Dark Magic (ignoring Dumbledore's age/ Goblin's view on property)

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 176617


> 
> Ceridwen:
> Blaming the characters?  We do that all the time here.  Dumbledore is 
> a puppet master, Snape is abusive, the Weasleys are the ESE-est 
> family in the WW, etc.  We go back and forth between plot and story, 
> between characters and author, between what I see and what someone 
> else sees, all the time.  Within the context of the story, I 
> certainly can blame Lily for judging without all the facts.  I can 
> also see that she doesn't know she doesn't have all the facts.  I can 
> see that maybe Severus shouldn't have trusted Sirius any farther than 
> he could throw him like a Muggle, but I can also see a boy this age 
> grabbing the chance and running with it.  Harry gets obsessed with 
> people and foolishly follows them.  I blame him for that, but I also 
> blame his upbringing for making him more secretive than he should 
> have been.
> 
> Should I not be reading things this way, and instead trying to 
> psychoanalyze Rowling?  I can't do that because I'm not an analyst.  
> Should this board be strictly for analysts?  How are we supposed to 
> discuss the books, the story part, if we don't blame or praise the 
> characters?  These are the legitimate vehicles Rowling used to get 
> her story across.  She gave these characters personality traits, 
> lives, deaths in some cases, which is why I call her the Creatrix of 
> the Potterverse.  I don't see how we should not blame, etc., the 
> characters when we discuss the story.  Just because Gryffindors 
> didn't create Slytherin as "Other" doesn't mean we can't say they're 
> wrong for assuming that all Slytherins are evil.  That would fall 
> under the context of the story, not the plot.  What Gryffindors do 
> with the world they are given, most certainly can fall on the 
> Gryffindors' shoulders.
> 
> Ceridwen.
>


Prep0strus:

Yes, you're right... I don't think I made myself clear - and I'm not
sure that I can, because a lot is based on little comments that have
stacked up on the boards, that I haven't collected.  I do think we can
blame characters for the actions they take.  But what I seem to see is
that in being irritated at a world in which Slytherins have been
created as the other, the blame seems to fall on Griffindor characters
when it is not up to them.  Like, I blame Harry for things he does
that I don't like - his use of unforgiveables, his stubborness,
secrecy, etc.  I don't blame Harry for the way he views Slytherins,
however, because I think his world is not just such that he has been
raised to believe that - but that he is RIGHT in believing it.

It comes back to a lot of what people believe and are willing to read
in between the lines, but I really don't see that JKR has given us
very much wiggle room to see Slytherins as equals to Griffendors. 
Now, some people post and try to show ways in which they are good. 
Some people post and rail against JKR for creating a world this way. 
but sometimes there are posts in which griffindors are looked at with
disgust because they look at Slytherins with disgust, and this is what
I don't understand.  slytherins are disgusting.  i would not want to
be created a slytherin in  jkr's world, but it' snot like they are
separate from her creation, always trying to do the right thing but
being constrained by the confines of her writing (though, this sounds
like it would make an interesting meta-novel).

'Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folks use any means
To achieve their ends.'

This is the 'ambition' people speak of.  but it's not just ambition. 
'use any means to achieve their ends'.  that goes way beyond
ambitious, and is unable to be interpreted any way bug negatively.

'And power-hungry Slytherin
loved those of great ambition. '

This has perhaps the LEAST negative connotation.  and it's not exactly
glowing, is it?

'Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those
Whose ancestry's purest." '
'For instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning just like him.'

Not great, of course, also, not especially true.  

Meanwhile Griffindors are 'brave', 'bold', and 'chivalrous',
(defintition: the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight,
including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms.), with
much more positive connotations.

And again and again we're shown Slytherins who are evil or nasty or
both.  and we have to find our good slytherins in Slytherins who
aren't quite as bad.  who were bad, but are now good. or who are bad,
but are more into family than being bad. or who are not bad, just
meanspirited and weak. or who aren't slytherins, but are french, and
so we pretend their qualties must also be slytherin qualities.

I think harry, and other griffindors, are given ample reason to look
down on Slytherins all they want to.  To mistrust and despise them and
not think they have anything worthwhile to give the world.  Because
JKR, even though she tells us the houses need to come together (they
don't) and keeps trying to tell us 'they're not all bad', and holding
up snape as the bravest, most griffindor-like example, in reality,
doesn't give us the opportunity.  she doesn't give us something equal
to brave and chivarous, or intelligent, or hardworking.  only
purebloods who do anything to get their own personal desires.

I've strayed from the topic at hand.  I think it is fine to criticize
characters, but sometimes, i think the characters get criticized for
living in JKR's world.  Slytherins are the feeble straw men to
Griffindor's mighty heroes - to us, the reader.  In the world of the
book slytherins aren't sad little whippingboys who get blamed for
everything.  They are, more often than not (from what is shown in
canon) rich, powerful, evil, nasty, cruel - killing, terrorizing the
world.  They're equivalent to racists and genocidists, and to feel
sorry for them is to feel sorry that JKR has created a group of people
so morally bankrupt that they have almost no hope for salvation.  but
it doesn't change what they are in the world itself.  To criticize
harry for not giving slytherin a chance is (no matter how trite the
example) to criticize a more enlightened person for not giving a nazi
a chance.  maybe he's a nice nazi, but i wouldn't bet on it.  jkr
didn't give them a chance long before harry didn't.

not sure if i'm making the point, but hey... maybe someone out there
gets what I'm saying. :)

~Adam (Prep0strus), who is frustrated that JKR ran out of adjectives
so quickly for houses.  the good, the bad, the smart, and the rest.