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

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 156207

> Alla:
> > 
> > So, I make the conclusion (which can be wrong of course) that 
> Elkins 
> > sees bias again Slytherins ( or maybe she does not, since she 
talks 
> > in general), where she **wants** to see bias against Slytherins, 
> > because she likes them and since it is IMO not supported by the 
> > text,she brings in metathinking. I mean, don't get me wrong I 
love 
> > metathinking arguments, but I think this one **is** more 
emotions 
> > based than text based and she IMO acknowledges it too.
> > 
> > Am I making sense?
> 
> Julie:
> I understand what you're saying, I just don't agree that the
> bias against Slytherins *isn't* supported in the text. <SNIP of 
the examples, go UPTHREAD to read them> 
> I know you're saying Slytherin students brought this upon
> themselves, and perhaps they did. At least the 5th, 6th, 
> 7th years. But the 1st years just got there and they are 
> already tarred with the image of their predecessors, on a
> set course straight to becoming the next "upperclassmen" who
> will eventually deserve the contempt and derision of the rest
> of the school heaps upon them. And this is exactly way JKR 
> wants it, because that is the way she's written it. 

Alla:

I have to clarify - **dislike** of the House Slytherin by all other 
Houses is definitely supported by the text, I just don't think it 
constitutes bias as in **prejudice**, unfair dislike. If House 
Slytherin is the House,where each and every member supports the 
ideology of **purebloods is better than anybody else and muggleborns 
and half bloods must die**, then I think that dislike of House 
Slytherin is very fair thing to do and does not constitute bias.

So, brought upon themselves, yes, IMO. Now the issue of the first 
years,which arrive every year is a different story of course.

No, the evil eleven years old is absurd, of course. But eleven years 
olds, which minds are already poisoned by such ideology - why not?

It is again very simplistic to say that their minds cannot be 
changed, after all they had been brought up that way, but that 
brings me always to question that Emmerson asked JKR - why put 
eleven years old in the House of Slytherin, why make them be with 
those who share this ideology?

So, what I am trying to say is that is the main reason why I think 
House System will dissappear at the end of book 7 OR we indeed learn 
something about Salasar that he was not really into purebloods 
superiority and that make cause Slytherins to abandon this part of 
their views.

Right, so no I don't think bias is supported in the text, IMO.

I especially don't see bias by teaching faculty, you know? 
Dumbledore awarded points at the feast? Well, it is  not all about 
Slytherins, IMO. Harry was in the Hospital wing after all, wasn't 
Ron too probably?

Maybe DD did not have time to do it before? I mean, if the points 
were undeserved, I could entertain the notion of some sort of bias, 
but just because of timing, while we know that for seven years 
Slyths held  the Cup AND Dumbledore was the Headmaster?

I don't buy it, sorry.



> SSSusan:
<SNIP>
>> Maybe that's NOT true and my fellow Americans on the list will 
rise 
> up to say, "You're nuts!!  I knew, and everyone I know knew, what 
> a 'philosopher's stone' was!"  But I am going on an assumption 
here 
> that there is perhaps more discussion of/education about alchemy 
in 
> the UK than in the US.  Am I wrong?

Alla:

Hehe, I guess I cannot count myself, since I was not educated in the 
US, except law school, but I learned the term **philosopher stone** 
( the first word sounds very similar in Russian, I guess the word 
philosophy is the same or similar in many languages) when I was 
quite young, probably ten or eleven years old, heeee. Maybe a bit 
earlier.

Obviously I did not learn it from any alchemy books - when I was a 
preteen, many books were not openly available yet in Soviet Union ( 
by the time I was a teen and adult, they were though), I think I 
first read the term in the book which talked about development of 
the medicine in the middle ages and it mentioned Paracelcius ( 
spel.?) and what philosopher stone meant among other things.

So, um, no I would never associate the term **philosopher stone** 
with any philosophers, but I am not a valid statistics :)

SSSusan:
> In the end, man, do I ever wish they'd stuck with "Philosopher's 
> Stone" for the title in the US.  Partly because it's the accurate 
> term in the UK & as JKR wrote it, and we Americans can *learn* new 
> terminology (sheesh), but also because the truth is, if the US 
> release had had the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's 
> Stone," the right-wing, fundamentalist Christians would have 
> probably IGNORED the whole thing!  It was the use of the 
> word "Sorcerer's" -- thereby bringing in the concept of sorcery 
and 
> (in some people's minds) the occult -- that raised red flags for 
> those groups.  
> 

Alla:

One thing they did right in russian translation was to stuck 
with "philosopher stone". :)

Why does Sorcerer stone sets negative connotations? You mean occult 
as in witchcraft?

JMO,

Alla