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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 179054

Magpie wrote:
> > Just felt compelled to throw out there that I don't know if this
is the minority view since it seems the most obvious to me. The 
Slytherins all leave and don't defend the castle, as Voldemort 
wanted. They're doing what he wants, abandoning the school to him. It
would never have occurred to me to think Voldemort was lying--why
would he be lying? 
> 
zgirnius explained:
> The sense in which people are saying he lied is that the Slytherins
did not physically join Voldemort - he was not accompanied by the 
entire horde of young Slytherins, not did they fight for him. And, 
this does seem to be what Voldemort means, because he contrasts the
other Slytherins' behavior with Draco's. 
> 
> In the sense you mean (simply leaving the school ahead of the battle
to go to relative safety), all the underage students "joined" 
Voldemort, as did over half the of-age Ravenclaws, and a few of-age
Hufflepuffs. We saw the underage students, and members of various>
houses, including all the Slytherins, leave. <snip>

Carol adds:

Exactly. If *not joining the fight against Voldemort* is the same as
*fighting for Voldemort*, then every underage student (except Ginny
and Colin Creevey) and all those of-age Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and
Gryffindors who didn't join the fight (essentially, every seventh-year
and of-age sixth year who wasn't in the DA, plus Zacharias Smith)
fought for Voldemort. (What they really did, of course, is evacuate
under orders.)

Voldemort is *not* saying that the Slytherins obediently left the
castle. He's saying that every Slytherin except Draco *actually joined
the battle on his side*, for which there is not a shred of evidence
(and which we *know* to be untrue in the case of Crabbe and Goyle, the
most likely of the Slytherins to actually fight for Voldemort). LV is
not saying that they evacuated to safety along with the majority of
students from all Houses, as they were supposed to do, and which no
one regards as "fighting for Voldemort" if the students are
Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, or Hufflepuffs (though I do think we're
supposed to see Zacharias Smith as a coward). It's a double standard
to regard the Slytherin evacuation as cowardice or joining Voldemort
when it's exactly what all the students were ordered to do and it's
not regarded that way for students from the other Houses. (The of-age
students from other Houses who were allowed to fight for Hogwarts were
an exception to the rule, which was "evacuate if you're a Slytherin or
underage or for any reason, don't want to risk your life defending
Hogwarts.)

Anyway, the question at issue is whether "all of Slytherin", including
first through fifth-years, actually fought on Voldemort's side as he
claimed, for which the only evidence is Voldemort's word, not whether
they evacuated to safety as they were ordered to do and Harry saw them
doing. So Magpie's statement that "the Slytherins all leave" is
exactly what those who say that Voldemort is lying are also saying.
We're arguing that the Slytherins did not fight for Voldemort as
Voldemort claims. They evacuated as they were supposed to do, along
with all but about a dozen of-age students, most if not all of whom
had been hiding in the RoR, and one or two underage students who
sneaked into the battle. Not a single Slytherin is identified as
joining the battle on either side (including Draco, Crabbe, and
Goyle), which means that there is no evidence to support Voldemort's
statement to Lucius that all except Draco were fighting alongside the
DEs, which is not at all the same as evacuating to safety as ordered.

Carol, imagining the horror that would have resulted if any Slytherins
had actually joined LV and faced the wrath of shoot-to-kill McGonagall