To kill or not to kill and resolutions of the storyline/ Slytherins (LONG )

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 185598

> Alla:
> Why can't the exit of the Slytherins be the event that IS of interest 
> to the author in her own right? And why can't their return be just 
> something secondary that she knows happened, but that she could care 
> less about in order to write about it clearly?
> 
<snip> 
> Why can't the exit of Slytherins for her be something that she cared 
> to show not for the sake of Slytherins as group, but for example  the 
> sake of Mcgonagall kicking them all out due to the actions of few? 
> Maybe she wanted us to reflect upon THAT first and foremost? Mind 
> you, I could care less about what Minerva did, I find it extremely 
> justifiable and necessary after Pantsy's act, but I can see how she 
> wanted to make a point that no, maybe what she did was not right at 
> all.

Montavilla47:
I think that you are correct in thinking that JKR was thinking of 
the Slytherins leaving as the important thing--and that the 
return was unimportant.  But I don't think that the importance of 
their leaving was that McGonagall threw out all the Slytherins based 
on the actions of a few.

Because, honestly, I doubt that we'd be reflecting on that at all,
if it weren't for a vocal minority of fans who felt that the Slytherins
needed to come back at the end (and that JKR didn't actually 
write them coming back).

I think that if it *were* important to JKR to highlight McGonagall's
prejudice in employing House profiling, then she needed to 
also highlight the folly in doing that in terms of her own story.  She
can't count on her readers to connect that to, say, the current 
enthusiasm for racial profiling and figure out that McGonagall was
being unfair. 

Again, if it weren't for the vocal minority, we'd simply read that
passage as McGonagall justly expelling the dangerous, traitorous,
racist element from the school.  

That they are allowed back in eventually could easily be 
explained by the secret contributions of Regulus and Snape, 
and Slughorn's return, and the realization that the Slytherins
are, like Peeves and the moldy hallways, something to be 
tolerated.  Why, some of them are even all right.