No progress for Slytherin? (Was: Slytherins: selfish, not evil)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 173258

Magpie:
> > I think the Slytherin who would be most remembered would be 
Pansy 
> > Parkinson. 
> > 
Ken: 
> Somehow I think Tom Riddle will be remembered more than Pansy
> Parkinson. 

Magpie:
Maybe. But I think Pansy would be pretty up there. Whether or not 
she was known by name.

Ken:

Some see the glass half full, others half empty, as an
> engineer I tend to see the glass as being twice as big as it needs 
to
> be. You seem determined to see the glass as bone dry.

Magpie:
I think I'm just looking realistically at what the book said to me. 
If you start off with this house of antagonists, and consistently 
show them being a certain way, and in the end make that sort of a 
side issue, I just don't see why there's any reason I should write 
in an ending where integrating Slytherin into the school is the 
outcome. It's like just assuming that everybody likes werewolves or 
that Goblins can now carry wands just because that would be good.

The epilogue takes place 19 years after the events of the book, and 
the most we've got to show for it is a platitude Harry gives in 
response to his son being worried he'll wind up in Slytherin, having 
iirc been teased by his brother that he would do so. That 
establishes something about Slytherin there. Harry does not respond 
with his new ideas about how good Slytherin is--nor should he, 
because there aren't any. He says, "If you're in Slytherin, that 
would be Slytherin's gain. And you're named after a Slytherin who 
was very brave--the quality of the house the rest of your family is 
Sorted for. Oh, but if it really matters, I've never told anyone, 
but I also worried about being Slytherin as a boy but the hat lets 
you choose against it." 

Bone dry? No. But big turnaround in the view of Slytherin isn't 
there either. Nor do I think it was ever considered something that 
needed to happen by the author. 

Ken:
 I think that is
> your choice more than the author's intention or an over active
> imagination on my part. Slytherin has a real problem and in spite 
of
> that problem there were Slytherins who, however late, however
> begrudgingly, were able to make the right choices.

Magpie:
Yes, I know that--and I saw how it happened. I completely 
acknolwedge the limited roles of those Slytherins. I also see a 
difference between them and the values of the people who are part of 
the circle of heroes. 

Ken:
 That is the basis
> of reconciliation. I cannot hold the students of Slytherin house at
> the time of the final battle to the same standards as I hold other
> houses since, like the Hitler Youth or Young Pioneers, they were 
only
> doing as they had been taught. 

Magpie:
But given what I read of the books, and judging them from the values 
I get from the books, that just really doesn't seem like the basis 
for reconciliation at all. It's the basis of not condemning them 
completely, but not yet reconciliation. Which is why I think in the 
end we're looking at a scene 19 years after the fact that doesn't to 
me look like so much progress. Perhaps it's like Slytherin pre-Tom 
Riddle (though I don't know if you can ever really go back to that 
completely). 

Ken:
The oldest of them are only approaching
> the age where the best of us begin to question the wisdom of our
> elders and to rise above their limitations.

Magpie:
That's an optimistic view of how they could change--and one that I 
share, but it's basically the same view I started out the series 
with. I don't know if it will happen or not, or if it will happen to 
the extent it needed to happen.

Ken:
> In my view it is not the house system that is problematic, it is 
not
> the age at which the students are sorted that is problematic, it is
> the criteria by which they are sorted. Every house needs the brave,
> the ambitious, the wise, and the team player. The hat should 
abandon
> the founder's prejudices and make sure that each house gets some 
of each. 

Magpie:
I agree--but the house system isn't being questioned in the text 
much, is it? Voldemort tries to burn that hat to make everybody 
Slytherin (he claims) but the hat is saved. We don't hear about any 
big overhaul of how the Sorting happens either. It seems exactly the 
same as it was when Harry started out.

Another author might have handled this configuration very 
differently and just had different priorities. She might have had 
Harry sort into Gryffindor, Ron in Hufflepuff and Hermione in 
Ravenclaw--with an antagonist in Slytherin that Harry eventually got 
along with perhaps. But that's not the way Rowling went. People have 
over the years pointed out that Ron brings the Hufflepuff qualities 
with his loyalties, and Harry's Slytherin-ish and Hermione's 
Ravenclaw--but the fact remains that they're all Gryffindors. And 
that's not surprising, because courage is the all-important virtue. 
When I saw the four houses I immediately thought that integrating 
them all equally will be a priority, but I just don't see any 
evidence that this is a priority in the story JKR wrote. Ultimately 
the story was far more coherent without that priority.

Ken: 
> The final events and the epilogue tell me that healing is taking
> place. True healing of such a deep divide will take a generation or
> two. The kind of instant resolution you seem to have been expecting
> would have been a contrived and unsatisfying conclusion for my 
taste.

Magpie:
I did not want an instant resolution. I wanted a definite thing done 
within the story that based on the values consistently presented 
made integration possible. I did not see that. Whatever might happen 
over a generation or two seems like obviously not part of the story. 
In a generation or two perhaps House Elves will be freed or goblins 
will carry wands or werewolves will be accepted by everyone--but I 
didn't see a definitive step towards that in the canon. As far as I 
can see Slytherin is in a similar position as it was at the 
beginning of canon--it's not like it was ever not part of the school 
with the potential for connection. It still has that potential.

Ken:
> I choked a bit over Kreacher's sudden conversion, the thing that 
won
> me over there was his "once more for luck, Master?" line. What was
> ultimately believable in one elf would have been unacceptably
> saccharine in the whole of Slytherin house. It will take time to 
heal
> the split that was started by Slytherin himself. 

Magpie:
It will take time and, imo, a new story, because that wasn't the 
point of this one. Anything could happen in the future, but Harry 
Potter was Chosen to defeat Voldemort, not heal that split. It 
presumably improved post-Voldemort. The silly things have been saved 
from themselves, but they did not save themselves on the level of 
the other houses. They are not wholly condemned. That's where they 
seem to stand to me. Kreacher's turnaround may be saccharine, but 
his devotion to Harry does seem pretty common on the good side. (And 
then there's also my own subjective problem, which is that to me 
integration naturally included the kind of change on the good side 
that wasn't coming either, making the whole thing even more lopsided 
and difficult.) 

-m