Hated DH epilogue

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 172829

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "elmntrymdr" <ackopecky at ...> 
wrote:
>> However, here I disagree.  I read the moment between Dumbledore 
and
> Snape, and the epilogue, quite differently.  I think that Snape 
turned
> out the way he did as a young adult largely because of the the
> influences around him in Slytherin.  Not everyone in Slytherin was
> evil, but if the protoDEs befriend you and help form your opinions
> from an early age, and most of the decent people either keep quiet 
or
> belong to other houses, the odds of you turning out rotten are 
pretty
> significant.  Maybe thats a stretch, but I felt like Dumbledore was
> lamenting the "us vs. them" mentality that starts at such an early 
age
> at Hogwarts and produces a serious barrier between students.  What
> would Snape have been like if he had avoided the influence of 
Malfoy
> for another year, if he had made friends who wound up in 
Gryffendor or
> Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff?  He didn't have to wind up in Gryffendor 
to
> be good, but being put into Malfoys path at such a young age didn't
> help him any.

Leah: That's a very interesting interpretation of Dumbledore's 
words, which obviously hadn't occured to me.  Whichever one of us is 
right doesn't matter too much, I think, because sorting is still 
done at 11 in the Epilogue, so the possible reform doesn't happen.


 
> Also, I thought the quiet heart-to-heart between Harry and his son
> Albus was touching.  Sometimes the things said to you mean more 
when
> they are for your ears only.  And I took his lack of concern about
> James' antics as an admission that the "threat" of winding up in
> Slytherin wasn't really much of a threat.  There will always be
> rivalries between schools, and its difficult to imagine that a
> several-hundred-year-old rivalry will disappear, but perhaps its
> turning into something more like UCLA/USC instead of Good/Evil.
> 
> elmntrymdr
>

Leah:  I thought the heart to heart was touching too in as much as 
it referred to Snape and showed Harry as a loving parent his 
children weren't afraid to question.  However, after all the 
nastiness of Slytherin and all the anti-Slytherin feelings we have 
seen, I think we needed something more to make the interpretation 
of 'friendly rivalry' sustainable.  What we got was on the one hand 
the same 'don't want to be in Slytherin' we have always seen, and a 
response 'well, the bravest man I knew was in Slytherin, but, you 
know what, you can choose to be in Gryffindor', and relief all 
round.   We could for example have a wink between Ginny and Harry 
while some of the anti-Slytherin stuff was going on, and Harry could 
have said, "Slytherin is just another house.  It's your choices 
which determine the person you will become, not your house.  The 
bravest man I ever knew was in Slytherin and I hope you'll make the 
right choices whatever house you are in.  I would have been a bit 
more convinced that something had changed.  

Leah