HatingDH/Dementors/...Draco/.../KeepSlytherin House

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 177642

>
> >> 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).

Pippin:
How could Dumbledore promise that? He's not omniscient.

If Harry had been sorted into Slytherin, then Dumbledore would have
had to use another example to show that Harry has made choices
that show he is different than Voldemort. For example that he wanted
to find the Stone but not use it. As it is, Dumbledore can't speak to the 
choices Harry would have made if he'd gone into Slytherin because
no one will ever know.

Since Harry had not only survived the Dursleys uncorrupted but was
toting around a fragment of Voldemort's soul without harm,
it seems highly unlikely that Dumbledore thought that associating with 
Draco Malfoy or Marcus Flint would have ruined him.

In retrospect it seems to me as though Dumbledore is simply
pointing out that Harry is not doomed to make the same choices
that Riddle made because he resembles Riddle, not that this
choice more than any other proves he's not evil. 


> > 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.

Pippin:
JKR is talking through the Harry filter here, IMO. Harry will learn that
there are warped wizards who were not Slytherin and Slytherins
who are not warped, like Slughorn and Regulus. Sirius never describes
his brother as wicked -- he's "soft". 

I was disturbed by Dumbledore's "sort too soon" comment, which
smacks of  "mighty white of you, Severus."  But in DH Dumbledore 
is no longer the 'epitome of goodness' (another example of JKR's 
Harry filter) -- we learn that Harry  is the better man. 

Harry, the better man, does not tell Al that he is named for a 
Slytherin so brave he could have been a Gryffindor. He tells Al
he will have a choice, but not that the choice of Gryffindor will
mean that he is different than Voldemort. Oddly enough, by
the end of the book it is Dumbledore who symbolizes the
perils of cunning and too great a desire for power, while
Snape has come to embody friendship and bravery. 

Pippin