Gryffindor & Slytherin roles (was Villain!Dumbledore)

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 177710


> > Lenore:
> In the Gryffindor perception, they ARE white/good and Slytherin
> is black/evil.  It is a very simplistic and unreflective viewpoint.  It
> really says less about Slytherin than it does about the Gryffindor
> attitude, which is more about unexamined assumptions than anything
> else.

Prep0strus:
But that's been my point - it's not the 'Griffindor perception'. It's
reality as it exists in the book.  It is not a 'viewpoint' or a 'way
of looking at things'. IMO, it's the truth of the wizarding world, as
told by JKR.

Lenore: 
> Yes, that is the lie which we are expected to believe, it seems.
> It was because it is such a blatant lie that I really expected and
> hoped in the final book that it would be exposed as the lie it is.
> 

Prep0strus:
But it wasn't. And so it's not a lie. It's truth. It's reality.  It
may not be what many of us were hoping for, but that's how it is.  The
evil of Slytherin is not the responsibility of Griffindor - it is
inherent to Slytherin.  It's not a ruse, and it's not sleight of hand.

I believe that JKR took the qualities she finds wrong and distasteful,
and imbued them into one particular house.  Then she created every
character in that house to represent those ideas, to lesser or greater
extent, but never allowing herself to go so far as to create a
character within that house who can be good, and kind, and nice.  They
are tragically flawed because they exist within the construct she has
created.

Every time something evil was done, it was done by members of this house.

I think a lot of people thought that by the end we would learn that in
reality, there are good and evil Slytherins, mean and nice Slytherins.
 That that is true of all the other houses as well.  That there was
more to being a Slytherin than selfish ambition and pureblooded bigotry.

But there isn't.  There never was.  So it can't be a lie.  And a lie
we are 'expected to believe'?  Like JKR is pulling a giant Andy
Kaufman-esque trick on us all?  No.  I don't think one has to like the
world she has created, but it doesn't make it something that it's not.

Griffindors cannot be blamed for how they think of Slytherins because
they are RIGHT.  Slytherins ARE bad and wrong and represent what is
wrong.  They DO represent prejudice and cruelty.  This is not a
statement on Griffindors and how they are prone to prejudice and
thinking - that would be a different story.  In this story, Slytherins
represent what is wrong with the world, and the Griffindors and others
who fight against that (including even the extraordinarily flawed
Slytherins who  are only good by virtue of their non-Slytherin
qualities but do fight on the side of good) are in the right.  They
are also flawed, but they are fighting with what JKR perceives as
wrong in the world - and that is the ideals of Slytherin, most
perfectly represented in Tom Riddle.

~Adam (Prep0strus)