Slytherins / The South Seas (Off Topic portion) and the Sword of Godric

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 173930

In:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/173923

> Neri:
> Being a Slytherin is not like being a German. No one is born 
> a Slytherin, they choose to become one. Slytherin is an ideology, 
> a racist ideology that is more analog of being Nazi, not of being 
> German. The question that interests me isn't why after 19 years 
> Slytherin still have a bad image (I doubt that 19 years after the 
> WWII neo-Nazis in the USA or Britain, not to mention in Israel, 
> would have a better image). The interesting question to me is why 
> haven't all Wizard parents, especially those who grew up in 
> Slytherin House, told their children "blood purity is an evil 
> ideology. It was responsible for many atrocities during the war.
> When you go to Hogwarts to be sorted, you tell the Hat: don't put 
> me in Slytherin. Not Slytherin, not Slytherin". After all, isn't 
> this what Germans did after WWII? Didn't they renounce Nazism and 
> racism?

Goddlefrood:

I disagree that it is entirely a matter of choice to which House one 
is sorted. There is also, as with several real world schools in the 
benighted isles, an element of tradition at play. The Black family, 
as one example, were universally sorted into Slytherin House until 
Sirius broke that trend and the implication of that, at least the 
one I took from the sorting system, was that there were traditional 
houses for certain families. To an extent, and despite the lack of 
confirmation from canon that Zacharias Smith was related to Hepzibah 
Smith, the same could be said of Hufflepuff. The Bones family is 
one more instance of that, as indeed was the Weasley family and 
their strong links to Gryffindor.

It was certainly the case in post war Europe that a strong element 
of mistrust remained between the vicotrs and the vanquished and to 
some extent this mistrust lingers today. The classic example of the 
continuity of the stereotypical dislike between the English and the 
Germans was the Fawlty Towers episode entitled "The Germans". That 
took matters to a comical extreme, but the underlying attitude was 
there, and Fawlty Towers was not until over thirty years after the 
end of the second world war.

Some time before Deathly Hallows' release there was a speculation 
somewhere, whether here or elsewhere I can't remember now, that 
basically set out how Tom Riddle had subverted Slytherin House 
from under Uncle Horace's control. While Slughorn has some 
prejudice towards muggle-borns it was a level of prejudice that 
was not overly likely to lead to the mass production of dark 
and dangerous wizards. Once Tom Riddle's brand of prejudice began 
to infiltrate the house of Slytherin then this situation changed 
quite rapidly and for more than half a century thereafter Slytherins 
were seen as almost universally evil and likely to join Voldemort's 
band of merry warriors at the drop of a hat.

I certainly got the impression, as was expressed well by Siriusly 
Snapey Susan in her post of a day or two ago, that there was a 
movement back towards the situation that had prevailed in the 
house of Salazar before the influence of Lord Voldemort fell 
over it. When all is said and done you do not undo half a century 
of bias in an afternoon, but there were steps that had been made 
towards a little more unity between the houses by the end of the 
book.

Give it several more decades and Slytherins will be no less vilified 
than Germans are today. If you are German and still feel vilified, 
don't, we're all friends now after all.

Traditional values in long established schools should also not be 
wholly discounted and there is little need, IMO, to dispense with 
either the house system itself or with the sorting ceremony. 

Whatever else wizards and witches may be (apart from obviously 
fictional) they love tradition.


From:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/173927

(Precis)
> JW:
> After three days of doggedly reading these posts, I am now a mere 
> 1400 behind. Would you all mind stopping your onslaught until I 
> catch up?

> Sandy:
> Totally off topic but it will perhaps lighten things up a little.
> I had to laugh out loud at this statement. I have found, because 
> of the volume of mail the list is generating, that my mailbox 
> capacity is 1000.

Geoff:
> Today, for example, I logged off at about 01:00, and by 07:00 
> there were the best part of another 100 posts waiting!!

Goddlefrood:

There is an easy solution to the conundrum of multiplicity of 
posts. A simple expedient that I took 10 years ago. Move to the 
South Pacific. There's a period between about 5 o'clock of a Fiji 
afternoon and about 11 o'clock in the evening, and the same would 
apply to New Zealand and to an extent to Australia, when the list 
calms down. This is whilst the US slumbers and the majority of 
Europe slumbers and works. It's ideal for catching up with the 
latest thoughts on the list.


>From (Quoted by TKJ from a much earlier post):

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/173918

> Goddlefrood wrote:

> Another thing about which a reaction would be welcomed was the 
> ludicrousness of the whole sword in the lake moment. Why not 
> just leave it in an easily accessible position?

> klmtapir:

> Dumbledore told Snape (in The Prince's Tale) that "the sword must 
> be taken under conditions of need and valor". So he couldn't just 
> leave it on the ground for Harry to find.

Goddlefrood finally responds:

All well and good. The thing is that Snape took the sword from 
where it was hidden in the Headmaster's office and repaired to, I 
believe the Forest of Dean, with it to place it in the lake. Where 
was his taking of the sword under conditions of need and valour? 
Severus was passing it on to Harry. Harry had already taken the 
sword under conditions of need and valour in the Chamber of 
Secrets back in book 2. To dive into a frozen lake did not, in my 
opinion, meet the alleged condition of obtaining same, and neither 
did Snape's ability to just pick it up and pass it on.

Of course there has to be a parallel between the Lady in the Lake 
of the Arthurian legend and the sword in the lake of what we might 
now describe at the Potterian legend. It just seemed obsolete to 
this reader and could have been handed over more simply. Or perhaps 
the use of Ronald Weasley is our king in book 5 was supposed to 
be a clue?

Goddlefrood, who liked that Neville also took the sword from the 
Sorting Hat as had Harry all those years before.