Andromeda as good Slytherin WAS: Disappointment

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177625

Prep0strus wrote:
> My original point was to try to postulate what I thought Slytherin
meant to JKR.  It is undeniable that there are several Slytherin
characters with a certain amount of depth and complexity.  However, I
still believe that SLYTHERIN, as a whole represents all that JKR
thinks is wrong with the world.
> 
> I wound up debating and defending my opinions on a lot of different
characters, which doesn't matter in the end.  To me, none of the
slytherin characters rise to a level that is able to dispel my
feelings on what the books show for slytherins as a whole.  If any is
ever remotely admirable, it is because they display traits that would
allow them to be considered 'less-slytherin-like'.  Now, if you don't
agree with this, if you see goodness and equality shown in slytherin
in comparison to the other houses this posting really wasn't for you.

Carol responds:
Yes, we understand what you're saying. Or I do, and I assume that
others do as well. Certainly, it's undeniable that most of the
Slytherins are physically unattractive (the Black family, the young
Tom Riddle, and a few others being exceptions to this rule). It's also
true that most Slytherins hold the view that purebloods are superior
to Half-bloods and especially to Muggle-borns, but, again, the degree
to which they hold this view varies. Snape repudiates it; Slughorn
holds it but is willing to acknowledge with surprise that a
Muggle-born can be a powerful witch. He is not, however, willing to
join the DEs and commit genocide. Even the arrogant Blaise Zabini, who
sneers at "Mudbloods" and "blood traitors," holds the DEs in contempt,
as we see in HBP. You may disagree, but I think it's significant that
out of a House of some seventy students for that House (using the 280
students calculable from the forty students per year implied in SS/PS
and CoS, which would mean ten per class per year), only three in
Harry's generation (Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle) became affiliated with
the DEs (despite at least one other student, Theo Nott, having a DE
father), and of those three, one (Draco) became thoroughly disillusioned.

Despite the implied association of Slytherin House with Dark magic, we
don't see any Slytherin other than these three casting an
Unforgiveable Curse (actually, we only hear of Goyle Crucioing
students in detention; in the RoR, he just stands there pointing his
wand). We have a total of one Slytherin in Harry's generation, who
actually becomes evil. (Pansy's behavior is not admirable, but I would
call it cowardice and self-preservation rather than an active
allegiance with Voldemort. We don't hear of her escaping from
sanctuary to fight on LV's side.) Harry, of course, also casts
Unforgiveables (and Sectumsempra, after he knows it to be Dark magic).
Draco uses a Hand of Glory and tries to use a cursed necklace, but he
didn't curse the necklace himself. We hear that Mulciber (later an
Imperius specialist) tried to use some unspecified Dark magic on a
Gryffindor named Mary, but that and the accusation that the young
Snape was interested in Dark magic is about as far as that association
goes. The only truly Dark wizards associated with Slytherin are
Slytherin himself (who feared Muggle-borns based on the superstitious
behavior of Muggles in his time, and left a Basilisk in the CoS) and
his descendant and heir, Tom Riddle, who came to school already
capable of using magic to torture children and animals.

In the interval between Slytherin and Riddle, we get the Gaunts (who
apparently didn't even go to Hogwarts) and the Blacks (who beheaded
house-elfs and believed in pure-blood supremacy), but we also get
Slughorn, mildly prejudiced and certainly self-serving, but in the end
fighting for the good side. (Portrait!Phineas, whose ideology is a
product of his times, also works for the good side, supporting
Slytherin headmaster Snape.) The influence of Tom Riddle leads some of
his classmates to become the first DEs, and apparently, that legacy
was passed on to their sons, but between Slytherin's time and his, all
we get is an occasional fanatic who beheads house-elves or wants to
make Muggle-hunting legal, not an all-out war against Muggles and
Muggle-borns.

Snape's generation is another matter. Starting with Slytherins the age
of Bellatrix Black (supposedly born in 1951 though that doesn't fit
with her being in the same gang as Severus Snape, born in 1960),
Slytherin House becomes a dangerous place to be Sorted into. Lucius
Malfoy (whose father Abraxas apparently was *not* a first-generation
DE) and many others joined the DEs, influencing the younger students
like Severus Snape (and Avery and Mulciber). Anti-Muggle-born
prejudice and interest in the Dark Arts seem to have been intensified
and channeled into the ambition to become a Death Eater, based on what
we learn from Lily in "The Prince's Tale" but do not see first-hand.
Unfortunately for Severus Snape in particular, the Dark Lord's first
rise to power began just before he entered school, so that the older
Slytherins he encountered, including Prefect Lucius, were already
tempted to join the DEs. That dangerous period for Slytherin lasted
long enough for the slightly younger Regulus Black and Barty Crouch
Jr. (who may not even have been a Slytherin) to be seduced to join,
but in 1981, with the defeat of Voldemort by a backfiring AK, that
particular danger passed. *No new DEs were created between October 31,
1981, and Voldemort's restoration to his body at the end of GoF in
June, 1995.* Indeed, we no of no new DEs created until Draco joins up
or is recruited at the beginning of HBP (July 1996). And, as I said,
only two others, Crabbe and Goyle, both the sons of DEs, became either
DEs or active sympathizers ready and willing to turn Harry over to
Voldemort for a reward. (Stan Shunpike, who may or may not have been a
Slytherin and strikes me as a Hogwarts dropout, probably doesn't count
as a new DE because he appears to have been Imperiused.)

