Slytherins as jews WAS: Re: DH as Christian Allegory/I am about to r

[nitalynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 173612

> Anders:

> To me, Sirius continued to exhibit traits of Slytherin in his
treatment of
> Kreacher, in his near-fatal trick on Snape, in his self-serving
> recklessness, etc. <snip>

 Nita:

See, this is exactly the problem I have with the "othering" of
Slytherins. It's not that I think "Oh, poor sweet Slyths, how could
JKR treat them like that?". It's that it makes it extremely easy to
ascribe *all* bad qualities, even those that are obviously the
downsides of the heroes' virtues, to the Other. So, we're told they're
ambitious (passionate about fulfilling their dreams?) and cunning
(resourceful?)... And then, as it becomes convenient, it also appears
that they're disloyal, cowardly, cold, ugly, stupid, arrogant,
sadistic... and now reckless, too? Really.

It's natural for humans to think in terms of "us vs them" and point
fingers at "them" as the source of evil. The problem is that there are
people on *both* sides of every conflict. Every person and every group
like to think of themselves as Good and Right. I think hardly anyone
wakes up and thinks "yay, another fine day for Evil, mwahahahaha!".
And I don't see how a story where the finger-pointing is happily
validated helps anyone make better moral decisions.

I also don't like the related smaller, everyday stuff like "if you
have an argument with a friend and you're Right, wait until the friend
comes crawling back to you, so you can be magnanimously forgiving". It
seems like a good way to lose people you care about, to me.


Nita