Andromeda as good Slytherin WAS: Disappointment

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 177610

Carol:
> Having just quoted the available canon on Andromeda, I'm not going 
to
> repeat myself. However, I certainly did not write the character I
> presented. JKR did. 

Magpie:
Yes, we all know what JKR wrote. She's a minor character is the 
point Adam made an I agreed with. There for half a page. Never 
presented as having anything to do with any storyline about 
Slytherin being redeemed. 

Carol:

> I think that the inferences are justified by the canon. Nowhere do 
I
> see any evidence that Andromeda was a bad person or that she 
resembles
> her sisters in personality or values despite a superficial physical
> resemblance to Bellatrix. 

Magpie:
"Inferences justified by the canon" being the point. She's a totally 
minor character we don't spend time with, we make inferences based 
on some facts.

Carol:
However, she must be in
> the story for a reason, and the only reason I can think of is to 
show
> that not all Slytherins are evil. 
She's clearly a foil (in the sense
> of a character who mirrors and contrasts with another character) to
> both her sisters. (How nice that the good sister is the middle one 
and
> not the youngest, in contrast to the tale of the three brothers, 
which
> follows the standard fairytale formula of youngest equals best.)

Magpie:
I don't think she's there to be a foil much at all. If she were she 
ought to be in it more. I think she's in canon to create Tonks and 
the responses to Tonks. Three sisters, two of which have recurring 
roles, the other there mostly known as the wife and mother of 
characters we see most often. And while we can infer from one 
comment in book 5 that she was in Slytherin, she's never explicitly 
even linked to the house at all. Which doesn't mean she wasn't in 
it, but imo that obviously she wasn't set up to be some big 
important point about the redemption of Slytherin. She could be the 
nicest person in the world, she still doesn't seem like an important 
character in the story or a character very important to JKR, so no, 
I don't think she can represent some big point on that score. I 
doubt a casual reader is picking through the canon to build anything 
for her. She seems pretty good via inference. She may have been in 
Slytherin. I'm not denying these things. I'm saying I think Adam has 
a perfectly reasonably reaction in saying: Her? She's supposed to 
counteract all the negative Slytherins he sees? The one who is 
barely on page? 

Carol: 
> Add her to the list we already have: Snape, Regulus, Slughorn, and
> possibly Phineas Nigellus as good Slytherins,

Magpie:
Adam listed all these people already and did not consider them 
particularly admirable people. Nor the Malfoys, nor Kreacher who 
isn't a Slytherin. 

Carol:
> Carol, who said nothing at all about Andromeda as "poster child"
> nineteen years later and notes that the future of Slytherin lies 
with
> Scorpius Malfoy's generation

Magpie:
Except that's what Adam was rather asking for was a poster child for 
an admirable and likable Slytherin--which is why Snape and Regulus 
and Phineas and Slughorn and the Malfoys didn't suffice for him. I 
was starting from what he was asking for, agreeing that none of 
those people give it, and also agreeing that Andromeda is too minor 
to provide it even if she is it, which is what I thought he was 
saying. Especially since many Slytherins seem like they might be 
better if we only heard about them from afar, or wind up being less 
than one might have expected from what one knew.

Scorpius Malfoy's generation also does not exist on the page, which 
gives them an advantage too. 

"Home of Warped Wizards" seems pretty apt.

-m