Slytherin as villains / LOTR spoilers

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 179111

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Carol:
> In
> the
> unlikely
> event
> that
> you've
> never
> read
> LOTR
> or
> seen
> the
> film,
> please
> skip
> this
> post.
> 
> Magpie wrote:
> > <snip>
> I love that line, because it's perfectly well chosen (and of course
> > I don't think he's referring to non-existant students that un-
write
> > the ideas given in the text over and over). They *played* their
> > part. As a house they didn't *do* their part. The ones who did 
their 
> > part at all are special cases, and even they also supported 
> > Voldemort's rise before having personal reasons to act against 
him. 
> > Despite themselves, Slytherins were instrumental in the victory. 
> > Just as Gollum had a part to play in the destruction of the Ring.
> 
> Carol responds:
> Forgive me, but that's not a fair comparison. Gollum did have a few
> impulses toward goodness or loyalty toward Frodo but was too 
damaged
> by the Ring itself and by centuries of suffering, hatred of 
everything
> including himself, and abuse by Sauron's servants to have a true 
and
> complete change of heart. In the end, he wanted the Ring for 
himself
> (as did Frodo, but only after a protracted struggle to get it to 
Mount
> Doom to destroy it). Gollum's final, selfish triumph led both to 
his
> death and to the destruction of the Ring (and to the maimed Frodo's
> return to himself, as far as that could be achieved).
> 
> The Slytherin heroes, Regulus and Snape, are very different in that
> both acted selflessly, Regulus sacrificing himself for a House-Elf 
and
> the destruction of a Horcrux; Snape risking his life repeatedly and
> finally losing it, but not before he delivered a crucial message
> without which Harry could not have won the battle. 

Magpie:
I'm not characterizing either of them as Gollum. I said there is a 
diffference between playing a part and doing your part, and 
Slytherin as a house, imo, does not do its part in fighting for the 
school the way the others do. Even Snape and Regulus joined up to 
help Voldemort at first. But then Voldemort did exactly the wrong 
thing to a Slytherin. He asked them to choose him and his ideals 
over the people they loved, and that wasn't going to happen. That 
set up a grudge in them to take Voldemort down. The book never says 
Slytherin is worthless, exactly, but they're not equal to the other 
houses.

Carol:

Neither remained on
> the side of evil, or on his own side. (Every character in the 
books,
> from Harry and Dumbledore to Narcissa and Lucius to Bellatrix and
> Voldemort to Wormtail to James and Lily to Lupin and Tonks to Ron 
and
> Hermione to the House-Elves to Xenophilius Lovegood to the heroic 
and
> wholly admirable Neville acts for personal reasons. The Slytherins 
are
> no different from the Gryffindors in that respect.) 

And Slughorn was
> never on the side of the Death Eaters and Voldemort. He overcame 
the
> Slytherin tendency (identified by Phineas Nigellus and personified 
by
> Pansy) of putting himself.

Magpie:
We all do everything for personal reasons if you dig deeply enough. 
Nothing is truly altruistic. It's certainly true that the Gryffs 
have good personal reasons for going fighting Voldemort, but that 
doesn't make them all the same as the Slytherins imo. Especially not 
in the eyes of the book. Neville might be sworn to hate Voldemort 
because of his parents but even without that he would not have 
joined him. These characters don't need to get points for doing 
something right because they start out doing things right and 
wanting to be good. And they remain generally good people (in the 
eyes of somebody like Harry).

Carol:

> 
> If you want to characterize someone as a Gollum who set aside evil 
to
> help in the victory of good without really caring about principle 
or
> right or wrong or anything except personal concerns, I'll grant you
> Narcissa. But even she acted out of love, as Gollum assuredly did 
not.

Magpie:
I don't want to characterize one person as Gollum, actually. I don't 
think he has a parallel in this universe. But if there is a Gollum 
house of Hogwarts it's obviously Slytherin, full of slinkers and 
stinkers. Even if some of them overcome that enough to be more 
associated with Gryffindor. 

Carol:
Carol, none too sure that jealousy is really a sign of true love but
seeing it as far more apparent in JKR's characters of both sexes than
any threat to boys or men from female sexuality (the only threat 
being to *girls* who might be thought of as "scarlet women" if they 
behave like Lavender Brown)

Magpie:
I find the depiction of sex quite weird in the Potterverse. We get 
the stairs to the girl's dorm, which seems a nod to the obvious fact 
that boys are going to be trying to get into the girl's beds. And 
yet based on what we see of our male heroes it's completely 
unnecessary and in fact ought to be the other staircase. Sexually 
the boys are all far more passive while the girls scheme, ogle and 
attack. It's girls who buy love potions throughout the 
books...because apparently 16 year old boys would never want a drug 
that would make a girl eager to throw herself at him. Myrtle, 
Hepzibah, Romilda and Merope are all predatory. Ginny sets her 
sights on Harry at 10 and never stops. Hermione gets frustrated when 
Ron doesn't step up and go after her the way he should. But then 
there's also the old-fashioned undercurrent of girls being "scarlet 
women"--Hermione for her non-affair with Harry, Ginny's brothers 
getting worried when she sees all of 2 boys in a year, and now 
Lavender for snogging Ron. Oh, and Cho pretty much drags Harry 
throughout their entire aborted affair and apparently Ginny still 
feels the need to defend Harry against her (and Fleur's little 
sister) a year later.

It's nice of JKR to not have any of her girls pregnant at all (who 
would want the book going there, after all?) but I don't know what 
kind of lesson any girl would get if she were trying to learn about 
sex from HP. (I was a little put off by her interview where she 
seemed to suggest that Ron needed to use Lavender to be "worthy" of 
Hermione since she had snogged Viktor--but then, I thought 
Ron/Lavender could have been a believable, real teenaged 
relationship in real life.) It seems like the boys are the ones who 
spend all their time trying to avoid man-traps from their female 
classmates. Meanwhile the best Harry can do is sometimes think a 
girl has pretty hair and be sad at the idea of Ginny perhaps wedding 
another man other than him.

-m