Slytherins come back WAS: Re: My Most Annoying Character

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 180236

Lealess:
> I think what people are saying is that if JKR really meant to 
> indicate that Slytherins students were there, she could have done so 
> in the text instead of our having to paste a scenario onto the text, 
> or tell us in a latter-day interview.  For me, canon supports a 
> position that no students came back with Slughorn.  That includes 
> Slytherins.

Magpie:
Exactly. It has nothing to do with whether Slytherin is so important 
or not, or whether it's not important except the whole end is about 
wow, look at Harry revealing Slytherin's great now, or alleged 
revelations about the Sorting hat or anybody lying. Or Slytherin being 
good or bad or in between. The sentence says Slughorn came back with 
certain people who are described. It does not say he came back with 
any students, much less Slytherin students that left earlier. There 
are no lines that depend on such a thing happening in order to make 
sense, the story works perfectly well without the Slytherins 
returning. I thought Phineas was primarily referring to Snape, but it 
didn't matter--I could see that Slytherin house had played its part--
it didn't have to have students fighting for that. 

There's not much ambiguous about the sentence, intentionally or 
otherwise. "We don't know the name and house status of every single 
person in the crowd" doesn't make the sentence ambiguous.

Pippin:
JKR is being ambiguous about the status of the houses. It's not clear
till we get to the epilogue that there still *is* a Sorting Hat or
that the house system will be preserved. Then we have to go back,
re-read, and realize that text never said the Sorting Hat was
destroyed, just like it never said there were only non-Slytherins with
Slughorn.

Magpie:
Maybe you had to go back and re-read, but I certainly didn't. I read 
the first time that Harry saved the Sorting Hat--from being destroyed 
so I never had any worries or questions about whether the hat was 
alive and well and ready to sort. It was a non-issue and not anything 
that seemed important. It's not like there was any indication that 
Sorting was a bad thing, except from Voldemort.

And I certainly did not go back and read, "Oh wait, the text didn't 
say there were ONLY NON-SLYTHERINS with Slughorn!" because I read that 
sentence the right way the first time too. It says Slughorn showed up 
with shopkeepers and friends/family of non-Slytherin students. When 
you go back and read it the sentence still doesn't say he showed up 
with any Slytherins and not a single sentence later in the book 
indicates that he showed up with anything other than shopkeepers and 
friends/family of the non-Slytherin students who had already stayed to 
fight, or that any of the Slytherins who was saw leave returned.

Pippin:
The Slytherins with Sluggie are important in the first place only if
you think all the Slytherins leaving proved they were no good. But no
one ever said that either.

Magpie:
I don't know what you mean here. What does Slytherin being important 
or not or why have to do with what the sentence says? Whether one 
considers Slytherin important or not or good or bad does not change 
who Slughorn returned with according to the sentence that shows him 
returning. 

Pippin:
Albus is worried about being sorted into Slytherin because his brother
has been making him think Slytherins have cooties and because it may
still be the preferred house of kids whose parents would name them
Scorpius. Harry can counter the second worry by invoking Snape. But he
can't prove there's no such thing as cooties. Albus will have to
find that out for himself.

Magpie:
Too bad that by the logic of the whole "there are Slytherins with 
Slughorn" argument if Harry can't prove there is no such thing as 
cooties they are the author's way of cleverly telling us there are 
cooties.

Regardless, still not reading all this importance into the exchange. 
Slytherin has the same position it had in the very first book, which 
had to do with, among other things, its connection to Dark Magic, and 
that still exists. Albus Severus will certainly have to find out what 
Slytherin means for himself by actually going to Hogwarts, but I don't 
see any indication in this scene that he'll have to become any more 
enlightened than Ron is. It's not like there's much change that he's 
going to be in the house, being that he seems to have the most 
important criteria for not being Slytherin--that wouldn't want to be 
there. Which is what Harry tells him. None of which has any effect on 
the sentence pages before about Slughorn returning to the school with 
shopkeepers from Hogsmeade and what looks like all the kith and kin of 
the non-Slytherin students who stayed to fight.

-m