[HPforGrownups] Re: Villain!Dumbledore - Nature of People

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 177754

 Ceridwen:
This is where I thought Rowling was going with the Slytherin thread.
Sure, Slytherins are outright bigots more than we were shown of the
other houses. But it's bigotry as well to see someone sorted into
Slytherin and think, yeah, they're bad. That's a subtler form of
bigotry, but it can be just as devastating to the Slytherins if
someone with that attitude was in a position to affect their lives.
Slytherins aren't uniformly rich, Snape proved that. A Gryffindor
personnel director in a position to hire people with an anti-
Slytherin bias would perhaps prefer "anyone but a Slytherin." It
isn't based on race, or on class, or on birth status, just on
Hogwarts house. It's still a prejudiced -ism.

Debbie:
One obstacle to seeing the treatment of Slytherin as bigotry is that, at
least during the era portrayed in the books, Slytherins behave with far too
much swagger to suggest victimization.  If anything, they have a supriority
complex -- the Blacks thought they were practically nobility.  Sometimes
Draco's taunting reminds me of the (probably apochryphal) Ivy League
football cheer ("That's alright!  That's okay!  You're going to work for us
someday!")

 lizzyben:
But here, only Slyths are ever bigoted, no one else? The way the
entire WW seems to view Muggles as inferior or people to be
persecuted/rescued is actually a much better example of systemic
bigotry, but that is of course left unaddressed as the trait of
bigotry is swept into the house of bad.

Debbie:
I read the text as acknowledging that all people are bigoted (Ernie
MacMillan huffs and puffs about his pure bloodlines), but only Slytherins
exist in a subculture where expressing bigotry is permitted.  However, it
still exists, and thus when the Slytherins take control, what was
theretofore simmering beneath the surface becomes accepted practice, even
when ordinary citizens know that some of the justifications ( e.g.,
muggleborns stealing magic) are patently untrue.

Gryffindors have their own forms of bigotry, which remain unaddressed in the
series, but I don't see the treatment of Slytherins as bigotry.  The
Gryffindors do not generally share the one form of bigotry that *is*
addressed in the books, muggleborn prejudice, and the dislike of Slytherin
certainly has a basis in the fact that the Slytherins not only are
prejudiced against muggleborns, but that they espouse it openly.  The
Sorting Hat tells them overtly that Salazar Slytherin didn't trust
muggleborns and wouldn't teach them.

Magpie:
For some of
us that truth always seemed to keep peeking out at the seams, though,
and that's why we thought there would be a climax that depended on
big self-realization on the good side. So at the end rather than
saying, "Oh, they won because they beat Voldemort and the good guys
are in charge so racism got dealt a great blow even if it isn't
completely gone!" we said, "Huh. So I guess they're not going to deal
with the whole bigotry thing and everything else the Slytherins
represent at all. What a weird story that says absolutely nothing
about bigotry." Actually, maybe it does say things about bigotry,
just not things I really think are true or challenging.

Debbie:
The ugly "truth" about Slytherin was always there, though, and the Sorting
Hat was the agent that made it that way.  I always thought this was one of
the basic fault lines of the books, though, rather than something that JKR
was going to fix in DH.  I found an old post of mine (2003, before OOP was
published) that blamed the sorting hat, for the same reasons we're
discussing now.

In fact, the Sorting Hat does not really do what it says.  Instead, it
reinforces and reenacts the Founders' split every year when it sorts
11-year-olds.  The Hat claims to decide based on the observed
characteristics it sees when it penetrates each student's brain.  But it
doesn't really do that, even though (as we saw with Harry's sorting) it does
its investigation and presents the student with its findings. However, it
then allows 11-year-olds to choose.  But we now know that they often have
little real understanding of what the houses really represent (especially
houses other than the ones their own families belonged to), but with very
certain ideas of where their families expect them to end up.  (The songs
provide little clue, and are only marginally consistent from year to year.)
No wonder legacies are so popular, and no wonder they are rejected by the
rebellious at heart.  Thus, the Hat simply reinforces what a child has
learned at home.

According to JKR, she set this up as a choice that tells us who a person
really is, but only a child with good instincts and/or accurate information
is going to end up in the right house.  Snape appears to have not fully
understood the house characteristics, and somehow Wormtail got into
Gryffindor despite his utter lack of bravery.
 Prep0strus:
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.

Debbie:
JKR may have intended Slytherin as "Bad" but I don't think she's succeeded.
First, she ascribes attributes to Slytherin qualities that are not
inherently bad.  Ambition is not bad, as JKR implicitly acknowledges by
stocking Gryffindor with ambitious characters like the Twins, and Snape's
cunning is essential to the defeat of Voldemort.  So individual readers who
are not evil will identify with Slytherin.

