Identifying with Slytherins was Re: Dark Magic

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 176654

> Prep0strus:
> You can dismiss
> Sirius as a broken clock, but I don't see the point.  I think he, as
> well as the comments we see from Lily, Lupin, even Snape were JKR's
> way of showing us what we needed to be shown - that those Young 
> Death Eaters were bad apples.

zgirnius:
My difficulty with this argument is that you put no time frame on 
these statements. We see scenes of Snape as a young boy, making 
friends with a Muggleborn girl in his neighborhood, and looking 
forward to starting wizard school. We see he is far less open, happy, 
and carefree than the girl, and also see hints of why that his: 
problems at home. We learn he wants to go into Slytherin House 
because he'd rather be 'brainy than brawny'. Lily likes this boy, he 
is her friend. I simply do not see him as a bad apple at this point; 
I also do not see why on earth anyone would tell me I *should* see 
him this way. It seems clear on the face of it that this is not how 
he is portrayed.

Sirius's description of Severus and James?

OotP, "Career Advice":
'Look, Harry' said Sirius placatingly, 'James and Snape hated each 
other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of 
those things, you can understand that, can't you? I think James was 
everything Snape wanted to be - he was popular, he was good at 
Quidditch - good at pretty much everything. And Snape was just this 
little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts, and James - 
whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry - always hated the 
Dark Arts.'

zgirnius:
Sorry, I just don't see it. I get he and James despised Snape, but I 
do not get that they understood him correctly. The above is not the 
boy we are shown. Quidditch?! Please...

Anyway, as I keep feeling I need to explain, I am not accusing the 
much-loved Sirius of lying. I am just suggesting that understanding 
people is not his forte. Why should I trust he could really tell 
about a boy in another house, what his true nature was, when it was 
his own brilliant idea to make one of his 'best friends' the Potters' 
Secret Keeper? You know, the one that became a Death Eater...

You say Sirius was right, Snape became a Death Eater. I say he was 
wrong, Snape was a loyal and brave Order member. We are both right, 
after all, so Sirius was not entirely right, at any rate. But my 
point is not that he was or wasn't right, but that he had no way to 
know as early as their first year, which choices Snape would make, 
because he was proved to be capable of making both good and and 
choices in the course of his life.

> zgirnius:
> What is your objection to:
> "Or perhaps in Slytherin
> You'll make your real friends,
> Those cunning folks use any means
> To achieve their ends."

> Prep0strus:
> Cunning: skill employed in a shrewd or sly manner, as in deceiving;
> craftiness; guile.

zgirnius:
I place myself in Ravenclaw because, while I was a very undecided 
sort of teen, I went on to pursue an advanced degree in theoretical 
methematics, about as ivory tower-y and head-in-the-clouds as one can 
get. However, I did seriously consider at one point pursuing a career 
in Law. 

This is also a field where brains and logical thinking play a role, 
but (unlike pure math) it is about the real world. The goal is not to 
investigate neat, fascinating things (at least, they are such in the 
opinion of theoretical mathematicians), it is to *win*, whether by 
finding a technicality, presenting a convincing argument, finding a 
deal acceptable to all parties, or what have you. Being a cunning 
sort who can use any means to achieve her ends, would be just the 
thing, handier than sheer brainpower directed at abstract thoughts. 
And that is how I understand that phrase. Not, to murder in order to 
get rich and powerful, but to be flexible and inventive in using all 
means available to achieve a goal. I didn't read that as 'evil' but 
as 'realistic' or 'pragmatic'.

> prep0strus:
> Couldn't Slytherins have had `street-smarts' or be `clever' or
> `practical'?  Couldn't they `strive to be the best' or `try their
> hardest' or even `long for greatness'?  
> No, they'll `use any means'.  Never is there even an implication 
that
> they might use any means to achieve ends that could be altruistic – 
it
> is `their ends', with an implied selfishness, as we know from
> `power-hungry Slytherin'.  

zgirnius:
It seems to me that you are reading the characteristics we had shoved 
in our faces of canon Slytherins who *were* evil onto the text of the 
songs and insisting that's the only reading of those songs. The first 
time I read the PS/SS Sorting Song, I basically got 'they are the 
pragmatic house that is about getting things done' out of the 
description. I expected some future Ministry officials (this was 
before I knew Ministry was a bad word, we are taking PS/SS), 
entrepreneurs, inventors, philanthropists, and social climbers in 
there along with the Dark Wizards Hagrid advertised. You insist I 
must read 'their ends' as selfish - but 'their' is a simple 
possessive pronoun, which can describe any end chosen by a Slytherin, 
altruistic, selfish, or other. Among the ends chosen by Slytherins in 
the seven volume series we now have 'making Voldemort mortal' 
(Regulus Black) and 'helping Dumbledore protect Harry Potter' 
(Severus Snape), neither of which seem particularly selfish to me.

Lots of Slytherins are/were evil, but I don't see that they *had* to 
be be definition, or that future ones necessarily *will* be.