Slytherins (was Re: /Hurt/comfort/Elkins post about Draco

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 156442

Magpie:
> Harry's problem, it seems to me, is not that he's unfairly 
> generalizing about Slytherin and so missing all the nice people.  If 
> the nice people are there, they are so unimportant they are not in 
> the story--and I don't really think they are there.  Even JKR's 
> defense of Slytherin is kind of weak: they're not all like Draco, 
> they're not all DEs, there are DE kids in other houses.  That's a 
> different kind of lesson for Harry to learn: they're not all like 
> that, look here's a nice Slytherin who's cool so you don't have to 
> hate everyone in the house on principle now.  I don't think that's 
> where JKR is going--and good thing too, because that just means 
> Harry doesn't have to deal with people he doesn't like. 

Pippin:
Harry is forgetting that there were some Slytherins who defied
Draco and stood for him at the leaving feast in GoF. They may
be as fond of  ruthless ways and bigotted ideology as
Draco is. But the war is not about whether ruthless
bigots will rule the wizarding world (Umbridge is proof of that)
but whether Voldemort will.

On that issue they stood for Harry and against Voldemort, knowing
probably better than any other children in the Great Hall except
Harry himself what price they and their families might pay. Those
are allies whose bravery Harry cannot afford to ignore, IMO,
whatever wrongheaded ideas they might have.

What Harry has to learn is tolerance, IMO. He can go on believing
that the Slytherin philosophy is dead wrong, as long as he'll
concede that he could be wrong about Gryffindor. Not that he
has any doubts, just that he could be wrong without having them.

Pippin