DH as Christian Allegory

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 173466

> Sydney:

> *takes a deep breath*  Okay, here's the part where I get an inbox 
full
> of flaming emails, but I just have to get this out.
> 
> What is she giving us in Slytherin House? I'm not trying to be
> provocative, I'm just laying out what it is we're looking at here.
> This book has given us a population characterized by 'ambition' and
> 'cunning', they are often described as having 'greedy' expressions.
> They always seem to be in positions of power and have more money 
than
> seems right. They're not admitted into certain clubs and quite right
> too. They can't be trusted-- their loyalties are not those of the 
rest
> of society. In a war they will probably run or switch sides or try 
to
> profit from the suffering of others. They manipulate the government
> from behind the scenes to their own purposes, using money and 
mesmeric
> powers. They keep themselves to themselves and never fit in; who 
they
> are seems to be partly by birth-- established by nasty inbreeding--,
> partly by belief, and partly by some invisible taint.  
> 
> They killed Harry Potter and refused to accept his Salvation.
> 
> What does a House like this sound like to you? A House associated 
with
> reptiles and ghettoes like Nocturn Alley? A House whose Founder has 
a
> 'monkey-like' face and a name that's suspiciously foreign? A House
> with sinister ties to Eastern Europe? Whose Head-- redeemed only by 
a
> passion, presented as kind of creepy and wrong, for a woman on the
> 'pure' side-- has greasy black hair and a freakin' *hooked nose*??!
> What was she *thinking*? JK Rowling, I appeal to you, *what were you
> thinking*?
> 
> I'm not, please believe me, I'm NOT accusing Rowling of anti-
Semitism
> here (I will guarantee 90% of replies to this post will say "OMG
> you're saying JKR is an anti-Semite!!!"). 

Magpie:
You're a braver woman than I for laying this out--I've literally been 
dancing around it since I finished the book. This is also why, in the 
other part of the thread where I've been talking to Ken about the 
ending, I can't see Harry and Ron as simply Princeton men to Draco's 
Yalie--those two groups are actually part of the same elite with a 
jokey rivalry. Yale is not Slytherin (even to a Harvard man!). And 
switching from this division to that one would be like having your 
cake and eating it too--keeping the Slytherins in this role for the 
story and then, realizing how weird it is, just asking us to pretend 
it never really existed. 

Like you, I don't think this has anything to do with Rowling being 
anti-Semitic. The Slytherins aren't supposed to "really" be Jews in 
an allegory (another reason this whole idea seems to kind of haunt 
threads about people being offered saving and rejecting it.) But they 
totally do seem to be playing that role, and I can't see why having 
Pansy Parkinson get up to hand Harry over, and the Slytherins then 
cast out as untrustworthy, would start us on a road to 
reconciliation. On the contrary, they just added their biggest crime 
to their rap sheet.

So it's not about calling Rowling anti-Semitic, but it is about this 
villain that fits naturally into the story she eventually seemed to 
be telling. The funny thing is I actually did once write about this 
subject--but it was after OotP. That was the book where one of my 
first reactions was, "Wait, the Slytherins are Nazis...but they also 
seem to have a lot in common with certain representations of Jews." 
And what's strange is how it's like there's this house full of all 
these things you've described, only with a big Swastika hung over it 
so you can have it both ways and totally separate the stereotype from 
its historical meaning.

The reason I think it really struck me first in OotP was because the 
problem with the whole Hitler Youth idea is that that was that was an 
idea, and OotP is where it seemed revealed that Slytherinism was not 
just an idea. Perhaps this is why JKR can tell us in an interview 
that there are DE children of DEs in other houses...yet can't show it 
to us because it really doesn't seem natural. You can have people 
like Peter who betray and fall in amongst them, but the more the 
books went on the more Voldemort and his beliefs were tied to 
Slytherin. Even to the point where Harry saves the hat and thus saves 
everyone not from being separate from each other, but from being 
Slytherin.  

Looking back on that old post I did, back then I had several lines 
that predicted the ending--that the Slytherins were perhaps not 
really loyal to Hogwarts at all, and that they rejected salvation. 
Only honestly back then I assumed I was exaggerating and there would 
be an integration.

Sydney:
She's just totally fine with the idea that there is *something 
different about them*, but our Heroes should be kind and magnanimous 
like they are to House Elves (and don't even get me started on the 
House Elves). 

Magpie:
Yeah, that was weird. And interesting that the lesson of how people 
might actually be inspired to courage and being better people if you 
reach out to them and treat them with respect was restricted to the 
non-human House Elf slave desperate for a new loving master.


Anders:
I didn't read as much negativity into Jo's Slytherin descriptions as 
you seemed to get from them. To me, she was showing us that there are 
all kinds of people in this world, and some of them aren't as nice as 
others, but there were also Slytherins who turned out good. Harry 
Potter wasn't killed by Slytherins, he was killed by the evil which 
possessed Tom Riddle, who was a descendant of Slytherin, and seemed 
to have been possessed by the same evil attitude.

Magpie:
Jesus wasn't literally "killed by Jews" either. Pansy stood up to 
hand Harry over to Voldemort. He was killed by Voldemort (a 
Slytherin) whlie DEs (more Slytherins) watched. There was no nebulous 
force of evil possessing Tom. The Slytherins were never, that I saw, 
presented that way. They seemed actually even more directly involved 
in "killing" Harry than the Jews were in killing Jesus.

