Slytherins come back WAS: Re: My Most Annoying Character

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 180124

Carol:
> I agree that what JKR wrote and what she thinks she wrote are
> different, but what she did write is sufficiently vague that it dpes
> not reclude the idea of Slughorn leading the (older) Slytherins (or
> some of them) into battle, along with non-DE Slytherin parents.
> Phineas Nigellus' boast about Slytherin playing its part makes more
> sense if Slughorn did, indeed, lead at least a handful of older
> Slytherins into battle. No doubt that's what JKR *intended.*
> Unfortunately, she didn't clearly transmit that intention to the reader.

Pippin:
But surely the ambiguity is intentional? We're supposed to be in
suspense about  whether Harry's feelings towards Slytherin have
changed, and remain so into  the epilogue. That can't happen if,
to borrow Potioncat's excellent phrase, heck *anyone* could see
that Slytherins aren't all bad. 

Besides which, it would be out of character for Harry to pick
Millicent, Blaise and Theo out of a crowd of strangers unless he
was looking for them, still less the three unnamed Slytherin 
witches of Harry's year and the sixth years, whom neither
Harry nor the reader would recognize without an introduction.
This is the kid who didn't know who Theo was, remember?
(I sympathize as I too have a terrible memory for names and
faces.) 

 Then we learn *how* Harry's feelings have changed but not why. 
We are encouraged to go back and re-read more carefully, at least 
from The Prince's Tale onward, both to resolve this and to understand 
what happened with the Elder Wand. 

It is not only Phineas's assertion that Slytherin played a part, but
also McGonagall's restoration of the house tables and the hall
being thronged with students who aren't sitting by house. That,
as I've said before, really doesn't make sense if no Slytherins
returned and the only ones present are the Malfoys sitting by
themselves.

Why leave it so ambiguous? IMO, because overcoming prejudice needs to
be about overcoming assumptions by ceasing to make them, not by
marshalling  contrary facts. What would you say about
someone who said, "I'll believe that blacks aren't inferior 
when somebody shows me that they're just as good as other
people" ?

Pippin