Slytherins come back WAS: Re: My Most Annoying Character/Now Rowling's control

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 180656

> >>Pippin:
> I don't get it. Somehow Voldemort isn't getting credit for finding
> a way to take over the WW without a fight.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
The reason I'm not giving Voldemort much credit for it was that DH 
made it appear so insultingly easy.  (Insulting for the WW, anyway.)  
I never got the sense that Voldemort could have succeeded as he did 
in the RW, so it wasn't even creepy in an "informing on real life" 
kind of way.  Instead I found myself rolling my eyes at how easily 
lead the citizens of the WW were.  And seeing it as yet another 
symptom of that horrible sickness they're all suffering from.

> >>Pippin:
> Voldemort doesn't need to publicly kill large numbers of wizards at 
> once -- that sort of crude display is for Muggles.  Yes, it doesn't 
> seem very scary that in the background lots of people are           
> disappearing or being killed, or tortured or made into refugees,   
> because it's all happening very far away from Harry. And that, if   
> you think about it, is pretty scary too. And very true to life. 

Betsy Hp:
Honestly, I think it's pretty darn *un*realistic.  If his world were 
really under this sort of attack, Harry would notice.  Except for 
some reason JKR takes him off-screen and tucks him away in a little 
apartment in the woods.  It's an odd story-telling choice, to my 
mind.  Usually when societies collapse, those living in the society 
*do* feel it.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > Seriously, for me, Draco and Snape were the "face" of Slytherin.
> > That they didn't get redeemed in the end, that Harry never 
> > really saw them as people (that name thing doesn't work for me, 
> > too little, too late, too lame), and that *they* never got a
> > chance to change was the biggest failure of the books, IMO.

> >>Pippin:
> Change into what? A useful citizen? An honored hero of the past?
> Oh wait, they did that.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Change into fully formed human beings. Which, granted, would have put 
them ahead of the rest of the cast.  But I'd been hoping for more 
from the rest of the gang, too. <g>

> >>Pippin:
> I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like you want Draco and     
> Snape to be redeemed, it sounds like you want them to be co-       
> redeemers with Harry.

Betsy Hp:
Yeah, to a certain extent I did.  I expected Harry to grow himself 
(though I figured he had a smaller way to go than Draco and Snape), 
and through his growth heal his world.  Instead, nothing changed. 

> >>Pippin:
> <pulled out of order>
> Both were freed from evil and slavery, which is what redemption    
> means. 
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Hm, I'd say Snape died a slave, honestly.  He certainly wasn't his 
own man.  And I don't think Draco was ever really freed either.

But, in a deeper sense, the WW is still embroiled in evil and 
slavery.  Voldemort was the manifestation of the sickness the WW is 
suffering from, but killing him didn't effect a cure.  Heck, Harry 
didn't even address the issue.  And so the WW is still horribly 
stratified and bigoted, ripe for another Dark Lord to appear.  Oh, 
and slavery still very much exists.

Betsy Hp