I didn't see any Slytherins that turned out very good by the 
standards of these books--somewhat good, but never on the level of 
many of the most mundane people in other houses. And rather than 
there being "all kinds" in the world, I saw a real distinction 
between some of those kinds.

Anders:
I thought Jo fought against the labeling idea when Sirius told Harry 
that the world isn't divided into Death Eaters and good guys. I 
thought the biggest example of that in the last book was her 
treatment of Snape. 

Magpie:
I do think she showed that DEs weren't the only bad guys, sure. But I 
had the same reaction as Sydney did to Snape's redemption. 

Anders:
And finally, I thought by continuing with the sorting hat, I thought
she was telling us that it's okay to be in a group with others of 
similar tastes and abilities as long as one group doesn't begin to 
think they are superior to others. 

Magpie:
And nobody feels superior to Slytherins? I think they do--for obvious 
reasons. 

Anders:
In book one we were also told that those same qualities could make a 
person great, and there were many Slytherins who had made good, as 
evidenced by Horace Slughorn's friends. 

Magpie:
Who are these "and friends?" What I saw was a Horace Slughorn who was 
okay--as evidenced by him introducing himself by apologizing for his 
house--obviously he's one of the good ones (he too loves Lily as 
well). He ultimately could make the right choice, at least, after a 
bit of a struggle. Of Harry's generation--the one that's actually 
going to take over? Nobody. Snape? Was personally redeemed through 
his passion for a Gryffindor. I don't know where these "many" 
Slytherins making good are you're talking about. They're not wholly 
condemned.

Anders:
Jo also showed us negative qualities in Sirius who was a Gryffindor, 
Ernie MacMillan who was Hufflepuff, and Cho, who was Ravenclaw. I 
didn't feel Jo was slurring all Asians when Cho turned out to be, 
IMO, shallow.

Magpie:
Well, I don't think Cho was shallow at all, but regardless, negative 
qualities in other houses isn't the point. That didn't stop them from 
being, imo, the Elect. They could make as many mistakes as they 
wanted and still be that.

Anders:
How would you suggest she should have portrayed "the bad guys" to the
readers? She had to make some type of distinction to move the story 
along. I didn't read her description of Bellatrix as a slur against 
any particular ethnic group,

Magpie:
As Sydney tried to exlain, this isn't about her making a slur against 
an ethnic group. She needed a way of making a distinction and the 
distinction she made was rather familiar. And fitting, imo, given the 
story she eventually seemed to be telling. Plenty of authors--even 
fantasy authors--manage to create bad guys without my ever thinking 
they sound a lot like this. And just to say it *again* since it can't 
be said enough, this is not any sort of accusation of anti-Semitism 
against Rowling. I don't think she intends the Slytherins to "be" 
Jews at all (she'd rather they be seen as Nazis, in fact). You can go 
through every single one of these traits, as you have, and explain 
them each away, but they still add up to the same collection of 
traits to me, with some other things thrown in here and there where 
necessary to throw other modern good qualities she wants to highlight 
into relief. (For instance, in a Medieval story the Jews could never 
be aristocrats, but rather than breaking the impression I had I just 
thought it was an update: those are bad in this universe, so the 
Slytherins are that too.)

Anders:
I also didn't see that Jo was slurring Eastern Europeans, but just
chose Albania as a random place for Voldy to run to. 

Magpie:
I believe Sydney's referring to more than Voldy happening to run to 
Albania. This perhaps just comes down to what things make an 
impression on one as one is reading.

Anders:
She also put in hints about Hitler and his attempts at genocide
and creating a "pure race". I'm part German, but I didn't find any of 
those references offensive.

Magpie:
And Sydney acknowledged those Nazi references. The way you're 
bringing it up here still seems to suggest that Sydney is saying that 
Rowling is insulting Jews and is therefore offensive, which is not 
what she said. You recognized hints about Hitler--and why would you 
recognize them? Because you recognize that collection of things. The 
roles the Slytherins were playing also echoed other recognizable 
historical character types--at least to me. (I also see a lot of 
colonial steroetypes in GoF, btw.)

Anders:
In the end Jo showed us that anyone, regardless of their past, can be
forgiven of evil if they want to change, but a price must be paid. 
Even the Malfoys who murdered, owned slaves, stole, were arrogant, - 
who did about everything "un-nice" Rowling could think of, - were 
still forgiven in the eleventh hour when they decided to turn against 
evil. Harry's act of saving Draco caused Narcissa to save Harry later 
on. I think Jo was telling us that no one is beyond redemption if 
they desire it.

Magpie:
And I didn't get that at all--certainly not from the Malfoys huddled 
in the Great Hall not being molested. Their being forgiven wasn't 
really the point (the main thing I thought wasn't that they were 
forgiven but that they weren't Saved). The good guys were known to do 
plenty of bad things too--I can't think of them as murderers, but 
they certainly were canonically known to steal and be arrogant and be 
un-nice--and own slaves. However, those sins seemed to clearly bounce 
off their souls in ways they did not the Malfoys. 

-m