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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178967

Betsy Hp earlier:
> > > And all of Slytherin left and joined with Voldemort.
> > > 
> > > "If your son is dead Lucius, it is not my fault.  He did not
come and join with me, LIKE THE REST OF THE SLYTHERINS." [DH
scholastic p.641 - emphasis mine]
> > > 
> > > Apparently Voldemort did a head count.  Apparently he had heads
to count. <snip>
> 
Carol earlier:
> > Yes, Voldemort makes this claim, but he's tormenting Lucius, whose
son is a DE and ought, according to Voldemort, to be fighting for his
cause. Do you really think that LV knew every Slytherin in Hogwarts by
sight and took a head count, some seventy students in  all if we
assume ten students per year per House? 
> > <snip>

Carol earlier:
> > <snip> 
> > You're taking Voldemort at his word in the absence of any other
evidence.
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> I'm actually giving Harry the benefit of the doubt.

Carol again:
And I don't--not at this point. Harry has not yet entered the Pensieve
and been enlightened with regard to Snape's motives. He, like
McGonagall, assumes that all of Slytherin is evil and he still thinks
that Snape is a murderer, that all DEs are Slytherins and all
Slytherins are DEs or DE wannabes. That view changes after the visit
to the Pensieve: He publicly defends Snape and names his second son
after him (together with Dumbledore). At the point you're speaking of,
Slughorn has yet to heroically join the battle and Kreacher has yet to
rally the House-Elves to the cause of his dead Slytherin master. 
> 
> > >>Carol:
> > <snip> 
> > If you can present some evidence other than Voldemort's word for   
> > your view, I'll reconsider mine.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Harry not hearing a lie, and Harry not being shocked at the news. 
Seriously, JKR doesn't like Slytherin.  They're her bad guy house. Why
are you fighting this? (I'm curious about it actually.  Because it's
odd to have people who didn't care much for Slytherin suddenly (IMO)
fighting up stream to show their support for them all of a sudden.)

Carol:
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not going to accept Harry's
pre-Pensieve perceptions as indicative of what JKR wants us to think,
or for that matter, to consider her views much at all. Slytherin
played its part, as Phineas Nigellus said, and he would hardly say
that if the part they played was to join the DEs. *There were no
Slytherin students with the DEs in the forest*--only two giants and
the captured Hagrid. Not even the Malfoys, our bad guys fo the first
six books, end up fighting for Voldemort. Where is the evidence that
any *students* fought for him? (Crabbe sides with him but doesn't
actually join the battle, and he ends up dead. Draco and Goyle, after
being rescued by Harry, don't go down to join Voldemort, either. Not
one single Slytherin student is named as fighting for him. And yet you
seem to think, despite my snipped arguments regarding the unlikelihood
of Voldie's knowing all the Slytherins by sight and doing a head count
(while he's in the Shrieking Shack) that all the Slytherins fought for
Voldemort, first-years and all? Again, they were ordered to safety by
McGonagall. It would be in character for Slytherins not committed to
either side to take advantage of the opportunity to save themselves.
Where, other than the word of they lying Voldemort, is the evidence
that they didn't do exactly that? Wouldn't Aberforth have said
something about Slytherin students joining Voldemort's cause when he
made his suggestion (rejected by Harry) about holding slytherins
hostage? It seems to me that you're the one determined not to see the
evidence.

I don't care one way or the other about Slytherin (though I do care
about Snape and Regulus). What I care about is examining the evidence
objectively rather than forcing our preconceptions on it.
> 
Carol earlier: 
> > BTW, Voldemort tells at least one other lie in the final chapters,
that Snape desired rather than loved Lily. <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> How do you know Voldemort's lying?  This could be what he honestly 
believes, especially since he's not really up on what love is and
feels like anyway.

Carol again:
Good point. But I still don't trust him to tell the truth. He's trying
to hurt and manipulate Lucius--and his mind at the time of his remark
about the Slytherins is on the Elder Wand, not on the Slytherin
students. And, as I've said, it's completely unrealistic that he would
know all the Slytherin students, only a few of whom have DE parents.
Do you think he made social calls on every Slytherin family or
secretly attended the Sorting ceremonies to see who was chosen into
each House? Consider where he was and what he was in each year of
Harry's schooling at Hogwarts and what preoccupied him even after he
obtained a body. He wouldn't know a Slytherin from a Hufflepuff if he
saw them standing together unless he knew their families (or they were
wearing school colors as they do in the films. In the books, all the
kids wear identical black robes).

And wouldn't even Harry have noticed if little kids of twelve or so
had joined the battle instead of going to safety as ordered? Granted,
he doesn't react to Voldemort's claim, but neither he nor the reader
is presented with a single piece of evidence to support it. We might
as well believe everything Rita Skeeter says and be done with it.
(BTW, other characters make claims that are later disproved, such as
the remark about Snape's "cruel" punishment of Ginny, Luna, and
Neville. Just because a character says something doesn't make it true,
even if the character is a good guy.)

Carol, still wondering how Voldemort could do a head count from the
Shrieking Shack and how he could possibly know that "all" of them
except Draco (and Crabbe and Goyle) were fighting for his cause even
if he were on the battlefield and not preoccupied with the Elder Wand