Is Harry Potter an Anti-Royalist Tract?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 175540

career advisor wrote:
><snip>
>   Add in the fact that all the Slytherins leave the table and fight
for Voldemort. <snip>

Carol responds:

My apologies for snipping almost your whole post, but are you sure
that this is a fact? I thought it was one of Voldemort's lies (telling
Lucius that his son is the only Slytherin not fighting for the Dark
Lord) when in fact Draco is one of only three Slytherins who stayed
behind in the castle, apparently trying to take matters into their own
hands. (I won't discuss Draco's motives here, but only Crabbe seems to
be openly siding with Voldemort in the Snatcherlike hope of receiving
a reward. Goyle, IIRC, is just following the leader as usual, but the
leader seems to have changed.)

At any rate, after Pansy Parkinson's outburst, Professor McGonagall
orders the entire House to follow Filch to safety. Most of them
apparently sit out the battle, along with the younger students from
all the Houses and the less courageous older students from Ravenclaw,
Hufflepuff, and even Gryffindor. (I don't think any currently enrolled
students outside the DA were fighting, but please correct me if I'm
wrong.) Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle sneak out of the line of evacuees,
ostensibly to hunt for Harry (Draco, the son of a DE, (albeit a
disgraced and wandless one, seems to be trying, Snape-style, to
protect Harry) and end up in the RoR with HRH and the "die-dum."

It's interesting, IMO, that Crabbe and Goyle are the only students,
Slytherin or otherwise, mentioned as having used the Cruciatus Curse
on fellow students in detention, apt pupils of the Carrows (especially
Crabbe, who tries to kill Harry and pays with his life). Draco is not
mentioned as casting Crucios on his fellow students (a switch from his
IS days when he delighted in working for Umbridge and probably would
have enjoyed watching he torture Harry). Nor are Blaise Zabini and
Theo Nott, the latter another son of a Death Eater (whom I was
disappointed not to find any mention of in DH).

Even Pansy, despite her utterly stupid outcry (which pretty much made
it impossible for any Slytherins to fight on the good side as their
intentions would have been mistaken) seems not to have participated in
the fight. She was, IMO, displaying cowardice rather than pro-Voldie
sentiments (though I supppose it could have been both). Slughorn's
attitude before the battle, that it's futile to fight and surrendering
will save lives (DH 601, broadly paraphrased), seems to me to
represent the prevailing Slytherin attitude.

At the end of the book, we see the students in the Great Hall, not
sitting according to House, but I can't tell whether only the students
who fought in the battle are being referred to or whether the students
who were evacuated (including the Slytherins and at least 5/7 of the
other Houses) are included in the number.

Apropos of nothing, I wonder if the buttoned-up black coat Draco wears
in the epilogue is an allusion to movie!Snape. And even less
relevantly but I still feel compelled to mention it, I think I
accidentally said in another post that Snape was "unredeemed." That
was a typo, as I hope the context (and my previous posts) made clear.

Again, please forgive me for not responding to your main idea, but I
don't really see VW2 as a class war. Fenrir Greyback, for example, is
pretty clearly regarded as scum by Bellatrix and the Malfoys yet he's
on the same side (or at least, the side the Malfoys would have
faithfully fought for if it weren't for their son's danger and
Lucius's humiliation). Wealth has less to do with being a Voldie
supporter than blood, and blood is less important than self-interest
or lust for power or blood-lust or even, possibly, fear.
It's a mistake, however, to equate the DEs, all of them adults except
a few junior recruits, with Slytherin House, especially the Slytherins
who just spent a year with Snape as their headmaster and the, erm,
noncombative slughorn as their HoH. (Only two seem to have succumbed
to the lure of violence presented by the Carrows.)

Carol, pretty sure that the claim that the Slytherins were fighting
for the Dark Lord is one of several lies that Voldie tells in the last
few chapter but welcoming canon-supported opposing views