Gryffindor & Slytherin roles (was Villain!Dumbledore)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 177761

> Stepha67:
> Absolutely, but not all Slytherins were purebloods, like Voldemort
> himself, or Snape.  I take the pureblood mania to be more of a
> Voldemort thing rather than a Slytherin thing.  Sometimes the two
> connected, especially with the Malfoys.

Jen: It's hard to tell.  There was an identification with pure-blood 
superiority by certain Slytherin families before LV came along, such 
as the 'Toujours Pur' Black family and Salazar Slytherin's 
descendants.  Was it mania?  Maybe not exactly in the sense of 
purifying the race outside the family, but for the Blacks 'any time 
the family produced someone halfway decent they were disowned,' 
(chap. 6, p. 105, UK) so there was a little more than pure-blood 
pride at work it seems.  They did sound like an easy mark for 
Voldemort when he came along, before they got cold feet: "they were 
all for the purification of the Wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-
borns and having pure-bloods in charge." (same, p. 104) 

Celoneth:
> Even if Slytherins in JKR's world embody blood racism(though I don't
> agree) - there is a prevalent view that muggleborns are inferior - a
> view not shared by Slytherins alone.  As far as anti-muggle
> legislation, how could it have passed w/ only a quarter of the 
> population in favour and the rest against - regardless of the 
> political structure of the WW - passing laws opposed to by the rest
> of the community does not make for sensible governance. The way I 
> read the books, is that a lot of people in the WW share the view 
> that muggleborns are inferior or at the least odd. Even Arthur 
> Weasley who is described as a huge muggle fan - looks at muggles as
>  though they're amusing creatures - what could be described as 
> patronisingly racist in its own way. Slytherins are not alone in
> disliking muggleborns, nor is there any indication that hating
> muggleborns is a required trait of Slytherin house - Slytherin did 
> only want purebloods(though we see that half-bloods can get into 
> Slytherin as well), but never is there a description in the sorting
> ceremony that Slytherin wanted only those who hate 
> muggles/muggleborns in Slytherin house.

Jen: I agree with everything you said.  It's just that more 
Slytherins than any other group are depicted as acting on that belief 
in order to purify the race.  Voldemort's influence was paramount to 
that occurring because he presented himself as Salazar Slytherin's 
last heir and recruited heavily from his own house (ensuring more 
Slytherin recruits in the future from children of his first 
servants).  That's the part I find most interesting, what was 
Slytherin house like before LV?  There are hints that even if certain 
Slytherin families identified with pure-blood superiority, Slytherin 
was a different house prior to the one at the time the books take 
place.  I'm thinking of how the Marauders and Snape talk about 
Slytherin on the train, how Slytherin = pure-blood wasn't discussed 
at all since Snape thought it the house for brainy people.  And 
Slughorn as the long-term Head of Slytherin had his own form of 
exclusion, but not one based solely on blood status.  Another fact I 
found interesting in DH was Grindelwald wasn't even part of the 
British WW.  I expected him to be from Slytherin, the previous Dark 
Lord to LV.  

Magpie:
> Yet even when the WW is finally taken over by LV I didn't have a 
> sense of it--the anti-Muggle-born stuff didn't build on anything 
> we'd heard from Draco (our mouthpiece for the Pureblood view) and 
> introduced an entirely new and fantastic (even by WW standards) 
> idea of a Muggle being able to "steal" a Wizard's magic. Did anyone 
> really believe that? It sounded like something the MoM came up with
>  at the last minute because they had to say something. Anti-Muggle-
> born or anti-Slytherin prejudice (if one thinks there is such a 
> thing) is still in-fighting within the same group. These are all 
> kids who are Wizards and go to Hogwarts.

Jen: I think that's exactly what happened, the MOM came up with what 
would be the most terrifying possibility to a wizard! Or Voldemort 
came up with it.  As you said, magic is everything to most wizards - 
Magic is Might.  I thought Voldemort and his MOM compatriots were 
remarkably skilled at destabilization in DH.  The idea to make Harry 
Undesirable Number One, possibly DD's murderer, was an incredible 
stroke to cast doubt on the One they were supposed to be rallying 
around (as well as Harry having to be on the run and thus looking 
like he was saving his own skin).  

Magpie:
> In the end, to paraphrase Dan Hemmings, I don't think the fictional 
> world is used here to explore bigotry much at all, but rather 
> bigotry is used to explore the world. I know the word "Mudblood" is 
> bad because it's like calling somebody a racial slur in the real 
> world, and I relied on the real world to explain why things were 
> happening in the WW more and more in DH. I don't get it from the
> context of the story--it just is.

Jen: Hemmings explanation rings true for me because that's how I sub-
conciously interpreted the bigotry piece as I read the series.  I was 
surprised by what people saw in DH (and I do understand now from your 
explanation that it's something seen in the story).  My reading 
experience was entering a world in medias res, with the expectation 
that what had gone on to bring the world to that point, and what 
would go on after that point, weren't the real story so much as 
background to Harry's story.  Sometimes I think JKR took on too 
*much* world building, which led to loose ends.  

Jen