The second reason is that, consistent with reality, the residents of the
"Good" house are also morally ambiguous.  I agree with you that JKR seems to
be saying that what is most important is to choose the side of Right in
great things; in that case, small transgressions will be forgiven.
Moreover, it may not ultimately matter *why* one chooses the side of right;
merely choosing it will make you a better person.  Witness how Snape's
initial decision to do anything that might save Lily expands to the point
where he witnesses deaths only of those he cannot save.  Another example (at
least in my reading) is Sirius, who appears to have chosen Gryffindor at
least partly to avoid being in the same house with greasy gits like Snape.

 lizzyben:
It is a lie, because it seems to say that Slytherins aren't really
human; or as you put it "they aren't real people." Sure, these
children go to school & cry & laugh & have parents who love them,
but they aren't human the way you or I are. They're just this sub-
human mutation that contains all the bad traits of humanity & none
of the good. But that doesn't describe real human beings at ALL. ALL
of us are a mixture of good & bad, all are flawed, none
are "superior".

Debbie:
This would work if, as JKR appears to have intended, all of Slytherin had
been caricatures, such as the Carrows or even Crabbe and Goyle.

The last reason that it doesn't work is that there are too many sympathetic
Slytherins.  Characters such as Draco, Regulus and especially Snape are much
more than cartoon villains, and are they not uniformly evil, notwithstanding
that they may have held offensive views and acted on those views.  JKR may
have tried to depict Slytherin as a gang of thugs led by a bigoted
quasi-aristocracy that lent the house a veneer of respectibility, but that
she failed miserably.  Draco falls flat as a thug, and so does Lucius.
Narcissa, despite the snobbish looks she gives when first introduced to the
reader, is actually a loving parent.  Despite their cruelty, I sympathize
with them, and apparently I wasn't supposed to.
Though perhaps the reason that I'm satisfied with Draco's actions in DH is
that until the end of DH I believed he was virtually irredeemable.  What he
actually did was much more than I expected, and I thought it was realistic
in the context of his earlier mindset about the DEs and his historic
relationship with the Trio.

All of them accomplish something good in spite of the fact that they were
condemned to the supposedly *bad* house.

Irene:
Even JKR's greatest sin, treason, is actually not such a sin if you are
a Gryffindor. Hagrid betrayed the Order in book 1, and no one batted a
lid. In book 7, when Harry wonders whether Hagrid betrayed the Order
again in another fit of drunken behaviour, he actually forgives him in
his mind *before* they learn it's Mundungus.

The only thing JKR tries to take to the bad direction, other than
ambition, is the unthinking intellect. She is very suspicious of
excessive intellect, LOL. Ravenclaw is the second worst house, and
Hermione's saving grace is that she has denounced intellect in book 1.

Debbie:
There's no question that it's not just Harry who has a limited POV; based on
her interview comments, JKR herself has obviously taken to heart Hermione's
comment in PS/SS that she's heard Gryffindor is the best.  Therefore she
subverts the Sorting Hat to engineer the admission into that house of all
the characters she needs to help Harry defeat Voldemort.

Magpie: But there seems to be something in the
way good and bad are presented sometimes in this series that always
makes flipping them seem logical, maybe because the root of the
problem always seems to be in the opposite place than the series
tells me it is. I just can't not keep seeing my quasi-Jungian
interpretation, where Slytherin is basically a projection of
Gryffindor's Shadow, so Slytherin *is* Gryffindor and vice versa.

Debbie:
I'll see your quasi-Jungian shadow, and raise it two.  The entire series is
presented through a Gryffindor filter, so that *all* of the other Houses
appear as shadow houses.  Harry was considered for Slytherin.  Hermione was
considered for Ravenclaw.  But upon request, both got their first choice.
(One suspects that Neville was considered for Hufflepuff.)  See, it's the
Sorting Hat's fault!

Irene:
The book that should have been invites that sort of introspection. But
the book that actually happened requires nothing of the sort. Why would
a child (or teenager, or adult) try to examine his conscience? It's
other people that do evil things, and they are easily distinguishable.
We, the good ones, the ones that identify with Gryffindor, will never be
touched by evil.

Debbie:
But they are touched by evil.  Isn't that what we're getting at when we
criticize Harry's use of Crucio?  That was wrong, we know it was wrong, and
we know Harry knew it was wrong.  No one is perfect, or even almost
perfect.  Dumbledore suffered all his life for his flirtation with evil, and
he never overcomes his arrogance or his penchant for secrecy.  Such is
Dumbledore's tragedy.

Montavilla47: And yes, Dumbledore's aims are good. Who could argue
(reasonably) against tolerance and inclusion? Who wouldn't
support the idea of helping werewolves assimilate into society?
Sending embassies to giants and so forth. Who but the basest
bigot would balk at treating Muggleborns with respect?

What bugs me about Dumbledore is, I suppose, his utter lack of
humility and that he does talk as though he's taking
responsibility when he really isn't.

Debbie:
For years this list has been chock full of posters utterly convinced that
Snape was working for the side of Good even though he was a greasy bullying
abusive git.  I find it rather refreshing to know that even though
"Dumbledore was working tirelessly against You-Know-Who" that he was a cold
arrogant secretive bastard who thought caring for another human being was a
weakness and whose flaws nearly ruined everything.  Yup, treat everyone with
respect.  And an iron curtain of emotional distance.

Debbie
whose views are probably completely contradictory but can't decide whether
to blame the books or the Sorting Hat


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]