Identifying with Slytherins was Re: Dark Magic

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 176657

> zgirnius:
> My difficulty with this argument is that you put no time frame on 
> these statements. <SNIP>

> 
> 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? 

Prep0strus: You're right about the time frame, but also look at
Sirius's statement.  It spans a fairly vast time frame as well - I'm
sure there's some hyperbole and mixed memories in there, which isn't
necessarily a judgment issue.  hating each other from the 'moment they
set eyes on each other' can't be the same in sirius' mind even with
when james was popular or playing quidditch. Of course, sometimes it's
a matter of when JKR types one thing and when she types another.  On
the other hand, I think that this passage was a way of JKR telling us
some things - that Snape was into the dark arts and that James hated
them - and I do think it's telling that Sirius notes James' hatred
more than his own.  I know the debate started over the dark arts, and
I still believe that they have been not clearly defined, but the
original purpose was to have a clear line delineating them from
regular magic... and that Severus was interested in them when he was
in school and the Marauders definitely were not.  I do trust Sirius'
judgment to an extent, because he did make good choices.  Good choices
in friends, for the most part, and good choices in bucking the family
tradition for a better path.  Snape made bad choices, going against
his good friend to take a bad path, from which he had quite a time
getting back.  I don't think Sirius and James necessarily understood
Severus, but I don't think they needed to understand the inner
workings of his soul.  Fairly quickly in school they would have been
natural rivals in houses.  natural rivals in what the slytherin house
was working on and towards, especially considering james' hatred.  and
when i say they were right, it's that they were right in the way lily
was right about Sev's friends.  They may have simply been school
rivals, but when some of them grow up to join the DE and some grow up
to join the order, and there was clear maneuvering before school ended
to get there, it's a little deeper than that.  I don't have a timeline
of their hate, their fights, their outbursts.  But taking the whole
school period together, we can see the outcome.  I just happen to
trust the Marauders motivations more than you do.  I don't think
they're perfect, but I do have my silly little obsession with
believing everyone had real knowledge of the world, even as kids. 
Some posters disagree with me, and in doing so will obviously come to
different conclusions.  But my reading makes sense to me.


> > 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. 
> 

Prep0strus:
Not sure that trying to show slytherins as 'not evil' is best done
with examples of the tricks that lawyers pull. ;)  (sorry, lawyer
jokes are too easy)

zgirnius:
> 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:
I never necessarily read Ravenclaws as being necessarily abstract. 
Instead, I read 'cunning' as a more negative adjective, rather than
simply a more practical one.


> > 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. 

Prep0strus:
This is that point I mentioned where the middle ground is far, far
apart.  I simply am unable to read 'any means' in a non-negative
light.  Why not creative? Or non-traditional? or pragmatic? or
extraordinary?  why ANY? i think it's a very loaded phrase, meant to
show us that these are the type of people who would cheat, lie, and
steal to get to the top.  And if I'm reading the characteristics of
evil canon Slytherins into some, that makes sense, because that's what
we were given.  We weren't given clever Slytherins who advanced on
their wit and ingenuity and creative impulses.  We were given evil
Slytherins (some who would come back from evil, or temper it with
something else), and we were given Slughorn, who wasn't clever so much
as bigoted, sycophantic, gluttonous, and exclusionary.

zgiirnius:
> 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.

Prep0strus:
I don't think they *have* to be evil.  But I do think they *have* to
be unpleasant.  Simply because I haven't been shown one that wasn't. 
In 7 books, a world to choose from - including many characters who
weren't even assigned houses, a few names could have been dropped to
give me worthy examples.  I feel it has to be fairly deliberate to not
do so, so I see a world in which there are not any slytherins for me
to admire.

Also, I think they are much, much, much more likely to become evil. 
Folks who would use 'any means' are certainly more likely to find that
some of those means involve being horrible to other people.  I suppose
it depends on what their 'ends' are.  Considering the only traits
given to us are their pureblooded wackoness, and ambition - which i do
think implies a desire for personal advancement, and not a general
desire for nice things for the world - i think it is quite likely we
will again and again see this type of people hurting others.  There
they are: ambitious, convinced of their own superiority by blood, and
willing to do anything to get what they want.  I personally can't see
how these traits can be considered equal to the other houses, or
remotely desirable.  I think anyone who will use any means to achieve
their ends is someone to stay far away from.  It may turn out that
their ends might mean your end.  It certainly has for a lot of people
in the WW.

~Adam (Prep0strus)