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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 178968

> >>Alla:
> Frankly, I do not care whether Voldemort lied or not here. I cannot 
> EXCLUDE the possibility, but really even if he did not lie, does   
> not change much for me. I wonder why you are so sure that he did   
> not lie, but it really does not change much for me.

Betsy Hp:
Just to answer that question, for me that it's never *highlighted* as 
a lie in an obvious, "Why, Voldemort lied!" kind of way is why I'm 
quite sure seeing it as a lie is reading against the text.  I differ 
here from Pippin, but I don't think JKR is that subtle.  If she meant 
for us to hear Voldemort's statement as a lie, she'd have told us so 
quite clearly.  At least, that's my opinion. <g>

But on to the meaty bit, because I think this is incredibly 
interesting... <bg>


> >>Alla:
> But I feel compelled to answer this as one of the people who 
> certainly did not care much about Slytherins and who was feeling 
> quite pleased with myself after I read DH.
> <snip>
> For you the fact that Slytherin house left the battle seems 
> determinative, right? This is mainly what tells you that they are 
> baddies and JKR wants us to see them as such.
> <snip>
> Right, so just as in my pre DH Slytherins discussions I never fell 
> for the argument that Slytherins are not bad, because there are 
> other students that we never met of, besides Draco Malfoy, I cannot 
> feel that the whole house is bad, because you know, no names, or 
> names only characters left and join Voldemort ( whether they did or 
> not, as I said to me it makes no difference if they did).

Betsy Hp:
If I understand you correctly, I think we're in agreement up to a 
point.  Slytherin rises or falls based not on its unknown and for the 
most part faceless student body, but on the actions we actually 
*see*.  And in general, the Slytherin we saw acting was Draco Malfoy.

And for me, this was fine.  I didn't like the idea of some Johnny-
come-lately popping out of the herd to be the "good Slytherin".  For 
one I thought it'd be kind of boring (why would we care, why would 
Harry care?) and for another, it wouldn't be enough.  JKR had given 
us her face of Slytherin and to suddenly turn around and say, "ooh, 
no that wasn't Slytherin's face at all" would strike me as a cheat.

But Draco never did step forward, IMO.  And then to cap it all, 
Slytherin, en masse, stepped back.  That it was its *entire* student 
body that left, that not a single solitary Slytherin joined the 
rebellion so that a Slytherin banner could hang in the RoR, those two 
facts were so dramatic in and of themselves that it became very clear 
to me that I'd been fooling myself hoping for some sort of 
reconciliation (which is what I had been hoping for).  Slytherin is 
the bad kids house.  Some of them are worse than others, but they're 
all, on the whole, worse than a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw or Gryffindor 
on the whole.

> >>Alla:
> Oh, to me it is the whole bunch of unnamed Slytherins leaving ( and 
> there are many underage kids there too, so I think it is not that 
> bad) - for ANY reason, even if I take the most horrible one - to 
> join Voldie VERSUS the individual stories of Snape, Slugghorn and 
> Regulus, which ARE standing out to me so much more than the bunch   
> of unnamed characters leaving.

Betsy Hp:
Whereas for me, the story of Snape, Slughorn and Regulus just served 
to illustrate how bad Slytherin as a whole really is.  Slughorn 
didn't bring one Slytherin back with him to join the fight.  Snape 
was shown as almost able to rise above the massive error of being a 
Slytherin. To such an extent Dumbledore was able to say of 
him "sometimes I think we sort too early".  Not, "you're showing the 
good in Slytherin", just, "gosh, you're almost like a Gryffindor."  
Which gets further highlighted (IMO) by Harry speaking of Snape's 
Gryffindor virtue of bravery to Al.

But I'm wondering now if our different reactions are based on 
different expectations?  So where you were pleasantly surprised that 
*any* Slytherins turned out to be decent, I was horribly shocked that 
this was it.  Does that sound right?

> >>Alla:
> I feel that JKR is saying here that Houses are truly not important, 
> but individuals' behavior is and what those Slytherins show truly 
> makes up for me for everything.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Hmm... If that was her message, why not get rid of the Sorting Hat 
then?  And why have every single student in Slytherin leave?  She 
could have had a good chunk leave, but a few brave souls remain.  Or 
why have the students group into houses at all when they met in the 
great hall? Why not have the chaos of the moment show that house 
lines didn't really matter?  Why not have McGonagall verbally list 
the names of students she didn't trust (they aren't that many as has 
been pointed out) but not mention house affiliation? 

Both Regulus and Snape suffer, for me, from acting for very small and 
personal reasons.  Snape was horrified that the girl he loved was 
going to be killed.  Regulus was horrified that the house-elf he 
loved was nearly killed.  Neither seemed to have come to a 
realization that Voldemort overall was bad news.  If it'd been a girl 
not Lily, or a house-elf not Kreature, that Voldemort went after, I'm 
afraid neither Regulus nor Snape would have left the Death Eaters.  
Just as the Malfoys would not have betrayed Voldemort if their son's 
life wasn't on the line.

So there was never a moment, that I saw, where a Slytherin, with his 
or her Slytherin virtues, looked at Voldemort and said, "this goes 
against what I believe in."  Which disappointed me. Especially after 
having so many Slytherins look at Voldemort and say, "Yeah, that 
seems about right."  So the personal (very personal) actions of a 
few, didn't do anything for their house overall for me.

I think the houses are important to JKR, just not at all in the way I 
expected.

Betsy Hp