Slytherin as villains / Ender vs. Harry SPOILERS for Ender's Game

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 178899

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > DH killed Draco's story for me.  He ceased to make any sense as a 
> > character and became a cardboard cut-out as far as I was         
> > concerned. No one can hang in the sort of limbo JKR had him (and 
> > his family, for that matter) hanging in without breaking. 

> >>Pippin:
> Huh? People go through all sorts of hell without breaking.

Betsy Hp:
That's true. But I didn't (and don't) believe that of the Malfoys.  
All of their scenes played false to me.

> >>Pippin:
> Draco didn't break in HBP, he grew up. He discovered he didn't like
> being a cog in Voldemort's machine and threw a spanner in the
> works. It doesn't mean he would come up with more spanners.

Betsy Hp:
IMO Draco took a *step* towards growing up on the tower when he 
decided there was something he would *not* do.  He never did get to 
decide that there was something he *would* do.  Instead he just kind 
of hung around being Voldemort's cog, no matter how much he obviously 
hated it. (Oh, and stepped back far enough he started doing that 
which he would not.)  I don't recall Draco ever throwing a spanner.  
He *was* a spanner I believe in that he became owner of the Elder 
wand for a brief time there.  But his ignorance of that fact means 
(IMO) that he was a plot device not an actor. 

> >>Pippin:
> That he would just hope for the best and keep his head down for
> a while seems very human to me, also that his initiative would 
> re-assert itself after he'd gone back to school, away from 
> Voldemort's scrutiny. 

Betsy Hp:
Except he was away at school for a good long time (while Harry 
lounged about in his little flat in the woods, eating Hermione's 
cooking <g>) and his initiative never did re-assert itself.  He 
didn't even get to merely keep his head down as Voldemort seemed to 
be using him to torture Death Eaters he was displeased with, IIRC.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > I saw Draco trying to get Harry's attention ("be my friend!") up 
> > until the war bubbled up again and his family loyalties kicked   
> > in. He went about it in a very "pulling Harry's pigtails" kind of 
> > way, but he was pretty darn consistent, IMO.
> > <snip>

> >>Pippin:
> In DH it became clear that in the world of the books, saying 
> "mudblood" about someone's friends goes beyond pigtail-pulling 
> and  schoolyard jeers. 

Betsy Hp:
Yes, exactly.  It showed us (though I was too dim to see it, 
concentrating as I was on the whys and wherefores) that Draco was 
beyond saving.  Something we should have realized as soon as the hat 
said "Slytherin!".  Because that's the house all the bigots go to.


> >>zgirnius:
> > HP also has this class of non-villains mistaken for villains,    
> > about whom we also get whys and wherefores (along with the        
> > information that they are not actually villains at all). Snape    
> > and Regulus to a lesser extent, fall into this group. 

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > Huh.  I'd have said Snape and Regulus *were* that group.  

> >>Pippin:
> Sirius goes in that group. So does Karkaroff. Kreacher goes in that 
> group too. And he survives, so Harry still has to deal with him.    
> And slave or no slave, Kreacher has shown himself well able to deal 
> with those who do not treat him well.  

Betsy Hp:
Oh, *that* group.  Yes, there were red-herrings in Potterverse.  But 
pretty much anyone who was unapologetically Slytherin (and I'd put 
Regulus in that group, though it may just have been a matter of him 
not getting to apologize before dying) turned out either bad or dead.

But I was talking more about villains who did what they did and Harry 
needed to understand *why* they did what they did, not find out they 
never actually did it in the first place.  In "Ender's Game" the 
Buggers really did systematically slaughter every human they met.

> >>Pippin:
> But this is question begging, no?  Slytherins are villains because
> they're bad to the bone, and they must be bad to the bone
> because they're villains.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Slytherins are identified as the bad guys by not fighting for 
Hogwarts.  They're the only group to leave en masse.  So no, I don't 
think I'm begging the question at all.  There's not another group so 
easily identified as traitors and/or saboteurs McGonagall is easily 
able to sweep them out of the castle.

Yes, there are a few (very few) exceptions to that rule.  Snape was a 
big one, and the other was Slughorn.  But that still left the entire 
House being identified unquestionably as the traitor house that could 
not be trusted to fight.  A point of view supported by the lack of a 
Slytherin flag in the RoR.

And it's a point of view that never gets questioned or overturned.  
Not even in the epilogue, IMO.

> >>Pippin:
> Snape was never at odds with Harry in all the time that
> Harry knew him, Regulus was never at odds with Harry at all,
> Slughorn was never at odds with Harry, neither were Blaise
> Zabini, Theo Nott or any of the four unnamed Slytherin
> girls, unless you want to count ordinary schoolyard Jeering
> which Harry gets from plenty of people who aren't Slyths.

