Slytherin's Reputation was Re: CHAPDISC: DH, EPILOGUE

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185575

Shelley wrote:
> Wait, who in Slytherin was "hated on sight"? Seems to me that
Syltherin members, as Laura said, EARNS their reputation. Draco, as
the bully, earns his own name. The kids being the sons and daughters
of death eaters, scowling at the Mudbloods, earns them the reputation.
Sorry, but Rowling doesn't show us one Syltherin who doesn't earn the
reputation as a whole, any single individual who defies the group to
be a good person. I don't see where even oneSyltherin was "hated on
sight"- Rowling is clear to introduce  each of them "joining the gang"
as it were, to earn the reputation.

Carol responds:

I think that "The Prince's Tale" shows another story, with James
hating Severus on sight, or at least sneering at him and judging him,
simply because he wants to be in Slytherin (which he apparently has
been told is the House for "brains" while Gryffindor is the House for
"brawn"). And Sirius, who apparently till that moment expected to be
Sorted into Slytherin like everyone else in his (extended) family,
joins in the sneering, labeling Severus "Snivellus" with no cause.
(Some of us assumed that he and James had at least seen Severus
"snivelling" by some definition of the term, but that turns out not to
be the case.)

Only four Slytherins that we know of are sons of Death Eaters (no DE's
daughters are identified), and one of the four, theodore Nott, ignores
Harry until his own father is arrested and even then does nothing
worse than whsper to Draco in Potions class. You can't assume that all
Slytherins are DEs' children (we don't see any Rowles or Yaxleys or
Dolohovs or Macnairs in Slytherin--the Lestranges we know to be
childless--nor do we know of any DEs called Parkinson or Bulstrode or
Flint or Montague or Warrington (last names of some of the few
Slytherins known to Harry), and we know for sure (HBP) that Blaise
Zabini, for all his Pure-Blood snobbery, also turns up his nose at
Death Eaters. In any case, if it's wrong for Snape to judge Harry
based on his arrogant, rule-breaking bully of a father, it's wrong to
judge the four Slytherins we know to be children of DES based on the
sins of their DE fathers. (We can, however, judge Draco, Crabbe, and
Goyle, at least, based on their own behavior. We don't, IMO, know
enough about Theo to judge him. I feel rather sorry for him,
actually--motherless, raised by an elderly DE father, then to all
intents and purposes fatherless, too, when his injured father is
arrested after the MoM fiasco.)

Carol, also noting the narrator's remark in HBP with regard to Blaise
Zabini that Slytherins and Gryffindors "loathed each other on
principle" (Am. ed. 143), an unthinking, mutual prejudice in which
neither gives the other a chance to prove worthy of friendship or
admiration