Of love and Slytherin (Was: Andromeda as good Slytherin)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177583

Amy wrote:
> 
> The thing is, though, whatever the misgivings about DH and the HP
series are, I think every reader can agree that the overriding message
of these books is supposed to be about love, and how it's all powerful
and conquers everything, etc, etc. So I guess I just can't see how a
House of people who have a tendency to let love hold them back from
being truly evil/let love overpower their other beliefs, however
strong they are, is supposed to be seen as the House that no good can
come from.

Carol responds:

I agree, and I think it's extremely important that the Slytherins we
know who are wholly or partially redeemed are motivated by love. (Of
course, there's also the sick, dark parody of love we see in
Bellatrix's adulation of Voldemort, but I won't go there.) Even
Bellatrix reveals a surprising affection for "Cissy" in "Spinner's
End," but it's not deep enough to counter her loyalty to Voldemort
(and Narcissa at this point is still loyal to LV herself but in
contrast to Bellatrix, her love for her son overrides he loyalty).
Draco's predicament in "The Lightning-Struck Tower" is particularly
interesting because self-preservation *and* love of his family are
insufficient to push him over the edge of evil (loyalty to Voldemort
having, I think, already gone by the wayside). He doesn't want to die;
he doesn't want his family to die; and yet he still can't bring
himself to murder the man he has always regarded and still regards as
a foolish old Muggle-lover. When Dumbledore says, "Draco, Draco, you
are not a killer," he is speaking the truth. He understands Draco's
fears and also his perverse pride in his accomplishment, fixing the
cabinet and getting DEs into Hogwarts when all the adults expected him
to fail in his mission and be murdered. Faced with a "foolish old man"
who understands him and listens to him, Draco sees the truth about
himself. Not even love of his family or fear for his own life can give
him the "courage" (as he probably still sees it) to speak the words
"Avada Kedavra." He remains indecisive, teetering on the edge of evil,
even when the DEs appear and order him to get on with it until Snape
pushes him roughly aside and does the job himself (as DD wants him to do).

I would not call Draco an innocent here, as some posters have done. He
has, after all, endangered two classmates with the cursed necklace and
the poisoned mead (though he did not curse the necklace or poison the
mead himself as someone stated awhile back). He has apparently
Imperio'd Rosmerta himself and he has brought DEs into Hogwarts. But
his soul can still be saved from being "ripped apart" (DD's phrase in
"The Prince's Tale") by Snape's doing the deed in his place. (Snape,
it need not be said, is motivated by the love for Lily that got him
started on his mission to oppose Voldemort in the first place, concern
for Draco's soul, and his promise to give DD the death of his
choice--not to mention the UV he took for the same reasons, which will
probably kill him if he doesn't act.)

There are degrees of evil here with even Bellatrix, the darkest, able
to feel affection for her sister; Narcissa, without question a
pureblood bigot who would not have wavered in her loyalty to Voldemort
had he not chosen to punish her husband by targeting her son; Snape,
the former loyal DE turned away from evil by love (but still an
unpleasant person whose favorite weapon is sarcasm); and Draco, a boy
on the verge of manhood who still believes in pureblood supremacy but
has learned that being a DE and serving the Dark Lord is not nearly as
"glorious" and a lot more dangerous than he had thought. Ironically,
love for his family and fear for their safety (and his own) is all
that keeps him serving Voldemort; he no longer wants Voldemort to kill
Harry Potter and take over the WW. Draco is weak and he has never been
brave, but the contrast between his father's eagerness to turn Harry
over to LV and his own reluctance to do so is very marked.

