Compassionate hero (WAS Re: Appeal of the story to the reader)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 175926

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lizzyben04" <lizzyben04 at ...> wrote:

<snip snip snip>

> The good guys are just good, and so can do bad things to the bad 
> guys. There's no sympathy or understanding for people w/different 
> perspectives. You are either for Harry, or you are against him. 
> Projection & scapegoating are practically encouraged. 

This reminded me of one of my favorite of Pippin's posts, so I'll link
to it here, and bring up the bit that Yahoo's (mercifully new and
improved--I remember when I couldn't have done this, and relied on
memory and hazy lists of post numbers) search function found me:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/100012

Pippin:

> I'm not sure it's a question of JKR not understanding fans, or 
> seeing only black-and-white versus seeing something good about 
> Slytherin. Fan fiction and fanon often treat Slytherin House as not 
> only redeemable but already redeemed or simply misunderstood. Racism 
> gets downgraded (upgraded?) to pardonable ethnic pride, and Dark 
> Arts fanatics are merely people who look good in black.

(By the way, Pippin, cheers on pegging so many of the issues so early)

At least from my reading of the books, the problem is that Slytherin
House, particularly as epitomized by Draco and his crew--although
Draco does turn at least partially away from it, to his credit--is not
simply a difference of opinion, it's an ideology out to get rid of
everything that doesn't live up to its own standards, and thus
excludes itself from being considerable as one choice equal among
many.  But then we get into classic problems of liberalism, etc. etc. etc.

I would have liked to have seen more in canon of the reckoning that
needed to finally come on with Slytherin ideology, but JKR chose to
focus more on the personal story than the larger social one, alas.

-Nora sighs with nostalgia for those far-off listie days