Andromeda as good Slytherin WAS: Disappointment

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 177631

> Prep0strus:
> That's a pretty positive view.  I don't know that we understand the ww
> afterlife all that well, but they seem to have some semblance of
> consciousness and consistency.  Therefore, Lily is going to be
> spending her afterlife with james.  i'm sure there will be forgiveness
> in the afterlife, but is snape really going to want to spend the
> afterlife following james and lily around?

Pippin:
If I understand correctly, that wouldn't be a problem with Christian
concepts of the afterlife  in which there is no marriage or giving in
marriage.   We are free to  imagine that death frees  Snape 
from his tortured longing for Lily, James from his jealousy of Snape, 
and all three of them from carnal love, as in many Christian
texts.

I can't imagine we are supposed to consider the beauty of the doe
patronus, the comfort it brought to Harry and Ron, the fact
that it led Harry to Gryffindor's sword which Harry sees as a cross, 
or that Snape actually bore that cross to the place where Harry found
it,  and think that Snape is supposed to be evil or without hope, or
that his love for Lily was anything but what Harry called it: love.

Snape  wasn't entirely without friends or people that he cared
for. The sudden movement at Harry's bedside in GoF seems to show
that he was concerned for Lucius, his old friend now at the
tender mercies of Voldemort. It humanizes Snape  just as it
humanizes Draco when we see him risk his life for Goyle.

> Prep0strus:
> But just because Voldy didn't create something and his defeat doesn't
> change it doesn't mean the story can't address it.  JKR created house
> elf slavery as an issue. 

Pippin:
The House Elf liberation subplot and the Dobby subplot  each have  a 
beginning, a middle and an end. That the endings aren't as hopeful 
as you expected is not the same as leaving  them unfinished. 


> Prep0strus:
<snip>.  One wizard to two?  There may be 
even more than that.  But it  went from one ELF to none.  Makes the 
whole issue a little moot.

Pippin:
As I pointed out above, Dobby and House Elf liberation are separate 
plotlines. I'm not sure why Dobby's death should symbolize the death of
hope for House Elf liberation. Dobby was already free. His
life, no matter how long it lasted, had already proved that an
Elf could successfully enjoy freedom. But  he had no 
interest in freeing other Elves, so his death makes no difference to
that.

It isn't necessary for Elves to want freedom in order for wizards 
to see them as exploited. Ron's change of heart is the first glimmer 
of hope that a wizard who saw nothing wrong with the status quo 
could change his mind.  

Prep0sterus:
> I don't think I ever thought Draco or Snape would be 'friends' with
> Harry.  That doesn't mean I couldn't expect more from their
> storylines.  And I don't think Draco was just as helpful as anyone
> harry liked by any stretch of the imagination.
>

Pippin:
If  we had learned nothing about the Marauders after age seventeen,
they wouldn't seem very likeable or helpful either. IMO, JKR first
leads Harry to  associate Slytherin House with everything hateful about 
human nature, and then allows him to learn that this was uncalled
for. She doesn't show us Slytherins as saints or heroes, but she
does show that neither Draco nor Snape is the embodiment of evil.
That's Voldemort's job.
 
All the Slytherins share some abilities with Voldemort.
But as Dumbledore says, it's choices, not abilities, that show what 
we really are. All the Slytherins, even Bellatrix, made choices that 
Voldemort could never have made without becoming someone
who wasn't Voldemort at all. 

The Draco of the epilogue is not someone we have to like.
Judging by his son's name, he's still a proponent of winning through 
intimidation. He's made a pureblood marriage, so he probably  still 
thinks purebloods are more respectable than other wizards. 
That would make him a jerk. But that's not the same as being evil. 

We don't see him starting race riots for a bit of fun, or plotting to 
open the Chamber of Secrets, or threatening members of the 
Hogwarts Board of Governors with curses if they don't do his bidding. 
He's not Lucius, IOW.

We see Harry making  the case that Slytherin is a respectable choice. 
That he makes sure Al knows it is a choice, that he doesn't have to go 
where the Hat sends him, could work both ways. After all, if Al *is* 
Slytherin material, he might well  be concealing his Slytherin  leanings
in order to achieve his ends. <g> 

Pippin