I think--and no doubt many posters will disagree with me--that we are
meant to hate Bellatrix, despise Lucius (who does love his son but not
to the degree that inspires Narcissa's desperate courage and remains a
self-serving coward to the end), dislike Narcissa but nevertheless
prefer her to the mad and murderous Bellatrix, admire Snape's loyalty
and courage (whether or not we like his personality), and pity Draco.
They are all, with the possible exception of the humbled but still
largely despicable Lucius, more fully human than they seemed before
"Spinner's End" showed the proud Narcissa tearfully begging a
half-blood to save her son. Until HBP, they have all (except the
ever-ambiguous and mysterious Snape) been largely caricatures; from
HBP onward, they become (IMO) characters. (Even Tom Riddle is fleshed
out in that book and made less monstrous; unlike the other Slytherins
mentioned, however, he is not shown to have a single virtue, only
intelligence, power, charm, and cunning all used for his own
increasingly evil ends.)
> 
Amy:
> I mean, it's disappointing that Draco didn't get a chance to really
throw his lot in with the Good side, but I can't help seeing that as
something that really IS inconsequential. I don't see why the only way
for JKR to have made a statement about a good Slytherin would be to
have a pleasant Slytherin firmly on the side of good for no reason
except his/her own belief; when Good Side/Bad Side isn't really one of
the stronger messages of DH -- Xenophilius, for example, turned in the
Trio for Luna; this didn't place him on the Bad side even by JKR's
standards. I really don't think the fact of Slytherins being able to
love should be so negligible.
> 
Carol:
I agree. In fact, Xenophilius's love of his daughter in many ways
parallels Narcissa's love of her son. Both are desperate, willing to
do anything to save their child. I wonder if they would have gone so
far as to sacrifice themselves like Lily Potter and Mrs. Crouch. If
we're looking at courage, though, surely Narcissa's is greater than
Xeno's (though she did not, of course, look Voldemort in the face when
she lied to him; that would have been suicide). At any rate, as you
say, JKR (via Hermione) doesn't condemn Xenophilius for his treachery
because it was prompted by love, and he seems more cowardly than
Narcissa, who betrayed the bad side for her son. *Not* a negligible
act, IMO, even though it was selfishly centered on one person and not
on the "greater good." (Lily's sacrifice was also focused on one
person, her son.) Xeno/Luna is a variation on a theme that usually
appears in the form of mother/son throughout the books, the
all-consuming love of a parent for a child. And even Slytherins (was
Mrs. Crouch a Slytherin?) can and often do love their children.

Amy:
> <snip Andromeda, for whom I've already presented the canon evidence>

> Slughorn is the one Slytherin we see who isn't overruled by love,
and imo, he's also the one character who is handled rather
unsympathetically by the narrative *despite* seeming like a pleasant
enough character.

Carol responds:

Ah, but Slughorn also has his moment of redeeming love or something
like it, but it appears in HBP rather than DH. His affection for Lily
enables Harry (as manipulative as any Slytherin in that chapter) to
overcome Slughorn's shame at having given Tom Riddle information about
Horcruxes and obtain the unaltered memory that tells them how many
Horcruxes Harry has to look for. (That affection also misleads him
into thinking that Harry must be a Potions genius like his mother
rather than taking credit for someone else's ideas, but, oh, well.)
And Slughorn does end up fighting for the good side after taking his
students to safety, so I would include him in the Slytherins who, as
Phineas Nigellus says, played their part. I'd include Phineas and
Regulus, too. (Love takes the form of respect and affection for a
house-elf in Regulus's case--note that Kreacher is inspired by him to
lead the house-elves in the final segment of the battle. Even Phineas
shows love at one point, rushing to 12 GP to search for his
great-great-grandson Sirius, refusing to believe that he's dead. That
plays no direct role in the defeat of Voldemort, but it does humanize
him, portrait though he is. And even Mrs. Black, his grandaughter,
seems to have gone mad through the loss of her sons, one a runaway who
ended up in Azkaban, the other dead, with no body to bury and no
explanation for his death.)

Carol, noting that the Slytherins she had hoped to see in DH, Theo
Nott and Blaise Zabini, probably have "human" stories, too, and
reasons why, unlike Draco, they chose not to join the DEs