[HPforGrownups] Re: re:HatingDH/Dementors/...Draco/.../KeepSlytherin House

[Random832]

No: HPFGUIDX 177637

lizzyben04 wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Irene Mikhlin 
> <irene_mikhlin at ...> wrote:
>> bboyminn:
>>
>>
>> I think people are over reacting to Slytherin House.
>> Being sorted there does not guarantee that you will
>> go on to be a Dark Wizard and live a life of crime. 
>> That's ridiculous in my opinion.
>>
>> Irene:
>>
>> But that's what the books strongly suggest. For example, in book 
> 2, when Harry is worried that he is too similar to Voldemort, and 
> Dumbledore talks about the choices that show who you are, he does 
> not say that Harry had chosen to be a good person (and would have 
> stayed a good person even if sorted into Slytherin).
>> Dumbledore says that by the very action of actively choosing 
> Gryffindor, Harry has demonstrated his superiority to Vodemort. It 
> seems to suggest to me that going into Slytherin is by itself a 
> demonstration of evil predisposition, even before the child had 
> actually performed anything dark.
>> Irene
> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> Dumbledore's words are reinforced by JKR as well:
> 
> JR: New pupils at Hogwarts try on a talking magic hat. But Harry is 
> disturbed by what the hat tells him.
> 
> JKR: What I'm working towards there is the fact that our choices, 
> rather than our abilities, show us what we truly are. That's brought 
> out in the difference between Harry and his arch-enemy, Tom Riddle. 
> In Chamber of Secrets, Harry is told by the hat that if he goes into 
> Slytherin house, home of warped wizards, he will become a powerful 
> wizard. He chooses not to do that. But Tom Riddle, who has been 
> twisted by ambition and lack of love, succumbs to the desire for 
> power.

So basically, choosing slytherin, or not arguing with the hat if it 
wants to put you in slytherin, is "choosing evil" - i.e. it is an 
informed choice, at the age of eleven, to be a dark wizard for the rest 
of your life, despite that most of them (including harry - he has a 
vaguely unpleasant impression of ONE not-yet-slytherin) don't have a 
valid reason to believe that "slytherin = evil", and probably most would 
not try arguing with the hat (they go in not even knowing it's going to 
be a talking hat)