CHAPDISC: HBP7, The Slug Club (Slughorn)

[spaebrun]

No: HPFGUIDX 145863

> AHK wrote:
> > "9. The luncheon scene with Slughorn highlights the personality
> > traits that we glimpsed in "Horace Slughorn." Did this scene cement
> > your opinion of Slughorn, did it change your first impression from
> > the earlier chapter, or did your opinion undergo a transformation
> > later, say, after seeing the full horcrux memory?"
> 
> Amanda:
> I felt from the beginning that Slughorn was a user and this just cemented my belief. He 
doesn't care about anyone or anything but his self and where people he meets can take 
him.

Reed:
I don't see Slughorn's character so negative as Amanda and several other people 
responding to the Chapterdisc seem to do. He certainly has all the flaws the were 
mentioned: putting his own comfort first, using people to his advantage, being susceptible 
to flattery. He probably also lacks Gryffindore-type bravery (though I'd say that hiding 
from DD was not an act of cowardice but a strategy of avoidance - he simply didn't want 
to talk to DD, as he already suspected that DD would succeed in talking him into returning 
to Hogwarts). 

Still I think Slughorn has a decent core. He is genuinely sorry about having told Tom Riddle 
about the Horcruxes. He never considers to join the Death Eaters, even though he might 
lead a quite comfortable life, brewing poisons for them. So you see that his own advantage 
is *not* the only thing he cares about, and he knows right from wrong quite well. I think 
that DD is aware of this and that it is the reason why he trusts Slughorn and considers him 
a friend in spite of his flaws.

I rather like Slughorn as a character and my view of him didn't change during the course of 
the story. All additional information was consistant with the way he was presented in the 
first scene. Slughorn is a Slytherin - in fact, he's the 'good Slytherin' we've been waiting 
for: A character who has definite Slytherin traits, but is still decent. Phineas Nigellus was 
probably the first glimpse of this type we got* and I think JKR did a very good job 
portraying another variety of it in greater detail with Slughorn - even though I'm still 
eagerly awaiting the 'good Slytherin' of the student generation...

Reed

* I leave aside Snape here, for whatever you think of him - Snape is so complex as a 
character that he can't serve to characterize Slytherin House.