Gryffindor & Slytherin roles (was Villain!Dumbledore)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 177726

> 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.
<snip>
> That is a view which makes it awfully convenient for the other
> three-fourths of humanity!  <snip> The Gryffindors are, in a word,
> enablers who make sure that the Slytherins stay in their place and 
> continue to carry out their role as scapegoats-- as Objects upon 
> which evil is projected, in order that the three-fourths can carry
> on their lives in the comfort of a delusional "goodness".  

Jen: The idea of Slytherins being scapegoated when they are 
practicing or attempting to practice ethnic cleansing is very hard 
for me to see as a coherent line in the story.  From the beginning 
Salazar Slytherin hand-picked students with a certain genetic trait - 
all magical families - for his house.  Slytherin house was founded in 
part on the false belief that genetics could confer superiority.

Families who believed like Slytherin continued this tradition.  The 
Gaunts and Blacks were two such families, one choosing to inbreed in 
order to remain pure-blood and therefore superior in their minds, and 
the Blacks, choosing to say others who 'diseased' the family 
bloodline didn't exist anymore and weren't part of the family.  These 
families identified heavily with Salazar Slytherin and/or Slytherin 
house, and when Dumbledore became headmaster, he was viewed as a 
particular enemy because he was seen as a champion for rights of 
those with impure blood.

So Salazar Slytherin and those who thought like him were the ones who 
not only held onto the beliefs about blood, but used money and 
influence to get laws passed (Black family), and to bribe those who 
were sympathetic to the pureblood agenda (Lucius with Fudge).  
They found sympathizers to work with to carry out their agenda.  
Families also appeared to believe furthering their agenda could only 
be accomplished if the families stayed affiliated with Slytherin 
house (Malfoys, Blacks) or removing themselves entirely from the 
filthy Mudbloods of the WW (Gaunts).

These strategies worked well enough so that when Riddle/Voldemort 
appeared on the scene, there were enough purebloodist families and 
sympathizers left to rally around him as the one who lead pure-blood 
wizards back to their rightful place of superiority, ruling over the 
rest of the WW who were inferior by their genetics or inter-marriage. 

This explanation is why I balk at the idea that other groups in the 
WW are somehow responsible for what happened to Slytherin house.  
Riddle/Voldemort destabilized what appeared to be a more stable 
situation among the houses.  And Harry, when he arrived on the scene, 
was another destabilizer because of his unique history.  But at the 
core of the problem in the story is is a false belief that was passed 
down to each generation saying pure blood = superiority.  It wasn't 
something anyone *did* to Slytherin house to continue the tradition 
there.

It appealed to me that in the end HP showed that the idea is a lose-
lose situation:  Those who strive to claim superiority based on 
genetics, and make attempts at ethnic cleansing, may very well find 
it rebounds back on them.  Rallying around Voldemort was the downfall 
of genetic purebloodism because he helped destroy many of the last 
purebloodist families within the WW (of those presented) and Salazar 
Slytherin's line.  The belief may live on in the likes of an 
Umbridge, but it will be much harder for her to claim such a line of 
ancestry anymore, nor does it appear she can benefit by doing so in 
the different WW that exists at the end of DH.   

One last thing, numbers alone don't translate to power and 
influence.  Lucius was able to oust Dumbledore by threatening the 
school governors; the MOM was able to strip him of his headship in 
OOTP.  Where in the story was that sort of thing happening in the 
reverse?  Lucius retained his power throughout the time from his 
first stint as a DE until the failed mission in OOTP. At that point 
he was stripped of power by LV, not someone ganging up on him.  
Dumbledore didn't kick out the children of known DEs after LV 
returned or expel Draco when he knew what Draco was doing in HBP.  To 
me, scapegoating is when an group is stripped of rights and power and 
forced to suffer for perceived badness. Slytherin students actually 
gained power when Umbridge took over and LV was back, first as the 
Inquisatorial Squad and finally when LV took over the school.  It's 
hard for me to see the rivalry between Harry, Draco and each other's 
friends as the entire school turning on Slytherin house.  

Jen