Alchemy, the Epilogue and Slytherin (long)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 176162

I am the first to admit I really don't get alchemy, but I just have 
to admit here that it seems like many explanations I read about how 
the Gryffindor/Slytherin rift is healing reminds me of Harmonian 
arguments for how Harry/Hermione is canon, because even though Harry 
is going out with Ginny, Harry and Hermione's ride on Buckbeak 
symbolically indicates that they are the real couple regardless. So 
going through all the Slytherin connections here:

Debbie:
> I doubt I'll convince anyone who is convinced that JKR sees 
Slytherin traits
> as negative.  Her view of ambition is ambivalent at best, and I 
recall
> writing a post on this subject when I was a fresh-faced newbie on 
this list
> back in 2002. 

Magpie:
Yeah, and the house has been a generic bully house of people jeering 
at Harry throughout canon. That, imo, carries more weight than how 
JKR may or may not feel about ambition (though I agree she does seem 
to often show it's a bad thing). I simply don't see how the story 
really shows that *any* of the house traits dealt with the way 
Slytherin's are. It's not like people in other houses don't have 
problems, but I don't see the story as being about showing the danger 
of all the basic house qualities. Gryffindor recklessness is 
certainly shown as dangerous, but it doesn't seem bad the way 
Slytherin is.

Debbie:
 
> It wasn't Harry's job to achieve unity between Gryffindor and 
Slytherin.
> His job was to purge the cancer that prevented Slytherin from 
achieving
> unity with the other houses.  

Magpie:
We know that Harry's job wasn't to unite the houses. The idea that it 
was his job to purge a cancer that prevented Slytherin from acheiving 
unity is a theory that seems entirely based on symbolism--for it to 
be literal I think we'd need to see actual Slytherins changing their 
minds about blood prejudice that they had before (something that some 
think is unrealistic...so I don't see what the alchemical angle adds 
to it). This is just one way to write the post-DH fic. We can imagine 
that happening or not, and we'd both be equally right. If the story 
isn't showing Slytherin moving towards unity, and nobody actually 
even saying that Slytherin's gotten rid of its cancer (as opposed to 
Voldemort just being dead), it doesn't seem to really connect to the 
story except as one idea for what might happen next if anything was 
happening next. We're already 19 years after the cancer's been cured, 
and we're still having to squint and read between the lines and 
consult alchemical texts to see the progress.

Was Voldemort the root of the problem so his destruction will heal 
the rift? I don't feel confident to say that's true. I really don't 
see Voldemort specifically set up that way. 

Debbie:
 While we don't know for certain what
> house Tonks was in, she is a Black (though a disowned one) and the 
Black
> family have historically been sorted into Slytherin.

Magpie:
We do know her house from interviews. She was Hufflepuff, not 
Slytherin. So JKR does not have her symbolizing a marriage of 
Gryffindor and Slytherin. (If she was supposed to do that, shouldn't 
she just be a Slytherin?) An aside, but I don't think of them as a 
quarrelling couple as I understand the term. We don't see them 
quarrel much. Lupin is reticent and Tonks chases him. Lupin quarrels 
with Harry.

Debbie:
Fleur has her own Slytherin connection in her Phlegm nickname;
> she is cool and moist, in contrast to the hot, dry, passionate
> Weasleys. 

Magpie:
Fleur is not in Slytherin either. She's a Beauxbatons student. Her 
nickname a)begins with the first two letters of her name b) refers to 
mucas (which is inheritantly funny and a favorite of Ginny's) and c)
suggests the way French might sound to an English-speaking person. 
This is what I mean about the Harmonian reading--it still seems like 
all the connections to Slytherin have to come by avoiding actual 
Slytherins so that the good guy scan absorb all the moistness and 
coolness and phlegm and cunning they need while the actual Slytherins 
can play the role they play.

Debbie:
> JKR wasn't exactly forthcoming in the epilogue.  To the uninitiated 
it reads
> like a hodgepodge of useless information.  Who cares if Ron and 
Hermione
> named their firstborn Rose, or if Teddy is snogging Victoire?   The 
little
> information it provides seems trivial, but virtually every 
component points
> to the next level of purification to take place in the WW, the 
healing of
> the Slytherin/Gryffindor rift.

Magpie:
So rather than just write a story of Slytherin/Gryffindor coming 
together, she wrote an epilogue where people are taking all their 
cute kids to school and we're supposed to glean from arcane 
connections to their names and whether or not they have parents that 
these two houses that didn't come together in canon will come 
together. You can't "foreshadow" a Rose/Scorpius marriage if it's 
never going to happen, can you? (I mean, it will never happen because 
the book has ended.) Who on earth writes books like these for "the 
initiated" in alchemy? Well, perhaps many, but I can't imagine they 
think this kind of symoblism in any way holds up against actual 
characterization in the books.


