Alchemy, the Epilogue and Slytherin (long)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 176256


> > Mike: 
> <SNIP>
> > > I agree, I imagine that there were periods of turmoil and calm 
> > since 
> > > the time of Hogwarts founding. Salazar Slytherin started out as 
> > > friends with Godric Gryffindor. Canon doesn't really explain 
> what 
> > > caused the rift and eventual departure of Slytherin. 
> > 
> > Magpie:
> > No, but it tells us Slytherin was a Pure-blood fanatic like 
Riddle-
> -I 
> > can't remember if it's actually in canon that Godric was a 
> champion 
> > of Muggle-born rights but we know he was. <SNIP>
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Well, yeah, I mean if you consider the wizards of the month canon, 
I 
> think it is pretty clear that he was.
> 
> From the website.
> 
> "Salazar Slytherin
> Medieval (precise dates unknown)
> One of the four celebrated Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
> and Wizardry, Salazar Slytherin was one of the first recorded
> Parselmouths, an accomplished Legilimens, and a notorious champion 
of
> pureblood supremacy"
> 
> 
> Godric Gryffindor
> Medieval (precise dates unknown)
> One of the four famous Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
> Wizardry, Godric Gryffindor was the most accomplished dueller of his
> time, an enlightened fighter against Muggle-discrimination and the
> first owner of the celebrated Sorting Hat.

> Alla:
> 
> I mean, seems to me Tom or no Tom, Slytherin's philosophy was quite 
> bad originally. Maybe he started to be crasy at some point in his 
> life.
 
Magpie:
I agree. I'm not basing what I'm saying on the website canon, even. I 
just think those things back up what we're told in actual canon about 
Salazar being a Pure-blood supremist. I don't think we're 
specifically told that Gryffindor was a champion of Muggle-born 
rights in the books--that bit might have been news to us on the 
website. That Slytherin was a notorious champion of pureblood 
supremacy was not. 

Tom Riddle really was, it seems to me, carrying on Slytherin's "noble 
work" in purging the school of Muggle-borns.

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:
Sorry about that! Iirc, I think the paragraph that was in was about 
whether JKR thought JKR was the bad house, and the fact that they 
were presented as bullies throughout seemed like a good reason to 
consider them a bad house. It seemed like the main reasons readers 
would see them that way, however they imagined JKR thought about 
qualities the Hat associated with them. This isn't a real history 
where there's facts outside the text that might change them.

> 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.

Magpie:
I don't think Slytherin's traits are that bad either, if anyone was 
just asking my opinions. But the Gryffindor prism is the book's 
prism. In the book I think they clearly are significantly worse and 
the house has problems Gryffindor doesn't have. There is no other 
Slytherin except the one we see through Harry.

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:
Intentions are important, I think, and Harry's actions don't at all 
get him into as much trouble as the Slytherin's do. Harry's blaming 
himself for putting other people in danger is a common thought of 
his, whether it's because he had a bad idea or because they're trying 
to protect him, and yes, canon says flat-out that it's nor really 
Snape's fault. But I still think it's clear Harry's Gryffindor 
qualities run amuck are nowhere near those of Draco Malfoy's or any 
other Slytherin. Would you really say that the narrative seems to 
judge Harry's mistake the same way it judges Draco's or Snape's in 
joining the DEs? I think Harry's mistake is presented as a good thing 
gone bad. It's sympathetic, not "disgusting."

> 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:
Harry's rushing into danger to protect those he loves is Gryffindor. 
Joining the DEs to enforce Pureblood supremacy and promote yourself 
over others is Slytherin. If somebody asked for a cliche of the two 
houses, those are the two that would come to my mind.

> 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:
We're reading about Sirius' side. You can't separate the events from 
the story. I think the book directly links these kinds of traits to 
the houses. We can deconstruct it ourselves easily enough, but I 
think it gives an inaccurate picture of the books to suggest that 
they read that way. That's why people so often refer to those who 
read from the bad pov as doing "subversive readings."

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:
And they saved the world doing all these things. Yes, one can 
certainly associate the use of Unforgivables with being Slytherin 
qualities, but these are Gryffindors. They save a bunch of hapless 
Muggle-borns and destroying the Dark Lord's soul--this is not, imo, 
presented as a bad thing in the books. They're Gryffindors no matter 
what Slytherin-ish traits they seem to be using, and they're trying 
to do good things. It's not like whenever you're being smart you're 
being Ravenclaw, and whenever you're being loyal you're a 
Hufflepuff.Cunning and ambition can be okay traits (if not as 
impressive as courage, I think the book makes clear) but Gryffindor 
is also a group of people. 

> 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:
And to me it seems like just the most fitting language for what seems 
obvious. It's hard for me to believe that someone reading the book 
would think that the view of the book was that it's equally bad about 
to be reckless about the way you fight evil and to be like one of the 
kids in Slytherin. Harry's actions also lead to him being loved and 
admired and being a hero. Acting like a bully (a bully identified as 
such in this text) leads to bad things. I imagine most readers want 
to "be" Harry whatever he's doing. Not so much Draco.

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:
Well, nothing will happen, because the book is over. Since the book 
never shows us a hint of this other version of Slytherin that we've 
never seen but will somehow emerge now that the last relative of this 
guy is dead it doesn't seem relevent. If the idea is that the death 
of Voldemort will mean that from now on Slytherins will no longer 
cheat at Quidditch or just basically be the kind of people they have 
all been shown as, I need to see that in the book itself. 

