Ender vs. Harry SPOILERS for Ender's Game (WAS Re: JKR's Intent)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178901

Betsy Hp:
> And yet, the Slytherins all acted en masse.  None of them joined the
DA, none of them fought for Hogwarts.  So, in the end, I think JKR 
*does* suggest that there's a "Slytherin mind" and it's a dark and 
scary place that's best just thrown out or stuffed on a luggage rack 
and just not thought about.  Which I agree is scary.  And disturbing, IMO.

Carol responds:

FWIW, the Slytherins, most of whom had known Headmaster Snape as their
HOH and Potions Master or DADA teacher for a varying number of years,
thought (like everyone else) that Snape was a Death Eater. If they
liked and admired Snape, they weren't going to oppose what they
thought was his will and his agenda. And Slughorn seemed to encourage
keeping a low profile, going along with the status quo. Neither
revealed their best side and true loyalties during the entire school
year. Under the circumstances, it's no wonder that no Slytherins
joined the DA (where they would not be welcome in any case because
they'd be regarded with suspicion if not outright loathing--note
McGonagall's attitude twoard the whole House). And they were ordered
by McGonagall to leave (as the underage students from *all* Houses
also were). There were only some ten seventh-year Slytherins who might
have joined the battle and perhaps six or seven or sixth-years (those
who would have turned seventeen by May), none of whom had been on
friendly terms with Harry Potter. So we have three boys, all sons of
DEs, who follow Harry to the RoR (and Draco's motives in doing so seem
to have been mixed), two of them the only two mentioned as enjoying
torturing fellow students in detention, the other one who had notably
failed to kill DD the year before. Pansy, of course, expresses the
view that they ought to turn Potter over to Voldemort, but no other
slytherin echoes her view. Blaise Zabini, who views pure-bloods as
superior but nevertheless holds DEs in contempt, and Theo Nott, whose
father was a DE, don't join the fight on either side. Nor do any other
of-age Slytherins. They wait it out, as we might have expected of
Slughorn as well.

We don't know what they were thinking, but it seems clear that had
they attempted to join the fight, they would have been killed by their
own teachers and fellow students, who would have assumed that they
were supporting Voldemort. Had Snape survived and shown his true
colors, calling to the Slytherins to join him to oppose Voldemort,
perhaps some of them would have done so. But it didn't happen that
way. Neutrality is the best we can expect under the circumstances.
It's better than what McGonagall assumed, that they were all wannabe
Death Eaters.

I see no evidence whatever for a "Slytherin mind," only individual
Slytherins--Snape, Draco, Regulus, Slughorn, Crabbe (the one true
baddie), Pansy (not much worse than the Hufflepuff Zacharias Smith),
Phineas Nigellus, and Narcissa among them--all individuals with
different personalities and values, just as Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher
are all individuals who are nevertheless all House-Elves.

And not all the Gryffindors fought in the battle, either. Romilda
Vane, a sixth-year who's more likely to be seventeen than not as late
in the school year as May, is nowhere in sight. We have only the same
people who were always in the DA, minus Zacharias (who might have
stayed if he hadn't been treated so shabbily but I guess JKR doesn't
like him), with no new recruits. (Maybe the DA didn't want to get
pimples across their faces by revealing their existence to anyone
else. That jinx prevented their telling *anyone,* not just Umbridge.)

Carol, not sure that the Slytherins other than Draco even knew how to
get into the RoR in the unlikely event that they wanted to join people
who regarded them as enemies in hiding from the Carrows