Danger in designating an "Other" / Bad magic

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 174025

>> Betsy  wrote:
>> 
>> JKR apparently looks at the world around her and
>> thinks, "I know in my heart that a quarter of the
>> people out there are evil, half of them are okay,
>> and there's one quarter that's  just unquestionably
>> good." It's an ugly view of the world in my opinion.
>> And it  cumlminates in a rather ugly book with a 
>> rather ugly message.  
>>
>> [And, from a later post]
>> I disagree.  I'll admit to being a bit of an optimist,
>> but I really prefer to think that on the whole, most 
>> people are basically good.  

> Steve (bboyminn) replied:
> 
> There is nothing wrong or inherently evil about any
> of the Slytherin personality characteristics. But,
> those characteristics are likely to contain a 
> group of people who seek power, and who are corrupted
> by it.
> 
> [snip]
>
> Note, not all Gryffindors are as brave as Harry, nor
> as ethical, nor as admirable. Where was everyone when
> Harry/Ron/Hermione were out on their great adventures?
> Tucked safely in their beds. Do we call them cowards or
> evil for having done so? I don't think so.
> 
> In the characteristics of every House are pluses and 
> minuses. Loyalty of Hufflepuffs is good until it 
> become blind unquestioning loyalty. Courage amoung
> Gryffindor is good until it becomes reckless or self-
> serving. Brains and intelligence among Ravenclaw is
> good until if fails to ask the hard questions of
> why and to what end.
> 
> Slytherins are ambitious, cunning, wily entrepeneurs,
> and leaders. They get things done; and always to their
> advantage, but that is how corporations succeed. That 
> is how financial empires are built. These 
> characteristics are not a fault until they are turned 
> to grossly unethical means.
> 
> [snip]
>
> There is no reason to believe that the average
> Slytherin is evil. 

Steve makes very good points, and I read Rowling's portrayal of the
House characteristics much as he does (and not as Betsy and others on
the thread have).  Slughorn was an ultimate Slytherin in the sense of
seeking ways to advance his own cause (and, for the same purpose, the
causes of his proteges) but without any apparent attraction to the
dark arts and without any real pureblood prejudice.  (He was certainly
interested in lineage, but principally in an old-boys, networking sort
of way.)  

I do think that Rowling views ambition and cunning and attributes that
lead to worldly success as morally suspicious -- this is, after all,
the root of the dark skeleton's in Dumbledore's closet -- but she
accepts that those attributes are valued by the world at large.  

The Dumbledore backstory also leads me to another point that comes
through loud and clear in DH, namely that human beings are far too
complicated to be described by a single attribute.  The greatest
failing of the Gryffindor Dumbledore is allowing his selfish ambition
to overshadow his sense of loyalty to and responsibility for his
sister.  Slytherin Snape is the bravest man Harry ever knew. 
Gryffindor McGonagall continues (as she has throughout the series) to
act more reliably out of loyalty to Dumbledore than out of bravery or
any other motive.  (It was that same loyalty, and not bravery,
ambition or intelligence, that saved Harry in CS.)  Bellatrix, too,
seems more driven by loyalty than by any personal ambition; how is she
a Slytherin?  

Not only are people complicated, but they change.  Take Percy, for
example.  We don't know much about his youth, though we get a hint
from Fred's last words of a less disciplined young Percy.  In any
event he was sorted into Gryffindor; by the time of his fifth year he
was dominated by ambition (again, portrayed as a moral failing of
grand proportion); and by the end of DH he has found within himself
the bravery to walk out on the Ministry and stand up for what is
right, not easy, even against the Minister for Magic himself.  

In my view it is this ability to change that Dumbledore is recognizing
when he makes the comment to Snape about sorting too soon.  It comes
back to the moral about choices, which we have heard in many forms
from Rowling since CS -- a person's character is defined not by the
family into which he or she is born, nor by some set of
characteristics he or she is born with, but by the choices he or she
makes, particularly the hard ones.  

-- Matt

-- Matt