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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 179077

> >>Montavilla:
> > Moreover, it really doesn't matter, did it?  The point is that
> > NONE of the Slytherins cares enough about the Anti-
> > Voldemort cause (or Pro-Harry, take your pick) to join the
> > other students who rebel against the school authorities.
> > <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Exactly! <bg>  The entire point that I was making is that Slytherin 
is the bad guy house.  They didn't show up in the RoR, they left when 
Hogwarts needed all of those brave and true to stick around, and 
enough of them went over to Voldemort for him to mention them as a 
group.  Ergo, Slytherin House is a bad house.
 
> >>zgirnius:
> I agree none of it really matters, and I agree that it is unlikely 
> any Slytherins of school age fought on the 'good side' in the      
> battle. (Not impossible, mind you. If you and Betsy can have your   
> masked, unidentified, unmentioned, effectively invisible Slytherins 
> of a certain age fighting for Voldemort in the battle, some other   
> reader can have his or her anonymous Slytherins of a certain age   
> who came back with Sluggie and the large crowd of reinforcements   
> after helping the young 'uns get away).

Betsy Hp:
No Zara, they can't.  In fanfic?  Sure.  But to argue that *within* 
the text there's an unremarked Slytherin who comes back and fights 
for Hogwarts is insupportable because there is no text supporting it.

I'd also like to clarify (because you've been attempting to back me 
into a postion I'm not actually holding <g>) that I'm not saying the 
masked fighters *must* be Slytherin students (that'd be in the fanfic 
realm as well, I think).  I'm saying that by having people fight for 
Voldemort who go unnamed and even undescribed lessens the argument 
that we can tell who was actually fighting for Voldemort via a roll 
call.  We simply don't know.

Honestly, the Slytherins who joined Voldemort may have been patted on 
the head for choosing the right side and sent home for all I know.  
What I *do* know is that we've got a mention within the text for 
Slytherins going to Voldemort.  What we don't have mentioned within 
the text is anything to suggest Voldemort's statement about that was 
a lie.  And we don't have a statement of any sort within the text 
saying that Slytherin students came back to fight for Harry's side.

> >>zgirnius:
> <snip>
> I don't think any Slytherin student openly took up arms for         
> Voldemort.

Betsy Hp:
Actually, Crabbe, Goyle and Draco did.  (Bit ironic, really. <g>)  
Ooh, but while I'm at this point...

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> We see Draco pleading with (not trying to join) a masked DE. 
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Draco wasn't trying to *join* the Death Eater, he was trying to make 
clear he'd *already* done so:

"I'm Draco Malfoy, I'm Draco, I'm on your side!" [DH scholastic p.645]

Or are we supposed to think Draco was lying? <eg>

> >>zgirnius:
> I personally, cannot imagine that Rowling envisioned Slytherin     
> students battling against their schoolmates and teachers, and      
> *failed to mention it*! 
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
She may not have meant for the Slytherins students to fight.  That 
would have shown a certain perverse bravery after all. <g>  But in 
the same token, I find it hard to believe that JKR meant to redeem 
Slytherin house and then failed to mention it. <RBG> 

> >>zgirnius:
> I don't see how McGonagall's fit of temper shows much about the 
> House. She thought they were all untrustworthy, perhaps, but I see 
> no evidence they all were. She was committing the logical fallacy   
> of guilt by association. 

Betsy Hp:
Right, but the Potter series is a study in logical fallacies, 
frankly.  It's that oh dear maths thing, and it's the reason, IMO, 
the group has gone round and round about Slytherin, House Elves, 
Unforgivables and the like.

And while I do see something darkly perverse in having Slytherin 
House be a bad guy house, there is nothing in the text to contradict 
McGonagall's "fit of temper".  No Slytherin student says they want to 
stay, no Slytherin student comes back, and of course, no Slytherin 
student took part in the resistence in the first place.

In this case, I think JKR *meant* for the association to be reason of 
guilt.  Though a very few brave souls (Snape, Regulus, Slughorn) 
managed to claw their way out.  Sort of.

> >>zgirnius:
> <snip> 
> The Slytherins all left. None stayed to fight against their kin/the 
> kin of their housemates, under the leadership of a woman who 
> demonstrated that she despises them. I did not find it surprising, 
> or disturnbing.

Betsy Hp:
Heh.  Me neither.  It's why I don't take Harry's victory as much of 
one, and I think it's why there are those of us who see these books 
as rather dark and ugly.  Of *course* the Slytherins despised 
Dumbledore.  How could they not?  And of *course* Snape had to be so 
abused and neglected he'd come to associate abuse to love and so 
joined with those who despised him to the end.  It's an ugly brutal 
world, and JKR's "heroes" are ugly, brutal people.

But it *is* JKR's world, so as per her definition of things, the 
Slytherins are the bad guys.  (They're bigots, don't you know.)

Betsy Hp