The Fundamental Message.../ Heroes...

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 176530

Betsy Hp:

> There's that big tree again. ;-) It's impossible for me 
> to overlook the exclusion of Slytherin house. Not after 
> Dumbledore has witnessed the evil that either its presence 
> at the school (going with the "Slytherins *are* bad" view 
> of the books), or its designation as Hogwarts' scapegoat 
> (going by how my personal view still insists on subverting 
> the text) caused so much pain in the WW.

houyhnhnm:

I don't think it's a matter of your personal view subverting 
the text.  The contradictions are right there *within* the 
text.  Over and over Rowling tells us one thing and shows 
something else.  See below.

lizzyben:

> The text insists that Snape was becoming a dangerous 
> "Dark Wizard", but it doesn't actually show Snape using 
> magic to bully or hurt people. Instead, it actually 
> *shows* the Marauders using illegal hexes, curses, jinxes, 
> advanced restricted magic, and Dark magical items. So 
> who's the real "Dark Wizard" here?

houyhnhnm:

The "epitome of goodness" himself seems to have a 
penchant for projecting less than admirable Gryffindor 
traits onto Slytherin.  He tells Harry at the end of CoS 
that Harry has characteristics Salazar Slytherin prized 
in his students including "a certain disregard for rules."  
When, pray tell do we *see* Slytherins betraying a disregard 
for rules?  Draco sneaked out after curfew to find out what 
the Trio was up to in PS/SS.  And Snape did the same with 
the Marauders.  Those are about the only examples I can 
think of.  The list of infractions committed by HRH and 
Marauders is too long to go into.  I guess the difference 
between Slytherin and Gryffindor is the difference between 
a certain disregard for rules and a total disregard for rules.

These are just a couple of examples in a long list of 
discepancies between what is told and what is shown that 
pervade the Harry Potter series.  Up until the last book, 
I thought Rowling was engaging in some kind of sophisticated 
literary dialectic.  Apparently not.