Villain!Dumbledore (was: re:HatingDH/Dementors/...Draco/.../KeepSlytherin Ho

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 177699

Montavilla47:
> I really dislike Dumbledore's implication that
> Snape was sorted too soon.  That implies that
> Snape was maybe a little too good for the
> house he was Head of!  That's sort of like
> saying to the star of an WNBA team, "Wow.
> You're good.  Maybe you could have even 
> played on a *boy's* team."
> 
> Or as Pippin says, "Mighty white of you,
> Severus."
> 
> Condescending.  Arrogant.  No wonder
> Snape looks stricken.  lllllllllll
> 
> Montavilla47
>

Prep0strus:
I agree with much of what you said - I tend to think of it in terms of
JKR when I think about how dumb the structure and planning of some
things are, and I forget that, within the terms of the story, it is
Dumbledore that plans and executes some of the most absurd of her ideas.

But I completely disagree with your last statement.  In the past week
I've posted a lot about what Slytherin means to JKR and what I think
it means to most readers, at least subconsciously.

Griffindor is not white and Slytherin is not black.  These groups
cannot be compared to race, or even religion or political affiliation.

Slytherin actually IS worse than Griffindor.  It is not a view that
some characters have.  In the world JKR has created, Slytherin
represents what is wrong with humanity.  It represents intolerance and
selfishness and a proclivity for evil.  You may not like Dumbledore,
but JKR does, and most of the time she has him espouse HER views. 
When Dumbledore says we may have sorted too soon, he's not being
condescending or arrogant.  He's saying, Severus, you are brave and
good, and it was unfair that you were sorted into the house of evil
and cruelty.  I don't think Snape is stricken because he is offended,
but because he wonders what his life might have been like had he taken
a different path and had different opportunities.

There are a lot of racial and real world analogies in the books.  This
isn't one of them.  To say that Slytherin vs Griffindor is the same as
two races is to deny the fundamental differences JKR assigns to these
houses.  Every evil deed we see is done by a Slytherin, and every
slytherin we see is a jerk.  It's not a productive of a backwards
society thinking Slytherin is responsible for all its ills.  In the
evidence we've been shown, Slytherin is responsible for every act of
evil that can be attributed to an individual.

I see where Dumbledore comes off as arrogant, and I get that many
people want Slytherin to actually be an equal group that has different
challenges, but that's not the way the Harry Potter world is.

~Adam (Prep0strus)