Debbie:
I bet 10 to 1 he goes to
> Slytherin, notwithstanding the ambiguity of Harry's comment, where 
Al
> will provide the salt, the alchemical catalyst for the chemical 
reaction
> between Gryffindor Rose and Slytherin Scorpius.

Magpie:
And I can't imagine he'll be in Slytherin at all given the actual 
characterization of Slytherin. I'm sure he's "worthy" of Gryffindor. 
But there's no point in betting either way, because there's no 
answer. Little Albus will never go into any house. He only exists in 
the last pages.

Debbie: 
> *We meet Hugo Weasley.  Potioncat made an excellent joke that he 
was named
> for Victor Hugo, but secretly for Hermione's old flame Victor 
Krum.  In
> fact, I believe he *was* named for Victor Hugo.  The Hunchback of 
Notre Dame
> contains numerous references to Nicholas Flamel and to alchemy in 
general,
> and Victor Hugo himself apparently claimed to have spoken directly 
to Flamel
> in a seance.  

Magpie:
Honestly, I think when you get this creative, you could prove Hugo 
represents just about anything.

Debbie: 
> *We meet Teddy Lupin, the philosophical orphan, and learn that he 
is being
> mentored by the last such orphan *and* that he's enamored of another
> philosophical non-orphan, who is also the daughter of his parents'
> doppelgangers. Both arguably blend Slytherin and Gryffindor 
elements. 

Magpie:
Arguably in that Teddy's parents were a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff 
and Victoire's parents were a Gryffindor and somebody from 
Beauxbatons who may never have spoken to a Slytherin as far as we 
know? I don't see a blend of Slytherin and Gryffindor at all in Teddy 
Lupin. "Slytherin elements" usually means "probably not actually 
Slytherin."


Debbie:
>  Second, we get evidence of an existing truce among the houses, 
evidenced by
> the exchange of nods between Harry and Draco.  Really, this is 
progress!

Magpie:
Well, we have seen the evolution of that relationship, and there 
there's an actual Slytherin, which is good. There is no exchange of 
nods, btw. Harry doesn't nod, iirc. But yes, Harry and Draco have 
become capable of distant civility. 

Debbie: 
> Third, Harry recognizes and respects Severus Snape, another 
Slytherin.  Yes,
> he says Snape is brave, but his comment is a recognition that the 
best of us
> embody qualities of more than one house; they are ambitious and 
cunning,
> wise and intelligent, brave and chivalrous, and loyal and just.  
Like Harry.

Magpie:
So Harry might say Snape was brave, but we should fill in ourselves 
that he's saying he's great because he was also other things 
Slytherin even though he doesn't say it. I'd rather have seen Harry 
have more of a difficult reconciliation with Snape, myself.

But regardless, yes, I see that Harry has dealt with Snape. I'm still 
not seeing any big meaning for Slytherin/Gryffindor healing here. 
Slytherin is not a threat with Voldemort dead. I imagine they've gone 
through plenty of calm periods throughout history. 
>
Debbie:
> We don't know what will happen next, but this is what I'd predict: 

Magpie:
Yeah, we do know what happens next. Nothing. The book is over. Al's 
not sitting under any Sorting Hat in canon or becoming friends with 
any Slytherins. To this reader, the idea of cutie pie Al getting 
himself into Slytherin still seems unbelievable and like fanfic. So I 
could work out my own prediction where none of these kids has much at 
all to do with little Scorpius Malfoy and it would be just as 
possible.

Debbie:
> 
>  Obviously, the promise that the alchemical process will accomplish 
the
> purification necessary to complete the healing of the 
Gryffindor/Slytherin
> rift is little comfort to those who read the Sorting Hat's song in 
OOP to
> mean that house unity would be essential to defeat Voldemort. 

Magpie:
Nope no comfort at all--makes me more wonder why she put the stupid 
song in there at all. The unity wasn't necessary, it didn't happen, 
and if JKR didn't write it I'm not writing it in myself (at least, 
not as an add-on to canon--I can imagine whatever I want in my head.) 
I can't imagine getting much out of any story that was based on this 
kind of symbolism if it wasn't actually played out with the 
characters. It seems to me more like the school was just purified 
enough by getting rid of Slytherin in the crunch, leaving them only 
with the Slytherins who had purified themselves in Gryffindor fire. 
Didn't John Granger continue to push for H/Hr and Snape as a vampire 
even after HBP based on alchemy? I seem to remember many of his 
theories not holding up at all, but maybe I'm remembering wrong.

-m