Slytherins are (*not* ) bad (was:Re: Severus as friend)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 183345

> Magpie:
> "Jerks on occasion" is not being a jerk. I really don't think the 
> author would say her good guys are jerks at all (in fact for some 
> characters I'm not so sure she'd *ever* admit to them being jerks).

Pippin:
She'd never say that her good guys bullied, were bigoted, or were
manipulated by Voldemort? I'd guess she hasn't read the books, then
<g>. The good guys do not always do these things by mistake, nor
always realize that they've made a mistake.

JKR does say that she believes people are innately good unless they're
very damaged. It's probably true that damaged people are more welcome
in Slytherin. But even that wouldn't make it true that all Slytherins
are damaged. 

"Bad Guy" is a stereotype. But canon isn't divided into good people
and Slytherins, it is at every moment divided into people who are
choosing what is right and people who are choosing what is easy. JKR
believes, and the books show, that it's easier to make that choice if
you're brave. 

But she also shows that no House has a patent on bravery. Gryffindor
believed that he should choose the bravest people for his house, and
the hat tries to do this. But that doesn't stop other people from
being brave. Anyway, the part of the brave is not to make everyone
else as brave as they are (how could they?) but to use their courage
to protect others, as the Cloak does.

> Magpie:
> Why wouldn't the Hat be able look into your head and tell whether
you  have Pureblood? 

Pippin:
There's not supposed to be any detectable physical or magical
difference between people from all-magical families  and everyone
else. If there were, discrimination on that basis wouldn't be
automatically be racist. It would be perfectly valid to have a House
reserved for the different needs or abilities of those students, IMO. 
    
But bloodism in the WW is a bogus concept based on outmoded science,
like phlogiston, or aether, or the Aryan bloodism which it parodies.
If no one imagines there's a difference between the blood status of
one wizard and another, it ought to be impossible for the hat to pick
the purebloods out, and Slytherin House will no longer be swayed by
that ideology.  I understood that's what JKR meant by saying that the
pureblood influence was going to be diluted. 

Magpie"
 I think Alla's point still stands that  saying "My school is going to
be very academically challenging so you  have to be a certain
intellectual level to get in" is different than  saying "No Jews." 

Pippin:
Not in the way you think <g>. You're not supposed to be able to
increase your IQ by studying, OTOH anybody can become a Jew-by-choice.
But I personally as a Jew don't have a problem with a school that
excludes Jews because its mission is to teach members of another
faith, as long as the intent or the result isn't that Jews receive an
inferior education. That's not the case at Hogwarts. No one is saying
that Muggleborns at Hogwarts don't get the finest magical education
there is.

Pippin