Harry Potter as a Slytherin

[ClareWashbrook at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 152761

 
_Iminerva_523 at yahoo.com_ (mailto:Iminerva_523 at yahoo.com)   writes:

In my  opinion, he probably would come out a lot "darker" than the
Potter who was  placed in Gryffindor.

Clare:
Darker than casting Snape's slashing curse and trying to Crucio  someone? 
 
With the prophecy in force, LV was always going to hunt him down.  As  a 
potential death-source he would not even be able to have him as a minion, it  
would be too dangerous.  Therefore if he is to have any allies, Harry is  trapped 
on the side of the light whether it suits or not.  As light is  synonymous 
with good, Harry isn't 'trapped' but naturally inclined in that  direction.  I 
think that the inclusion of the sorting decision is to  highlight certain 
character traits of Harry's.  
 
Of course he wouldn't be entirely the same person, every decision every  
person makes bends their path a little and any other bend would make them  
different.  This is a series of books though and as much as we can analyse  them to 
death, they are merely that.  The character only possesses that  which the 
author consciously and unconsciously added to them, there is nothing  more and the 
character does not evolve on their own and have a parallel universe  
potential (unless one reaches for the fanfic, in which case one can find  every 
possible parallel universe written in bloodcurdling grammar-free  prose).  
 
If we take the character of Harry out of the context of being a fabricated  
being in a book, then there is very little to him.  He's an everyman and  
deliberately so.  
 
Would he hate Draco?  Yes, he already did because his attitudes and  
prejudices offended him.  Would he and Snape despise one another?   Yes, because 
Harry's attitude to Snape is reactive and the causes of Snape's  behaviour would 
not differ because Harry was aligned with his house.  Would  he become 
infatuated with the Dark Arts?  He does anyway.  Would he  turn to the Dark side?  No, 
he can't can he - the Dark side wants him  dead because of the prophecy, being 
in Slytherin would probably offend the Dark  Lord all the more.
 
Dealing with him as a real person and this as a plausible situation - I  
think, if he had ended up in Slytherin he wouldn't have made friends that could  
have gotten him through the Professor's traps in PS and LV would have succeeded 
 in COS and he'd be dead.  
 
smiles,
Clare x