[HPforGrownups] the best played game of chess/A note on Slytherin

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 164006

quigonginger wrote:
> At the end of PS/SS, DD awards Ron points for "the best-played game 
> of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years".

Bart:
	There are several explanations I can think of off the top of my head. I 
assume many more are possible.

1) There was a "back door" through several, if not all, of the traps 
(such as playing music for Fluffy). What Q/V did was find out several of 
these "back doors", while the kids actually had to make their way 
through the traps. The key to winning the chess match was to actually 
sacrifice yourself, not knowing whether or not you'd survive. Ron's 
willingness to do so won him the points.

2) Ron's game happened to have the self-sacrifice aspect, and he won the 
points for doing so.

3) Points, house cup, etc. are all, in the scheme of things, meaningless 
anyway.

	Frankly, in OOP, I really expected a Slytherin to show up in the DA, 
and, when he joins his fellow Slytherins in poking fun at Ron, say 
something like, "Hey, Quidditch is a game. This is real life. Learn the 
difference!" I still don't know of the lack of any Slytherins joining 
the DA was singificant, or just bad writing on JKR's part. Consider: In 
Muggles, studies have shown that about 10% of people are truly good; 
they do the right thing just because it's the right thing. About 85% of 
the population will generally do the right thing, but will do the wrong 
thing if they believe that nobody will ever find out about it (that the 
deed was actually done, not that they did it). Only 5% of the population 
is likely to do something wrong just on the basis that they won't get 
caught. Since Slytherins comprise 25% of the Hogwarts student body, one 
would assume that even if they got the full 5%, 20% would be like most 
of us.

	One counter-note. A friend of mine in college came from a rather 
wealthy family, and went to an exclusive school. Many stores in the 
neighborhood went out of business, because many of the students in the 
school shoplifted regularly, and the storeowners, because of the 
political influence of their parents, couldn't turn them in to the 
police. I will not go into the details he pointed out, but, in general, 
the students who did the shoplifting came from homes that had servants 
who were treated like, well, house elves. The attitude extended to 
janitorial staff, shopkeepers, etc. Those who were brought up to believe 
that the fact that they had a lot of money made them no better than 
anybody else (with a high correlation to belonging to religions that 
emphasized equality of all people, including within their own religion) 
were the ones who either did not participate or even actively tried to 
stop it.

	Now, given that nobody in the Slytherins are the type who would 
actively try to stop DE-type activities, one would assume that there 
would be AT LEAST one or two who were sufficiently afraid of the DE's 
and others to make common cause with the DA.

	Bart