Betsy Hp:
Every Slytherin not dead (or Slughorn) showed themselves to be in 
opposition with Harry when they left Hogwarts.  So yes, to my mind 
that means Blaise, Theo and the four unnamed Slytherin girls moved 
themselves beyond jeering into the territory of those throwing around 
the word "mudblood".

> >>Pippin:
> Most of them left because they were underage. The reason given for
> any of them to leave is that the castle defences will not hold      
> without reinforcement (which Slughorn helps to obtain.)

Betsy Hp:
No, the reason given for Slytherin leaving en masse is that 
McGonagall identifies them as untrustworthy and throws them out. (You 
could even say that through Pansy, Slytherins *showed* themselves 
untrustworthy.)

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> The Slytherins who left are not treated any differently than the   
> Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who left. 

Betsy Hp:
Right.  The ones like Zacharias Smith who left shoving first years 
out of his way.  So there's the bad eggs from the other houses and 
all of Slytherin leaving the school when she needs all good and loyal 
students to stand firm.  I'm not seeing the positive here. <g>

> Pippin:
> Right. Al is clearly not worried about his ability to choose       
> Slytheirn over Gryffindor, so why should Harry need to reassure him 
> about that? 

Betsy Hp:
Uh, yeah he is.  Al is worried the Hat will look into his heart, 
decide he's a bad boy, and stick him in the bad kid house.  So Harry 
shares a little secret (that we're told he's never told his children 
before) that if Al wants to, he can choose Gryffindor over Slytherin 
and the Hat will listen.  Harry is reassuring Al that by recognizing 
he'd prefer Gryffindor over Slytherin, he's very likely to end up in 
the good house.  It echoes the conversation Harry had with Dumbledore 
way back in the day where Dumbledore tells Harry that Harry showed 
himself a good boy (not a Tom Riddle) by wanting Gryffindor rather 
than Slytherin.

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> I guess you're thinking Harry should have argued?
> <snip> 

Betsy Hp:
Argued what? That Al will end up in Slytherin if that's where the Hat 
wants him to go no matter Al's wishes?  For one, Harry would be lying 
to his kid and for another it'd be a rather cruel thing to say.

If I'd had my druthers it wouldn't have been an issue to begin with.  
Al wouldn't be so terrified (greatly and sincerely afraid) of ending 
up in Slytherin.  That it's something Harry even needs to discuss 
tells me that Slytherin's status as the "bad kid" house (or 
the "bigots house" if you'd prefer) hasn't changed.

> >>Pippin
> > who isn't sure what marrying your high school sweetheart
> > has to do with the nineteen-fifties

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > Playing house.  Which was a big thing, I think, in the 1950's    
> > because of the horrors of WWII and the Great Depression.  

> >>Pippin:
> AFAIK, the fifties in Britain were pretty grim, despite hopes of a 
> new Elizabethan Age. Most people were just trying to recover from   
> the damage of the war and there were still shortages of a lot of    
> things. I'm not sure why JKR would be trying to recreate the        
> American 1950's, or a legendary version of them, especially almost 
> two decades after her imaginary war. 

Betsy Hp:
We'll just ignore my caveat then, shall we? (I'm assuming as much 
since it was snipped.)  Thanks for the unnecessary history lesson 
though.  Learned all that in an episode of "Dr. Who". <bg>  The 
1950's remark was based on *my* thinking, not JKRs.  It brought to 
*my* mind "Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver" which 
encapsulated the "playing house" bit I mentioned.

> >>Pippin:
> I thought she'd chosen a heroine's journey ending for all of her
> heroes regardless of sex. The heroine gets a family, the hero gets
> a kingdom and a wife. It's not about playing house, it's about      
> playing with literary conventions, IMO. 

Betsy Hp:
As my music theory teacher used to say, "Unless you're Beethoven, 
follow the conventions." <BG>  I don't think JKR messed around with 
knowledge here.  I think she made some incredibly basic mistakes 
because of either laziness or ignorance.  Or (IMO) fear.  (Probably a 
combination of all three, would be my guess.)

I agree that JKR wrote a heroine's ending here. It's all very cozy 
and domestic and I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't 
occuring in a very broken world.  The kind of broken you have to 
ignore to do the cozy, domestic thing, IMO.  Though there's also the 
problem of JKR having her hero flinch away from the general heroine's 
issue (sexual maturity), IMO.  So Harry gets the kingdom but doesn't 
do anything with it, *and* he gets the family, but doesn't enjoy the 
creating.  Heh, no wonder I found the whole thing unsatisfying. 
<rbeg>    

Betsy Hp