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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 183325

> > 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:
She set up the Ravenclaws in OOP.
--
A line of fourth-year Ravenclaws was crossing the entrance hall; they
caught sight of Harry and hurried to form a tighter group, as though
frightened he might attack stragglers.

"Yeah, we really ought to be trying to make friends with people like
that," said Harry sarcastically, -OOP ch 12.
--
Harry eventually befriends Luna -- but he never thinks of her as a
Good Ravenclaw, or proof that not all Ravenclaws are like the ones who
were afraid of him, or, heaven forfend, a model of what a decent
Ravenclaw should be like. 

The same with Cedric. Dumbledore says that Cedric represents the 
qualities that distinguish Hufflepuff House, but they're qualities
that anyone would like to have. Cedric valued loyalty, hard work and
fair play.  As did Snape and Regulus, and even Draco, though Draco's
perception of what's fair is  skewed by his belief that purebloods
deserve the best of everything, as Snape's is skewed by his longing
for revenge on James.


> 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. 

Pippin:
But you'd only see it if you were disposed to be fair and if your
experiences lent themselves to a fair assessment. They might not, if
there was a subgroup of a group of kids who made it their mission to
make life unpleasant for you, and a subgroup of adults, formerly
members of that group, who were trying to kill you. Canon shows us
exactly what that's like.

We know that  Harry  can be  unfair and not realize it. There's a
subgroup of Slytherins who tried to make things bad for Harry and a
subgroup of former Slytherins who tried to kill him. We know that
the narrator does not give us a fair or inclusive picture of Muggles,
and this is never corrected. 

Under those circumstances, should we expect either the
narrator's or Harry's experience of Slytherin to be "realistic" ie,
reflective of what we assume to be the fictional reality of JKR's
world? Isn't it more realistic that it wouldn't be? 

Pippin