The Fourth Deathly Hallows -- Deconstructing the Sorting Hat (LONG)

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 175311

> Pippin:
>  Hagrid relates what turns out to be a legend of the Sorting Hat in
PS/SS:
> "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't
> in Slytherin." According to this story, the sorting process can
infallibly
> identify, at the age of eleven, which Hogwarts students have
> the potential to go bad, and which do not. 


Neri:
This isn't "a legend of the Sorting Hat", this is Hagrid's personal
opinion of Slytherin House and even he does not connect it with the
Sorting Hat. The WW in general doesn't think like Hagrid, or obviously
they would have abolished the house a long time ago. The Sorting Hat
itself does not express any moralistic views about any of the houses.
It is just programed to choose the way the Founders would have chosen
their students if they were still alive. 



> Pippin: 
> But Slytherins want power. Isn't that bad? Doesn't power corrupt?
> 
> Well, that's the conventional wisdom, certainly. But Rowling
> contradicts it. Love, she says, is the greatest power. And love,
> though it may tempt one to great folly, is not a wicked thing. It can't
> be bad to want power *if*  the power you want is love, can it?
> 

Neri:
But we don't see any Slytherin who is after love because it's power,
and any way I doubt it would work. You are supposed to want love for
itself sake, not for power. 



> Pippin: 
> What of Salazar Slytherin's pureblood ideology? The fear of Muggles
> and Muggleborns that it fostered in him seems to have led to his fall.
> And that ideology remains a legacy of his house. But other houses also
> have their exclusivist ideologies. Gryffindor would have taught only
> those with brave deeds to their name, Ravenclaw just those whose
> intelligence was surest.

Neri:
Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are not ideologies in any practical sense.
They are merely houses in a boarding school. You don't see any adult
wizard outside Hogwarts excluding other wizards because they are not
brave or not learned, certainly not to a degree of claiming they are
not wizards at all. In fact, you hardly see them identifying
themselves as Gryffindors or Ravenclaws after they leave Hogwarts. You
don't see any Gryffindor or Ravenclaw family filling their houses with
lions or badger motifs, the way 12 Grimmauld Place is filled with
serpent motifs. In effect, Slytherin is identified with the racist
ideology of the fanatic purebloods, with Salazar Slytherin as their
prophet and house Slytherin as their youth indoctrination institution. 

It is not individual Slytherins who are bad. It is the ideology that
Slytherin house has identified itself with.


Neri