Realistic Resolutions - WAS: Slytherins come back

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 180718

> Mike:
> But as Fudge and Scrimgeour allowed in "The Other Minister", the 
> other side can do magic too. Unless the DEs Imperiused the entire 
> ministry staff, and that's not the way I read that, there sure 
> seemed to be a lot of timid sheep in the WW. 
> <snip>
> 
> And from the looks of things, these same odds exist throughout the 
> Ministry. Adding to that, most likely not all of the department 
heads 
> are in favor of the new regime or have been Imperiused. Do you 
think 
> the DEs bothered to Imperiuse the head of maintenance, or any of 
the 
> maintenance workers. I doesn't look like Reg Cattermole was a 
> Voldemort supporter. How do these people continue doing their jobs 
> as if nothing has changed while their family members are being 
> persecuted?
> <SNIP> 

a_svirn:
Even worse, I got the impression that there was some sort of low-
level resistance at the Ministry. I mean, why would offices of the 
top officials suddenly start to "rain" all over the place? And for 
Arthur to know the counter-jinx, I suppose he needed to know the jinx 
in the first place, did he? We know that someone confused Dawlish, so 
that Dirk Cresswell could escape. But that sort of thing looks more 
like a teen-age rebellion, than a mature resistance. Something along 
the lines of what the members of DA were doing at Hogwarts to 
undermine first Umbridge's and then Snape's regime. In other words, 
pointless defiance that only makes things worse for everyone. Pranks 
like "raining offices" only made the life of the maintenance people 
more difficult, if not actually endanger them, and what sort of help 
is confusing Dawlish? Why couldn't they smuggle Dirk abroad? Or put 
him somewhere safe? No, they confused Dawlish, and washed their 
hands. No wonder he was run down and killed eventually. There are 
lots of thing they could have done for the muggle-borns that were 
targeted, there were ways I suppose for them to find replacement 
wands for those who were forced to relinquished theirs etc. And why 
did they never take the offensive?! 


> Mike:
> I know this is pointless to debate, but that never stopped me 
before. 
> <rbg> JKR began the WW rift (sickness?) with the founders. It has 
> proceeded to this point having the last and ultimate decendant of 
the 
> one founder versus the epitome of the other founder in a final 
duel. 
> I don't see how she could have made it more clear that this is it, 
> either the the good guys (Harry/Godric) win or the bad guys 
> (Tom/Salazar) win. But in either case the rift is over. One side is 
> going to win and consolidate the WW under their influence, their 
> credo, their way the world should work. According to that reading, 
my 
> reading, killing Voldemort was the cure. The rift has finally been 
> solved by removing one side of the equation.
> 
> Where does that leave Slytherin house? It's now up to them to 
realize 
> that their founder and his decendant shaped a false credo for their 
> followers and house. That pure-bloodism is a hateful and 
destructive 
> dogma undeserving of holding status in their house. They have to 
see 
> how Voldemort exploited them by feeding this false credo to his 
> followers to their and his destruction. 

a_svirn:
But if they realise all that, why on earth would they even want to be 
in Slytherin? Or, for that matter, why the WW would want to put up 
with Slytherin House? Slytherin is all about purebloodism and 
Realpolitik, remove both and there would be nothing left.  It is one 
thing to forgive or redeem, or whatever the members of, say, SS who 
saw errors of their ways at last, but no one in their right mind 
would want to *reform* SS. So I'd say that Rowling set up a problem 
that has no resolution. You can't change the Nazi ideology into 
something acceptable. You can only renounce it, but in doing so you'd 
have to renounce the Nazi institutions as well. Whereas Rowling 
supposedly expects from Slytherins to change while still remaining 
Slytherins. That can't possibly work. 


> Mike: 
> You may also not like that house elves are still slaves. <snip>
> 
> The point being, JKR created these enchanted characters to be what 
> they are. And instead of the object lesson being something about 
> slavery, it was how not to impose your beliefs on others without 
> consulting those others to see what they want. 

a_svirn:
I daresay she could have found a less disgusting way to demonstrate 
it. Besides, this way it looks like *they* impose their beliefs on 
wizards with impunity. I mean look how happily wizards settled into 
being slave-owners. Why should they give up their beliefs to 
accommodate elves? Unless of course they have no real objection to 
slavery, after all.

> Mike: 
They're not humans, 
> they are magical creatures with no parallel in the real world. The 
> same thing goes for goblins. 

a_svirn:
Actually it doesn't. Goblins are by no means happy with the status 
quo. 

> Mike: 
You might as well condemn the WW for 
> keeping the merpeople in the lake. They can't survive outside of 
> that lake, however unfair that is for their freedom.

a_svirn:
No one *keeps* them in the lake any more that they *keep* centaurs in 
the forest. They *live* there and try to keep their habitat safe from 
the encroaching wizards. 

a_svirn