Lily Potter was a favorite of Slughorn's.  
But you know?  So was Lucius Malfoy.  Honestly, I think another ironic 
thing about Slughorn is that one of the best things that could happen 
to Draco Malfoy is that, as Harry observes, Slughorn rejects him so 
that he has to "rely on his talent." Draco is cut off from this usual 
easy way to priviledge, and that can, imo, only be good for him. 
Actually, it's possibly even better that no matter how talented Draco 
is (and I do think he's always been good at Potions) he can't win 
Slughorn's favor, so he has to learn to be satisfied within himself 
instead of relying on outside praise.

-m