[HPforGrownups] Slytherin House was Sportsmanship in Harry Potter

[silmariel]

No: HPFGUIDX 151824


> > Joe:
> >   As for Quidditch I seem to remember most of the rows in the
> Gryffindor/ Slytherin Quidditch matches being started by the
> Slytherins. Not to mention the fact that if the whole school thinks
> the Slytherins are low down no good dirty cheaters then its more
> than likely that they are. If all your peers seem to dislike you as
> the other Houses seem to do then there is probably a good reason for
> it.
>
> I don't think all the other House's are out of step here. I
> think most of the Slytherins are as advertised. Sometimes the bad
> guys are really bad guys.

Na, I think they're not so bad as the Slytherin legend has made them. As a 
whole House, of course. Even Draco, till HBP, was pretty pathetic as a 
villain. Too much ado about nothing. 'Cause Harry always wins.

Hey, I believe DE children are a small fraction of the house, and it would be 
too brutal for words if all of them would be as D,C&G - but that's because I 
tend to believe the author.

http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrinterview3.shtml

ES: Why is Slytherin house still -
JKR: Still allowed! 
[All laugh]
ES: Yes! I mean, it's such a stigma.
JKR: But they're not all bad. They literally are not all bad. [Pause.] Well, 
the deeper answer, the non-flippant answer, would be that you have to embrace 
all of a person, you have to take them with their flaws, and everyone's got 
them. It's the same way with the student body. If only they could achieve 
perfect unity, you would have an absolute unstoppable force, and I suppose 
it's that craving for unity and wholeness that means that they keep that 
quarter of the school that maybe does not encapsulate the most generous and 
noble qualities, in the hope, in the very Dumbledore-esque hope that they 
will achieve union, and they will achieve harmony. Harmony is the word. 
ES: Couldn't -
JKR: Couldn't they just shoot them all? NO, Emerson, they really couldn't!
[All laugh]
ES: Couldn't they just put them into the other three houses, and maybe it 
wouldn't be a perfect fit for all of them, but a close enough fit that they 
would get by and wouldn't be in such a negative environment?
JKR: They could. But you must remember, I have thought about this -
ES: Even their common room is a gloomy dark room- 
JKR: Well, I don't know, because I think the Slytherin common room has a 
spooky beauty.
ES: It's gotta be a bad idea to stick all the Death Eaters' kids together in 
one place.
[All crack up again ]
JKR: But they're not all - don't think I don't take your point, but - we, the 
reader, and I as the writer, because I'm leading you all there - you are 
seeing Slytherin house always from the perspective of Death Eaters' children. 
*They are a _small_fraction_ of the total Slytherin population* (emphasis 
mine, silmariel). I'm not saying all the other Slytherins are adorable, but 
they're certainly not Draco, they're certainly not, you know, Crabbe and 
Goyle. They're not all like that, that would be too brutal for words, 
wouldn't it?
ES: But there aren't a lot of Death Eater children in the other houses, are 
there?
JKR: You will have people connected with Death Eaters in the other houses, 
yeah,  absolutely.
ES: Just in lesser numbers.
JKR: Probably. I hear you. It is the tradition to have four houses, but in 
this case, I wanted them to correspond roughly to the four elements. So 
Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is earth, and Slytherin is 
water, hence the fact that their common room is under the lake. So again, it 
was this idea of harmony and balance, that you had four necessary components 
and by integrating them you would make a very strong place. But they remain 
fragmented, as we know.

> >   Joe:
> > Erm don't we see a great deal of Bullying by Malfoy, Crabbe and
>
> Goyle. Well at least attempted bullying? Just because they are bad
> at it doens't mean they aren't doing it.
>
> Alla:
>
> Sure we do. Neville comes to mind of the top of my head right away.
>

Now, to be fair, I don't see Draco as a bully for his interactions with the 
trio, maybe for Neville, but yes for this:

"A short distance away, Draco Malfoy, followed by a small gang of cronies 
including Crabble, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson, was pushing some timid-looking 
second years out of the way so that he and his friends could get a coach to 
themselves." OoP - ch 10 Luna Lovegood 

They are so impersonal targets, and second years. He has just received his 
prefect badge. Pushing implies physical contact? (Those second language 
problems, the direct translation to my own language makes it physical)

Silmariel