The House of Slytherin (was Alchemy)

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 176249

> Magpie:
> <snip>  but I'm just taking it as a given here and 
> saying that's why I don't see a lot of symbolism at the end that's 
> indicating a coming together. And why I think interpretations that 
> blur everything more from the beginning just don't ring true.

Mike:
I'm weak on the symbolism myself. I prefer to interpret the canon 
more straight forward. At this point in Debbie's essay she had not 
yet explored the symbolism. So when you brought up the generic bully 
house irrespective of where we were in Debbie's essay, I was 
responding to that point of yours. And I didn't think you were 
talking about a bully house with respect to end of story symbolism, 
since the bully house theme was brought up in book one and was barely 
if at all present in DH.



> Magpie:
> I was referring to the theory I thought was presented here, which 
> seemed to me to be putting Slytherin problems on the same level as 
> Gryffindor ones, with the book exploring each ones strengths and 
> weaknesses, and I just don't think they are shown that way.

Mike:
I guess I didn't read that in Debbie's essay. I thought she was 
saying that untempered traits of any house could get one in trouble. 
And that taking a Slytherin or a Gryffindor trait to it's extreme 
could prove to be a bad thing. That seemed to me to be the extent of 
what Debbie was saying, at least at this point. I did not see her 
weighing the relative value of Gryffindor versus Slytherin traits.


> Magpie:
<snip>
> Gryffindor faults have a totally different weight than 
> Slytherin faults, and do not add up to them both being 
> the same, but different, imo.

Mike:
I don't agree, or I should say, I don't agree with your statement 
that Slytherin faults are worlds worse than Gryffindor faults. Not if 
you look at them objectively as opposed to through the Gryffindor 
prism. 
  


> > Mike previously:
> > So, according to canon, which house's trait was more damaging?
> 
> Magpie:
> Slytherin's. 
> 
> Harry's intentions were good--the book even barely blames him for 
> what happened to Sirius, because it was LV and Bellatrix's fault

Mike:
We weren't talking about intentions, we were talking about Harry's 
chivalrous Gryffindor trait that was taken to an extreme causing him 
to go into his reckless saving-people-thing mode. And Harry does too 
blame himself for Sirius' death, its only later that he tries to 
rationalize and shunt the blame off onto Snape. I don't think anybody 
was fooled by this, and I don't think the author intended for us to 
believe that Snape was at fault, either. It's such an obvious 
irrational denial of fault by Harry that we don't even need to see 
when he gets over this.

> Magpie:
> Sirius' running off, too, is done with the best of intentions.
> Draco's joining the DEs is bad in itself. 

Mike:
How are these Gryffindor or Slytherin traits or faults?

> Magpie: 
> Sirius was a flwaed hero who is rightly mourned. Crabbe got
> himself killed. Crabbe "deserved" to die, Sirius was murdered.

Mike:
Sirius wasn't mourned by the other side, and I bet Crabbe was mourned 
by his parents, if they survived. But these are Gryffindor and 
Slytherin characters, not character traits or faults of the houses.

> Magpie:
> Draco brought many of his own troubles on himself.

Mike:
Agreed, but that isn't strictly a Slytherin trait or fault.

> Magpie:
> Harry was targetted by bad guys and triumphed due to his 
> Gryffindor qualities. (Draco's use of Slytherinish ways of 
> protecting himself in the final battle earns him a punch.) 

Mike:
Really? Harry's Gryff qualities were always shown as helpful? I'll 
leave the OotP example out. Just use DH. 

The Trio come up with a cunning plan to retrieve the Locket from 
Umbridge. We could credit them with daring for this also. Then Harry 
chivalrously helps all the Muggleborns to escape. Good thing to do, 
imo and the author's, but it causes them to almost get caught. Which 
of course results in the endless camping trip to nowhere.

The Gringott's raid, cunning plan that included using Imperio if 
needed, and it was needed. Again, the Gryff trait of daring could 
apply also. But without these two Slyhterinish cunning plans, the 
Gryffindorish daring would mean nothing.

> Magpie:
> Gryff recklessness might put you in physical danger  <snip> 
> but Slytherins put their souls in danger, which is far worse.

Mike:
Other than the heir of Slytherin (and probably Bella) I find no basis 
in canon for your statement of "souls in danger". Murder is not a 
trait that the Hat sorts for. It is not a Slyhterin trait nor 
isolated as only a Slytherin fault. 


> Magpie:
> Because, as I said, it needs to be somehow established in the 
> story, imo. If the fanaticism is latent, it's part of Slytherin. 
> <snip>   but I thought Jen's view was more in step with the story 
> when she asked if this wasn't a reenactment of Slytherin's leaving 
> the school, since now we have the Heir of Slytherin being 
> ritualistically killed by a Gryffindor. <break>

Mike:
I too liked Jen's interpretation. I think it dovetails nicely with my 
interpretation that it's the Slytherin decendants, starting with the 
original Slytherin himself, that have put the cancer into the 
Slytherin house. I realize now that I forgot to include Salazar in my 
previous post as the cancer originator. And with the last of the 
Slytherin line eradicated, who knows what would happen. 

> Magpie:
> I don't see a "different" Slytherin throwing off their original 
> founder and forging a new way. In fact, far from it being 
> Purified by LV's death, it felt to me like DH *was* Slytherin in 
> its purest form. The fact that Slytherin was known for his own Pure-
> blood supremist beliefs reinforces that. This was Slytherin out of 
> control, unchecked.

Mike:
Yes, this was Slytherin's house, cancerous at the start. And the one 
heir we saw attend Hogwarts, persisted in the original Slytherin's 
ways. He affected and infected three generations of Slytherins. So 
for 50 years, the heir of Slytherin held sway over the rest of the 
Slytherins. 

