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

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 178903

> Betsy Hp:
> Slytherin was the actual 
> villain of the piece (hell would be Hogwarts without a Sorting Hat) 
> and they were painted as bad to the bone, IMO. 

zgirnius:
Except the dead ones. And Slughorn. And Draco.

The villain was Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, along with 
his henchmen/women. He, and some of them, were Slytherins. Their 
opposition also included Slytherins.

> BetsyHP:
> When it came to 
> defending Hogwarts, Slytherin left.  

zgirnius:
The books were about Harry's destiny to defeat Voldemort and reduce 
the influence of his poisonous ideas on the wizarding world. When it 
came to defeating Voldemort, Regulus, Snape, Phineas Nigellus, 
Slughorn, Andromeda, Narcissa, and Draco all took part. 


> Betsy Hp:
> Heh, I went back to reread that scene because I thought it would be 
> apparent Al was hearing the story for the first time.  I'll admit 
> it's not, though it's not apparent that the story is old hat, 
> either.

zgirnius:
I agree it can be read to mean either thing. My own natural 
inclination is to believe that a boy of 11 knows where his name comes 
from, in some way or another. So I would require evidence that he 
does not.

(And frankly, I would think this even more true of a boy with 
siblings named Lily and James after his grandparents, who is blessed 
with the euphonious moniker "Albus Severus", neither of which appears 
to be a Weasley family name. At least my sisters are named Rikante 
and Nomeda, so I could have presumed my parents are just evil that 
way, and I got the best of it <g>).
 

> Betsy Hp: 
> "But if it matters to you, you'll be able to CHOOSE Gryffindor OVER 
> Slytherin." [ibid - emphasis mine]
> 
> So yeah, I don't care that Al's middle name comes from the brave 
> Slytherin Harry knew.  It's very apparent, IMO, that the best house 
> is still Gryffindor, and Al's fear of Slytherin was not unfounded 
nor 
> from outside sources.

zgirnius:
The one source we know it comes from is Big Brother James, an 
excellent source of insecurities for a younger sib.

The final quote you give, and hang your argument on, is the tail end 
of a paragraph of speech by Harry. The rest of it...

> Epilogue:
> "But *just say*-"

> "-then Slytherin House will have gained an excellent student, won't 
it? It doesn't matter to us, Al."

zgirnius:
Is Harry lying? Or does it really not matter to him? I believe Harry 
is telling the truth, so I do not believe Al picked up this worry 
from his parents.

> Betsy Hp:
> Dudley was 17 at the time of DH, and Slytherins are all condemned 
> with a choice they make (or don't make) at the age of eleven.  In 
the 
> Potterverse it doesn't matter where a child's opinion comes from 
(JKR 
> all but wrote a big sign saying Draco was parroting his father in 
the 
> first two books) it's still enough to determine that child's 
worth.  

zgirnius:
No, it is not. To the extent that Draco comes to realize his father 
had some things wrong, Draco proves himself better than his father.

> Betsy Hp:
> And yet, the Slytherins all acted en masse.  None of them joined 
the 
> DA, none of them fought for Hogwarts.  

zgirnius:
You pick two incidents out of an entire series. Anyway, no Slytherin 
joined the DA, but it is thanks to a Slytherin that six members of 
the DA were rescued in time by the Order. And the Battle of Hogwarts 
was not what brought about the defeat of Voldemort. It was Harry's 
actions, actions made possible by the lies of one Slytherin and the 
information provided by another.  

> Betsy Hp:
> And there's nothing wrong with JKR wanting to end her series with 
her 
> protagonists all happily playing house.  It just means that, again, 
I 
> don't see much in the way of social justice being addressed.  
> (Honestly, I doubt JKR thought there was anything *to* address.)

zgirnius:
My own view is that Rowling believes things like that social justice 
starts at home, and our children are the future, and all that jazz. 
(Where she puts her charity $s also suggests it, but this is the vibe 
I get from the huge emphasis on family/mother/father love in the 
series). Harry and Co. raising well-adjusted kids and attempting to 
pass on to them their values is, to her, more meaningful than 
Hermione working 60 hour days putting the right fine print into new 
laws in an office at the Ministry. (And how do we know what those 
values are from the Epilogue? We don't. Fortunately, we have seven 
books to base our ideas on).

I agree with this. The laws and the 60 hour days might or might not 
have the desired effect in the short run. In the long run, Hermione 
will be dead and the laws obsolete, and what will matter is what the 
children (or their children, or their children's children) think. 

> Aeschylus, "The Libation Bearers" (DH Epigraph):
> "But there is a cure in the house, 
     and not outside it, no, 
          not from the others but from *them*, 
     their bloody strife. We sing to you, 
dark gods beneath the earth.

> Now hear, you blissful powers underground - 
     answer the call, send help.
Bless the children, give them triumph now."

zgirnius:
In HP, we saw Harry's generation help deal with a big problem of 
their world (Voldemort). The time will come for Al, James, Lily, 
Rose, Hugo, et. al. to tackle the problems of *their* day.

It's not an anti-feminist view at all; it would be only if we 
insisted this is the role and responsibility of women, exclusively, 
in society. The idea that this historically female occupation is so 
important that *all* people should play a part in it, is a feminist 
position. And we see our characters all there taking a day off from 
whatever it is they do to send the kiddies off to school (whether it 
is counting their huge piles of Galleons and engaging in blackmail, 
as you once suggested, or working as Aurors, Quidditch players, and 
Ministry officials, as I believed upon my first reading of the text).

> Betsy Hp:
> 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. 

zgirnius:
Draco came up the stairs to the Tower, and took a free shot at 
Dumbledore. If he had been a good little DE, he would have 
used "Avada Kedavra". But no, he decided to use "Expelliarmus". 
(Often a good choice, in this series...) and the rest is Book7 
history. He didn't choose to become Master of the Elder Wand and give 
it up, but he did choose not to kill Dumbledore.

 
> 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.

zgirnius:
Horace Slughorn.

Turning out dead in this book does not mean you are bad, or the 
enemy. The number of people who turned out dead is large. Regulus and 
Snape ended up dead as a result of choices Harry very much admired.

And Draco (darn it) did not turn out 'bad'. He tried to hide the 
indetity of Harry and Co. at Malfoy Manor, he tried to moderate the 
actions of Vincent Crabbe, and he saved the life of Goyle. You are 
trying to have it both ways. Slytherins are bad, because all the 
overage students in that House deserted Hogwarts, the side 
they "should" have been on in the battle. But the Malfoys are also 
bad, even though they deserted Voldemort, to whom they had given 
their allegiance.


> BetsyHP:
> 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.

zgirnius:
In HP, Severus Snape was really the Death Eater who overheard 
Trelawney's prophecy and really reported it to Voldemort, setting off 
the chain of events that left Harry an orphan. Regulus was also 
really a Death Eater in his day, who really did whatever Death Eater 
things he did before experiencing his change of heart. Harry 
understands why both of these young men did those things. He also 
considers it more important that they did have their respective 
changes of heart and admires what they did about it. Rather like 
Ender's Game in that, what mattered was that in the end the buggers 
realized they had been doing wrong and regretted it.