That's how JKR writes things throughout (unsurprisingly). She makes 
the case for the symbolism in order for it to work. I find it 
impossible to believe that any of this stuff "would" happen or that 
I'm intended to think it will happen when the author didn't set it 
up. It would be easy enough to do if that was part of what was going 
on. 

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:
Yes, it's cancerous at the start. Slytherin could not have corrupted 
his own house; the house is as he imagines it. Some Slytherins are 
eventually horrified by the truth of the house--they're attracted to 
it but don't have the stomach for it full blast (just as there are 
Gryffindors attracted to courage whose courage fails them). What I 
did not see was the kind of change you're talking about written as a 
result of this. If there's going to be a new Slytherin from now on 
led by Slytherins who are going to change what it stands for, we 
should see it. It's not like I don't understand the logic of this 
idea. I think it would have been a fine thing to happen. But it 
didn't. It has not reinvented itself much by the last page of the 
book.

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.

Magpie:
Where do any of these people express pride in being Pureblood? Sirius 
rejects his family's notions of superiority, James marries a 
Muggleborn. Just being a Pureblood doesn't indicate they're proud of 
being Pureblood. 

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:
I didn't see what there was to refute. I know Riddle's history. 
Obviously he's the leader of the movement we call the DEs that were 
the bad guys in the story. But I see nothing in canon that makes me 
separate Riddle from his followers. It's too much absolving everybody 
from their responsibility--These guys would not have been as 
dangerous if it weren't for Riddle as a leader, but I think we're 
still seeing them for real when they're following them. 

Like I said, it's not that this idea couldn't work for me ever. It 
makes sense to me. I just need it established in the actual canon in 
the same way the basilisk as killer of Muggle-born weapon is 
established and the Horcruxes are established. We're dealing with a 
magic universe so it's not like it's impossible to show Riddle's 
death meaning this. But it's not shown that way that I can see. It 
seems more like Tom Riddle showed up and there were all these people 
who were drawn to what he was selling. And not by coincidence, they 
were chosen for his house to begin with. That's where the author put 
them, and the more the series went on the more she associated 
Slytherin with his followers. 

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:
Shouldn't Slughorn be suffering from the cancer too? He was alive 
while Slytherin had heirs. And of course he does say Muggle-borns are 
inferior in general, just as Phineas, who also was before Voldemort's 
time, uses the word Mudblood. Slughorn is the best Slytherin we see, 
and he still doesn't rise to the level of people in other houses. 
Being a DE isn't the only way to show you're a bad Slytherin.

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".

Magpie:
I feel like I'm trapped in some sort of circular argument. Slytherin 
was founded by Slytherin. He founded it on his principles, which 
included ranking some Wizards above others based on their blood. 
Ambition and cunning are also said to be things the houses sort for. 
The best Slytherin we see is somebody who treats people well if he 
thinks there's something in it for him. The worst are genocidal 
murders. In the middle we've got a crew not admirable people (or 
sometimes people fans might like but Harry doesn't seem to find very 
good). Harry never comes across anything to show him that Slytherin's 
perverted--he knows they've been made violent and scary via 
Voldemort, but he's not Imperiusing them. When someone rises to power 
on bigoted ideals, he's taking advantage of bigotry that's there, 
imo. There is no other Slytherin that the one between the pages of 
the book, and that house has pretty consistent weaknesses. 

Mike:
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:
Of course I think Draco's beliefs are influenced by his upbringing. I 
also think the book judges him as bad despite that. Within the pages 
of the book, Slytherin is consistently bad. There's no other 
Slytherin that exists.

> 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:
Slytherin started Slytherin, and I think Slytherin continues without 
him. Yes, there's no more actual heir, but I don't see a single thing 
in the book that sets up Voldemort's death as meaning the kind of 
result you're describing, and it has to be there for me to say that 
that's what happened. We're not even told they got rid of the 
Pureblood mania--why would they have? We don't even know if the 
Malfoys did. 

> 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:
Yes, I still deny we should fill in what else Harry meant to say. If 
Harry meant to say something else he would have said it. Harry 
knowing that Snape also showed great cunning does not mean that Harry 
actually meant to say anything more than what he did to his son. I 
didn't say Harry didn't internalize it, I said he didn't mean to say 
it in the epilogue. Harry's been a fan of cunning for years when he 
himself displays it.


> 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.47

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.

Magpie:
So they're no longer trying to kill each other. That's the happy 
ending, and that's fine. I don't think it makes Slytherin not the 
worst house. Thousands of pages tell me this and there's nothing that 
overhauls the house that I can see. You feel that kiilling Voldemort 
will magically change the personality of Slytherin, one that was bad 
beyond its Pureblood mania? I think that's just speculating what 
might happen outside the book in our mind. I see nothing in the book 
that sets of Voldemort as the bad element that's preying on the good 
element that is Slytherin. I see Slytherins being less admirable 
people at every turn, in different ways (not just as Pureblood 
supremists), and with no hint of some magic spell that Voldemort cast 
to make them as bad as we see. Even in your history here you seem to 
be saying that it's better now because they no longer have a leader 
that will bring all their bad qualities together--and that I would 
say is true, but that doesn't make the Slytherins better as 
individual personalities. It keeps their potential for hurting others 
in check,imo. 

-m