In short, blood prejudice does not in itself make a person a Death
Eater. The elder Blacks were sympathizers but didn't join up. Phineas
Nigellus (admittedly only a portrait) and Horace Slughorn ended up on
the other side. Blaise Zabini, a typical Slytherin in terms of
attitude, rejected the DEs. Andromeda Black, probably a Slytherin
given the remarks by Sirius and Slughorn, became a "blood traitor" and
actively aligned herself with the other side. Most Slytherin students
sat out the battle. Conclusion: DE and Slytherin are not synonymous,
nor are Slytherin and evil, as Harry learns near the end of DH. Until
that point, we have seen from his perspective, so, of course, it
*seems* as if Slytherin is synonymous with evil.

And yet Slytherin also is associated with cunning, a trait that DD
encourages in Harry and without which Severus Snape could never have
survived, much less rendered DD such valuable service. Ambition,
associated with Slytherin, turns out to be a trait of DD himself. If
it was ever a trait in Snape or Regulus or Andromeda, they suppressed
it and chose love or loyalty as their chief motive instead.

It seems to me that Harry's missing glasses in "King's Cross" indicate
that he can now see clearly. Among other things he can see (the truth
about DD, for one) he can finally see at least some Slytherins, those
he knows best, as people, flawed human beings like himself, some few
of them as capable of love and courage (the virtues he most clearly
understands and appreciates) as any Gryffindor.

Prepostrus:
<snip> my opinion has been that, to jkr, slytherin is representative
of the ideals that are, themselves, wrong.  and so the message she is
not that it is ok to look down on people with flaws, but that it is ok
to look down on the flaws themselves. she does not support bigotry of
a group of people, but she supports bigotry against bigotry.
> 
> This was done in a flawed manner, because she DID make some
slytherin characters that people care about and support. <snip>

Carol responds:
Maybe not. Maybe she wants the reader to see what Harry sees, that
it's *not* okay to lump a whole House together and regard them as
evil, Dark Arts-practicing bigots. Maybe, by presenting a Slytherin or
Slytherin supporter (Kreacher) as human (or humanlike, in the case of
Kreacher), as sympathetic and flawed, capable of both error and
redemption, maybe she's showing that Harry and his friends have been
*wrong* in their judgment of Slytherin, as wrong as the Slytherins
themselves in their advocacy of blood supremacy.

Far from being a mistake, I think her depiction of the Slytherins
(even to a slight degree, Bellatrix) as more human than Harry thought
they were is a deliberate strategy, which begins in earnest with
"Spinner's End" in HBP. Both Draco and the HBP (who turns out to be
Snape) are presented sympathetically. Snape, come to think of it, was
first presented sympathetically in OoP, which shows that he was right
about James's arrogance and rule-breaking and that he's actually worse
than Snape implied, a bullying "toerag." (Snape as an agent of the
good side has been implied since book 1, but that's different from his
being actually human and not just a mean teacher who has it out for
Harry.)

IMO, we readers, like Harry, are supposed to take off the blinders
that made us see nothing but evil in Slytherin. Certainly, the House
still has its faults, including a tainted history. But, finally, it
has heroes as well, and a Head of House who seems humbled by his own
small role in the rise to power of Riddle/Voldemort. 

I've already talked about the implications that I see in the epilogue.
No, Slytherin is not yet fully equal to the other Houses, but the
potential is there, the possibility of friendship between Gryffindors
and Slytherins (echoing the original friendship between those two
Founders before the issue of Muggle-borns at Hogwarts came between them).

Obviously, Slytherin House has not been eliminated, but Voldemort has,
and, along with him, Slytherin's line of descent. No more DEs can be
created; the students sorted into Slytherin are in no danger of being
tempted to join them because they no longer exist. JKR speaks of the
House being "diluted," by which I assume she means that Muggle-borns
can now be sorted into it, along with Half-bloods and Pure-bloods.
That being the case, the whole pureblood superiority ethic should
disappear (and certainly, passwords like "pureblood" would be
eliminated). Mandatory Muggle Studies, taught by a competent teacher,
could help eliminate the prejudice against Muggles that underlies the
prejudice against their Muggle-born offspring.

No Voldemort. No DEs. "Diluted" prejudice. Real Slytherin heroes.
Harry Potter naming his second son after a Gryffindor and Slytherin
together. Kids discouraged from becoming enemies even before they know
each other based on House alone.

If you don't see the hope for Slytherin and the deliberate change in
its depiction and Harry's perception of it in the last two books,
fine. I do. To each his or her own interpretation.

Carol, who thinks that the presence of complex characters in Slytherin
is not a mistake but an indicator of how JKR wants the post-DH reader
to percieve the House (a view she could not suggest in early
interviews without giving away the change she intended to present in
Harry's perspective)