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

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 156213

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "juli17ptf" <juli17 at ...> wrote:
Julie said:> 
> The other houses insist on seeing and treating Slytherins 
> as cruel and evil, certain that their judgment is correct. 
> What does that really accomplish, except setting them deeper
> into their path, ensuring that they choose evil as it's the 
> only option offered? I think that is JKR's message. You want
> someone to be hateful, mean, evil? Just stick them in the
> appropriate slot, making sure to force out all their possible 
> potential for horrible behavior, and you will be rewarded
> by those persons becoming exactly what you expect them to be!
> 
> On the other hand, befriend them, encourage them to act on
> their better natures (and reward them for it), rather than
> beating into their psyches over and over "You're bad, you're
> bad!", and you might just see their better natures emerge!
> At the very least, they certainly can't behave worse than
> they already do, while you can actually behave in a manner
> befitting your "good" house. 
> 
> I think I rambled a bit ;-) But I will be disappointed if
> Book 7 ends and this issue of bad Slytherin/good everybody
> else isn't addressed. No, not enough to throw away the 
> books, but in my view this two way prejudice eating away
> at Hogwarts is one of the main themes of the books. 
> 

wynnleaf
I agree completely.  Further, note that the Slytherins are almost
entirely described in negative physical terms.  Most people can't help
their degree of physical beauty.  Since that's mostly true, why are
the Slytherins generally described as ugly or very plain, if not to
basically say, "being Slytherin is bad?"

Further, remember when DD told Harry that it was his choices that were
important?  But he said that about Harry begging the Sorting Hat not
to put him in Slytherin.  Yet most kids probably weren't up there on
the stool begging to avoid particular houses.  DD made it sound, at
least on the surface, as though being in Slytherin as a bad "choice,"
rather than simply the decision of the Hat.  The implication was that
all those in Slytherins had made a bad choice to even be there.  But
most of the kids had no choice.  After all, in terms of personality
and characterstics, Harry *did* fit in Slytherin.  It was only because
he had heard (falsely) that all the wizards that went bad were from
Slytherin, and because he met Draco, that he asked to be somewhere
else.  If Hagrid had instead said, "All the wizards that went bad were
from Slytherin and Gryffindor," would Harry have insisted that he not
be in either one?  (Um, not that there weren't maybe some from other
houses as well.)

But then we look at JKR having the Sorting Hat insisting that all of
the houses need to work together in unity.  We see in interviews where
she says that the 4 houses are like the 4 "elements" of air, fire,
water, and earth.  But if those are both true, then what she's really
saying is that the 4 houses are equal -- that the characterstics of
Slytherins are just as important as the characteristics of other
houses.  I think this is what JKR wants to to believe in the end.

However, to reach that point, JKR will have to do something about
having already convinced most of her readers that Slytherin = bad. 
She did that intentionally.  Yet she has also indicated that she wants
us to see Slytherin as equally important for the good.  Well, she'll
have to reform our beliefs about Slytherin if she's going to do that.

I am very hopeful that is exactly what JKR will do.  If she ends Book
7 without having made an attempt to convince the readers, and the
characters, that Slytherin characteristics are not bad, and that
Slytherins can be just as good as anyone else, then I'll be quite
disappointed.

wynnleaf