You say that it was Slytherin at it's purest, yet I saw many of the 
original (to the reader) proponents showing disgust, fear, and 
cringing obedience to the cancerous one. Are these the people that 
you saw no change in, saw nothing in canon that would indicate 
they've changed their minds about following the "Slytherin" way as 
defined by one with the Slytherin blood? 


> Magpie:
> Steve's view is never presented in canon, though, that I can see. 
> Quite the opposite. The Weasleys *don't* have Pure-blood pride. 

Mike:
Snipping right here just to say that the Weasleys (and James, Sirius, 
Regulus and Ma and Pa Black) are examples of pure-bloods that don't 
buy into the cancerous pure-blood mania. They have different degrees 
of pure-blood pride, but none of them bought the "kill the Mudbloods" 
line. That the Weasleys may not have pride, per se, is beside the 
point. They *are* pure-bloods that don't denegrate the non pure-
bloods. That's enough for me to see that pure-blood mania is 
restricted to those that have been infected by the cancer.


> <snipping Voldemort's history>
Mike:
I don't mind you snipping this, it was long and boring anyway. But I 
did it to present canon for Tom Riddle as the cancer of Slytherin. I 
now amend that to include all of Salazar's heirs and the man himself. 
But what you didn't do was refute my assertion with you own canon. 


> Magpie:
> But Tom Riddle is the *heir* of Slytherin, who wanted to purge the 
> school of Mudbloods. That's why there's a snake *waiting* for him 
> when he gets to school. We have no better Slytherin presented to us 
> that's just been perverted--that's an ending many of us expected to 
> get, so that we could see the "real" Slytherin. It didn't happen.

Mike:
Yes, I know Tom was the heir, that was my argument, at least that's 
what I thought I was arguing for. Maybe I didn't make that clear 
enough. If that's the case, I apologize.

If you are going to look for a "better Slytherin", you have to get 
someone outside of the three generations that Tom infected. We have 
one of those, Horace Slughorn. And we know Sluggy escorted the kids 
of his house to safety then returned to fight against Voldemort. 

> Magpie: 
> Everything we hear about Slytherin sounds Voldemort-friendly. Sure 
> Voldemort is the reason tensions are as high as they are during 
> canon, but he just seems to add violence and extremism to stuff 
> that's there. 

Mike:
So how is this not Riddle's fault, and ultimately Salazar's fault? 
Much of the storyline in HBP was shown so we would see how Tom Riddle 
subverted Uncle Horace's house out from under him. (as Goddlefrood 
would say) So naturally, what we saw of the Slytherins during Harry's 
time in school would look "Voldemort-friendly". 

If Lucius warns Draco that to be seen as antagonistic towards Harry 
would be imprudent, do you think he also might have warned him about 
making anti-Voldemort noises? What about the other DEs that walked 
free, what do you think they taught their kids about being Voldemort-
friendly? I say that "the stuff that's there" was put there by 
Voldemort, for the most part. But then I would need a more definitive 
explanation than "stuff" to be sure.


> Magpie:
> The founding story is that there was dischord, and then when 
> Slytherin left the other three could live in peace. Slytherin 
> has been set apart since then, not since Tom Riddle arrived. 
> <snip>
> Slytherin was the bad guy from the beginning. If they were 
> going to create a new Slytherin they'd have to do it themselves 
> from scratch, which is not in the story.

Mike:
OK, we agree that Salazar started the whole *bad house* thing. Then 
Riddle, as his heir, continued it. It seems we may agree that various 
Slytherin heirs down through the ages may have fomented various 
degrees of discord. So now there is no longer a "Slytherin" to carry 
on Salazar's "noble work". That is in the story. Draco Malfoy, our 
main protagonist to Harry was disgusted with what he had to do 
because of Voldemort, and scared of what Voldemort could or would do 
to him. That's in the story. As for starting from scratch, I think 
just getting rid of the pure-blood mania would be enough. YMMV


> > > 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. <snip>
> > 
> > Mike:
> > Does this not speak of Snape's cunning, his ability to fool 
> > Voldemort? Are you so sure this message was lost on Harry? 
> 
> Magpie;
> We were talking about a line in the epilogue. Harry tells AS a guy 
> he knew who was one of the bravest he ever met was in Slytherin. 

Mike:
No, you had postulated (or rather denied) that we should fill in 
what else Harry meant to say, in a manner that suggested that he 
didn't think of Snape's Slytherin qualities as heroic. I think Harry, 
after viewing the memories in the Princes Tale, did think Snape's 
cunning was heroic. The fact that he doesn't bring them up to his 
eleven-year-old son does not change for me what I feel Harry has 
internalized. The lack of positive evidence does not prove the 
negative.


> Magpie:
> No, Voldemort was not "the cancer." Voldemort was the cause of the 
> most recent two wars. The "cancer" of Slytherin if there is one, 
> imo, at best in remission, still latent and untreated.

Mike:
I presented my canon for Voldemort being the cancer. The pure-
bloodism was both the cause and the vehicle used to spread the 
cancer. And I admit that it was started by Salazar way back in the 
beginning. But I also read that this cancer was conflated by an 
hereditary Slytherin not simply House of Slytherin members. He alone 
was able to bring together the disparate groups of followers, a 
grouping that fell apart in his absence. Simply put, "It's all about 
stopping Voldemort, isn't it? These dreadful things that are 
happening are all down to him..." (HBP p.475)

One-quarter of the wizarding world may have been doomed to purgatory 
as long as the devil incarnate was preying on that one-quarter for 
followers. Now that he's banished for good, and has no heirs to 
continue his work, I have hope for *all* the wizarding world. As 
Draco showed in the Epilogue, they don't have to like each other. As 
long as they aren't trying to kill each other, that's good enough for 
me.

Mike