Loose Ends, (was Epilogue (was Re: Ron and Parseltongue)

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 183323

 
> Pippin:
> Trouble is, a reversed negative stereotype is still a stereotype. 
It's
> still a preconceived image, and it's demeaning. It's  a message 
about
> how members of a certain group should behave which other groups are
> presumed not to need. Nobody thinks JKR let us down by not showing 
us
> a Good Ravenclaw or a Good Hufflepuff, right? 

Potioncat:
But she also didn't set them up as something. Well, actually she did. 
She set poor Hufflepuff up as duffers--then gave us Cedric. Who 
promptly turned around and got himself killed.


>Pippin: 
> If we had a Good Slytherin, then we'd be dividing Slytherins into 
Good
> Slytherins and Bad Slytherins, and I'd hate to think that's what JKR
> wants us to do when real groups are being criticized. If all the
> Slytherins (or the Muggles) are bad in a certain way, it's because 
all
> humanity is bad in that way -- all of us are prejudiced, all of us
> look dumb to Insiders, and all of us are cowards when we've lost 
faith.

Potioncat:
But there are good kids and bad kids. Look around any high school for 
a while and you'll see it. The trouble comes if the perception is 
that all the bad kids come from one subset of the students. Now, if 
kids from each subset are good or bad, that's different and that's 
what I expected to see in Slytherin. 

I don't see it as a loose thread so much, as a jolt. The other houses 
seem to be a fairly normal mix of 'character', but Slytherin is so 
very bad.


> Pippin:
>  Honestly, if the whole of canon doesn't convey the idea that
> stereotypes  are an obstacle to understanding, I don't know what 
would.

Potioncat:
And my favorite canon moment that sort of shows this is when Severus 
tells Lily he didn't mean to call "her" a Mudblood. (Obviously, she's 
different from the others.)


In Post 183322 Geoff wrote:
> But we /do/ have a bad Gryffindor. Peter Pettigrew. OK, not the 
same 
> generation, but they do exist.
>

Potioncat:
This is a better approach than what I started. We get to see 
Gryffindor, warts and all. Some of us are pretty upset at how badly 
this House can behave, but it's realistic. There should be good and 
bad, smart and stupid, hard-workers and lazy bums in each House. 

All we saw of Slytherin was bad kids. Many of us expected to see some 
good kids--at least one good Slytherin--some time in the story.