Rowling interview transcript

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 180338

> zgirnius:

> It is also the house from which the major villain of her story 
comes, 
> and also young Harry's greatest antagonists in the school setting, 
> his rival Draco and the teacher he hates, Snape. Since the story 
is 
> centered about Harry, this means most of the Slytherins we meet 
are 
> in Voldemort's gang or in Draco's, but see above, the quarter of 
the 
> merchants in Hogsmeade, or Healers at St. Mungo's, or what have 
you, 
> who are Slytherins, are invisible (and irrelevant) to the readers.
> 
> As a result, there is what I consider to be a fan misconception, 
that 
> Slytherin is the 'bad house'. I don't think Rowling envisions it 
so, 
> I think the impression was created naturally out of the function 
in 
> the plot/story for the house. And if a fan has this assumption in 
> his/her mind when asking a question, what is Rowling supposed to 
do, 
> other than repeat that Slytherins are not all bad?

Magpie:
I just think it's a little much at this point to say that we have 
the "fan misconception" that Slytherin is the bad house when it's 
consistently portrayed as such even in interviews. When Rowling 
says "they're not all bad" she's admitting they are of course the 
bad house. She's expressed horror (I believe that was her word) at 
the idea of people identifying with Slytherin. If anything it seems 
like she's spent far more time in interviews correcting the fan 
misconception that they *aren't* the bad house, or that the 
characters who come from there should be liked. These statements 
about them not being all bad is in no way saying they're not "the 
bad house"--that's already a given in her statement.

No, this one I lay squarely at Rowling's door. I didn't go into the 
book with any preconceptions about Slytherin--in fact, I seemed to 
see its antagonists in a more positive light than she does! But 
they're still relatively the bad house, as is validated again and 
again. Including in the epilogue where despite the house being 
happily "diluted" (weakened) according to the author, it still has 
the rep as the house of dark magic and Harry is assuring his son by 
telling him--once again--about that all-important moment that Harry 
showed he "wasn't Tom Riddle" by choosing not to be in Slytherin. 

Meanwhile "Slytherin" has been used as a shorthand for all sorts of 
less savoury things throughout canon--and that shorthand wasn't 
unfair in the slightest. If JKR was confused as to why people though 
Slytherin was the bad house maybe she should have stopped saying it 
was the bad house over and over and over in the books and only 
pulling back a little when challenged with the obvious conclusion: 
why don't they just get rid of this house or kill all these people? 
It's not like she's not seeing the logic to the question. "They're 
not all bad" isn't a compliment.

It's like Slytherin's line to Harry about the world not being made 
up of good guys and Death Eaters. Sure people other than Death 
Eaters can be bad. And Death Eaters don't have to be "all bad" any 
more than Slytherins do--they can have good qualities. Doesn't make 
Death Eaters not "the bad guys" or clearly a bad group of people. 
The only person who's "all bad" is Voldemort but Slytherin is damned 
with faint praise the same way it's damned by the horrible behavior 
of its members that appear onscreen, even those who eventually rise 
above their disadvantages to the point where one wonder about the 
better person they might have been if they were Sorted into 
Gryffindor.

-m