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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 179023

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > <snip>
> > I'm sorry, but I just cannot get past the fact that when the big
> > battle came Slytherin left and joined the enemy. <snip>

> >>Carol responds;
> But, Betsy, as we've tried to show you, this statement is not a
> *fact.* It's your *interpretation*, and it appears to be a minority
> view. There's no evidence to support the truth of the statement (it
> could be one of many false statements made by characters that are
> never directly contradicted) and all sorts of evidence that it may 
> be false.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Honestly, IMO no one has presented any *evidence* to show that 
Voldemort's statement here is false.  There's been a lot of extra-
textual *reasons* a reader could choose to see this statement as 
false.  But there's no moment in the text where JKR *explicitly* 
tells us Voldemort was lying to Lucius here.  And frankly, if this 
were a lie, it's a massive one.  It's the sort of reveal that should 
shake Harry preconceptions to the core.  That we never get that 
moment (Slytherins *aren't* all baddies?!?) means that JKR didn't 
write it which means it doesn't make any sort of story-telling sense 
that Voldemort is lying in this scene.

> >>Carol:
> If we could persuade you that Voldemort was lying and that         
> Slytherin did *not* fight on his side but went to safety as        
> McGonagall ordered (Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle excepted), would you   
> still hold the view that Slytherin is bad, bad, bad (despite the    
> changes in *Harry's* perspective post-Pensieve)?
> Carol, just wondering how rethinking this one "fact" would affect  
> your perspective

Betsy Hp:
Hmm... You'd still have to get me over the hump of *all* of Slytherin 
leaving the fight and no banner in the RoR...  But I will say the 
suggestion that Slytherin joins Voldemort does tell me that it's 
beyond the Slytherins being cowards for JKR.  They're, as Pippin put 
it, the bad personality that needs to be pushed as far down as 
possible. (Repression is your friend! <bg>) 

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> If you see the four houses as a metaphor for the personality then
> you can say that Slytherin is the inner bad guy that we want to     
> deny but that has to be accepted. On that basis, yes, Slytherin is 
> the bad house, and Harry telling Al he can choose Slytherin over    
> Gryffindor says, yes, you have bad impulses but you don't have to   
> choose to listen to them.
> But that makes all the depth placed in Slytherin characters a      
> mistake.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Exactly.  And seeing as how JKR (IMO) backpedaled most of the depth 
in her Slytherin characters in DH, I feel pretty good with the idea 
that any depth previously seen crept in there by mistake. <g>

> >>Prep0strus:
> As Besty's sometime-ally, sometime-polar opposite, I figure I'd     
> answer here as well... I would still hold that view.  Well, it     
> might be a bit strong - bad, bad, bad.  But certainly not good, not 
> good, not good. 

Betsy Hp:
Hee! Yes, that's a good way of putting it.  Unfortunately (IMO, 
anyway <g>) we have Voldemort's statement of Slytherin joining him 
with no *direct contradiction* anywhere later in the text.  Which, to 
my mind, seals Slytherin's fate as the "bad" house.

> >>Prep0strus:
> My feelings stem more from my inability to see ANY presented       
> Slytherin as predominantly full of good qualities (as has been     
> discussed ad nauseum - I am fully aware that some people would bear 
> Snape's children, others think Slughorn is a kindly uncle, Regulus 
> makes Robin Hood and King Arthur look like selfish jerks, and St.   
> Andromeda shines with the light of her unverified Slytherinness).
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Heh.  Yeah, the cult of Lily kind of cured me of my canon!Snape-
love.  (Ah well, his proto-type will live on. <g>)  But all of those 
Slytherins became good guys (to the extent that they achieved it) by 
becoming *less* Slytherin and *more* Gryffindor.  IOWs, they rejected 
their house.  Snape most illustrates that by his not punching 
Dumbledore in the nose after that "sort to early" remark, IMO.

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> Slytherin ideology ugliness IMO was not supposed to be shown as
> anything else but ugly, but she shown me that quite a few Slytherins
> overcame it ( Okay, three, I count Andromeda, so four), while IMO
> remaining Slytherins to the bone.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I think that's another difference between our point of views.  To my 
mind the "good Slytherins" really overcame their house.  They left 
Slytherin behind them and became more like Gryffindors and that's how 
they redeemed themselves for JKR's world.  So they became like a 
photo-negative of Peter Pettigrew.  Just as Peter *lost* his 
Gryffindor courage and joined with the bad Slytherins, the good 
Slytherins *gained* some Gryffindor courage and joined with the good 
Gryffindors.

Which is why Harry's speech to Al just highlights Slytherin's 
unchanged state to my mind.  

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> Harry finally intervenes, first to say that thestrals aren't scary,
> they're gentle creatures, then that if Slytherin got Al it would
> get an excellent student. If it were nonsense that Al could be
> a Slytherin, and this was the view that Harry wanted Al to have,
> or that JKR wanted us to have, Harry could have said so then.
> 
> Why are you resisting this interpretation so strongly? Not that
> you need to answer, I'm just curious.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I suppose because it seems so outside the story.  Anything that 
suggests JKR tried to show that there is good in Slytherin, rather 
than a few people who struggled hard and *overcame* being Slytherin 
(by displaying their Gryffindor courage) I question.  And so far, I 
must say, I haven't seen any text evidence that suggests otherwise.

Because, quite frankly, IMO Harry *does* let us (and Al) know that 
Al's not going to end up in Slytherin.  Al's desires play a part in 
the Hat's sorting, Harry tells him.  And Al quite clearly (going by 
his great and sincere fear) does *not* want to be in Slytherin.

Betsy Hp (cut and pasted like a mad woman in an attempt to not repeat 
herself <bg>)