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

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 173788

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie"
<sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Ken:
> I think it is pretty much true that as Harry goes, so goes the WW.
> 
> Magpie:
> Which way do you mean this? That people are watching Harry and when 
> they see him staring at Malfoy some ways away and not attacking him 
> they change their thinking on Slytherin? Or just that Harry as our 
> pov character is showing us the trend of the WW? Harry's own views 
> have often been at odds with the WW.
> 

Neither really though the latter is a bit closer. Harry's views have
often been at odd with those of the WW at large, or perhaps more
accurately those of the Ministry and the pureblood factions. What I
was saying is that this is likely no longer true. Harry has become if
not the WW's Abraham Lincoln then certainly its Hiram (his real first
name) Ulysses Grant. He has to be one of the most influential of
living wizards. I think it quite reasonable to read his attitudes as
expressed in the epilogue as being representative of the larger WW.
Surely not everyone would be as generous and he is far from best mates
with Draco. Nevertheless it seems like a real change and one that is
broader than just Harry and his friends/family.


> Though for me, that's not even the point. You create a big division 
> and a problem like Slytherin, and then you avoid solving it, it's not 
> solved. 

I agree that we don't see this problem being explicitly solved. I
guess we disagree over what the canon evidence means about the depth
and scope of the solution. I don't think it is the central conflict of
the books, but the author did make quite a stink about it in canon and
I can see why you might feel it deserved a fuller treatment in the
pages of the final book. Since I last checked in here Rowling has
given an interview in which she is more explicit. I don't know if you
found that satisfying or not. Now that we have it I suppose there is
no more need to continue this discussion.

Ken, whose own comparison now has him wondering: William Tecumseh
Sherman == Ron or Hermione? Rather more Hermione I think....