Social Correlates of Hogwarts Houses

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 174995

Debbie:
<snipping>
> The Sorting Hat further aided and abetted Slytherin's so-called
> noble work to purge Hogwarts of Muggleborns by taking into account
> two things in the sorting process:  ancestry and preference.  In 
> this way, the Hat kept Slytherin House free of Muggleborns who 
> might have ameliorated muggleborn prejudice while filling it with 
> cunning young bigots who would do anything -- including Dark Magic -
> - to achieve their ends.  What a gold mine for Voldemort to tap! 

Jen:  Huh, I never thought to make the Sorting Hat Undesirable Number 
One but you make a good case for it.  Maybe the final assessment 
should be Mr. Weasley's?  "Never trust anything that can think for 
itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain."  I've skipped 
along believing the hat is wise and all-knowing for singing of unity 
but that assumes the brains in the hat are wise and all-knowing, 
someting proven untrue of the Founders.  Hermione seemed to 
understand that striving for unity with three houses was better than 
nothing. 

Debbie:
<snipping>
> And Dumbledore's comment that "we sort too soon" is an implicit 
> recognition of the Hat's deplorable contribution to the current 
> state of affairs.

Jen: I'm following and agreeing with most everything you're saying 
until here.  If Dumbledore really believed this was going on, the Hat 
was creating a house of bigots, why oh why didn't he just trash the 
thing himself or come up with another way to sort?  Oh...it's the 
choice thing, isn't it?  And Dumbledore's flaw:  He believes in 
choice yet allows loyalty to his ideals to surpass his better 
judgement sometimes.  Godric's flaw all over again, his loyalty to 
Slytherin allowing him to overlook the danger signs of Slytherin's 
agenda.  

In fact, the whole Dumbledore/Grindelwald relationship is a mirror 
for what occurred between Slytherin/Gryffindor, isn't it?  Dumbledore 
is so loyal to & enraptured of his new friend that he chooses to 
overlook Grindelwald's true plans (army of Inferi for example).

Debbie:
> Slytherin House is a prison, just like the DEs are prisoners.  

Jen: This is my take to a certain extent. Voldemort picked up where 
Slytherin left off and poisoned his own house even further by 
recruiting and ensuring loyalty of the offspring, either out of fear 
or zealousness for the ideaology. 

And any discussion of Slytherin's line needs to include the Gaunts, 
proof that attempts to keep the lineage all pureblood led 
to 'instability and violence.'  Not sure how many other pure-blood 
families went this route but there it is.  

That's where the question of being born bad comes in:  With 
everything against them, their inter-marrying, their tradition, their 
criteria for being sorted, Voldemort's influence, *do* Slytherin kids 
at 11 really have a choice by the time we reach Harry's generation?  
And Voldemort, very close to being born bad...his choices were razor 
thin at best. 

Even if I eventually come down on the side of JKR executing this part 
of her story poorly, I don't buy she *intended* a Calvinistic WW.  I 
can't see a rationale for populating the world with all the 
individuals who made choices, sometimes reversing prior choices, if 
no real choice existed.  

Debbie:
> It's not surprising, though, that no Slytherin chose to stay and
> fight the DEs.  Harry's Slytherin contemporaries at Hogwarts all
> appear to have very strong family ties, and those ties are to Death
> Eater families.  In that light, I think it's unreasonable to expect
> any Slytherins to stick around.  Given the way Voldemort generally
> reacts to bad news, they would likely be putting their families in 
> special danger if they did so.  

Jen:  Role-models are a very real problem as well.  Those who have 
defied are often in positions of keeping quiet about it, like Snape 
or Regulus, and those who openly defy are cast out of their families 
and burned off family trees, a significant problem in a house with a 
value on familial ties.