Salazar, Slytherins and Bigotry

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 179962

> > Betsy Hp:
> > Doesn't one of the Sorting Hat's songs mention something about 
> > Slytherins being those whose blood is the "purest"?  Either way...
> 
> Mike:
> Ah yes, the Hat's infamous call for pure-bloods. Excepting, all 
> pure-bloods don't go into Slytherin. And excepting at least two 
> half-bloods did get in. Now Riddle was a descendant, so I suppose 
> he had to go into Slytherin. But young Severus wasn't and he got in.

a_svirn:
How do you know he wasn't? And anyway, all Princes were in Slytherin. 
I suppose young Severus *wanted* to be a Slytherin and the Hat 
obliged. He certainly was eager to embrace the Slytherin ideology, 
his feelings to Lily notwithstanding.


> Mike: 
> Now that I think on it, didn't Sirius say that all the pure-blood 
> families are somehow related. So wouldn't every pure-blood have 
some 
> ties to Salazar. It seems Harry did through Ignotus Peverell, and 
> Harry's only half-blood. What made Tom Riddle's blood connection so 
> special?

a_svirn:
Harry is connected by blood only to Ignotus. The Gaunts were probably 
descendants from Cadmus (or Antioch, I don't remember which is 
which). That makes Harry *related* to the descendants of Slytherin, 
but does not make him one. There is a certain closeness (with Salazar 
Slytherin) by affinity, but not by consanguinity. And as 
Mephistopheles said "blood is a quite peculiar juice". It is 
certainly true in the WW. 

> Mike: 
> It seems the Hat's practice didn't match that particular stanza 
> quite so strictly. And in any case, being a pure-blood did not 
> necessarily make one a bigot. 

a_svirn:
It did and does, when it becomes a criterion for choosing one's 
house. 


> Mike:
Howsoever, it seemed having Slytherin 
> parents was a good indicator of a propensity towards bigotry. And 
if 
> that didn't do it, living in Slytherin House for seven years would 
> probably remove all your inhibitions for using the word "Mudblood".
> 
> Still, that's a cultural thing, not a characteristic for sorting.

a_svirn:
Since when "a characteristic for sorting" cannot be a cultural thing? 
And what thing it can be, if it comes to that? Natural? Hermione is 
highly intelligent, hardworking, loyal, ambitious, brave, cunning and 
ruthless. She has therefore "natural" characteristics of all the four 
houses. We know that the Hat offered her a choice between two of 
them. She did, however, choose Gryffindor, presumably because she 
*valued* bravery above all else. And this is not about "nature". Our 
character traits may be natural, but our values are to a very high 
degree culturally determined. Slytheins choose their House because 
they *value* their decent and scorn people of Muggle decent.