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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 185614

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "k12listmomma"
<k12listmomma at ...> wrote:

> Pippin, I hate to say this, but I see you arguing "ideology"- ie, we
should  not hate all Slytherins, we should not be prejudiced- BUT, we
have to read  the books as they were written. 

Pippin:
Let me clarify. I  think the *characters* should question their
prejudice against Slytherins, and the rhetorical questions I've
snipped are directed at the characters' attitudes. I'm asking whether
*their* actions are justified.

I am not trying to be judgmental of any reader's feelings -- your
reaction to the book is your reaction, and it's not right or wrong.

 I agree that the books are almost guaranteed to incite anti-Slytherin
feeling in the readers. The question is, to what end?

Many of us thought that much of DH would involve Harry discovering his
prejudice against Slytherin and struggling to overcome it. That he
*should* overcome it was a matter of faith (or ideology, if you
prefer), and some of us hoped to see that faith, sorely tried by
Dumbledore's murder, fulfilled.  

But it turned out to be a very minor matter. The book is much more
concerned with Harry's feelings about Dumbledore. Harry spends a lot
of time trying to sort out how much of what he'd  always believed
about him was true, and how much was propaganda and stereotypes.   I
don't think I've heard many readers claim that this struggle was
poorly written.

Some people were disappointed, even if they believe that Harry did
overcome some of his prejudice towards Slytherin, not to see more of
that struggle in the book. They felt that JKR failed in some way by
not depicting it. 

But I don't think JKR's purpose was to depict Harry struggling  to
make sense of Slytherin and decide what attitude towards them was
appropriate.  I think she left that ambiguous on purpose.

I think she wanted us to  learn, not through Harry's attempt to make
sense of the Slytherins but through our own. The process would have to
be the same one that Harry went through with Dumbledore, deciding how
much of what we think about Slytherin is true, and how much we have
derived from propaganda and stereotypes. Of course JKR created the
propaganda and referenced the stereotypes, but that doesn't mean, IMO,
that she wanted us to swallow them whole. 


Of course the book is designed to give us a negative view of
Slytherins and to create a stereotypical view of their behavior. 

But was that so we can have some characters we can feel good about
despising, or was it so we can experience firsthand how prejudice
develops  and how stereotypes affect our interpretation of what we
see? Or was it both, like the illustration that shows either a young
woman or an old one? It's almost impossible to perceive both at once,
but neither interpretation is wrong in the sense that the drawing was
not intentionally designed to be seen that way. 

What we decide, or whether we want to play this game at all, or
whether this is a sensible way to write a book, is entirely up to us
as readers. Again, I'm not saying this is how anyone is supposed to
read the book. I don't think many children are capable of thinking
this way, but let me make clear that I'm not saying this is the mature
way to read the book either. 

It's just how I read it. Just because JKR gives the reader reasons to
*feel* that the Slytherins are all bad, or mostly bad, doesn't mean
that is how she wants the reader to *think.*

Shelley:
 I really wish Rowling had  given us just ONE Syltherin whom we could
point to that fought against Voldemort, who spoke up for the Mudbloods
and the oppressed, as an example  that not all were like that, but
Rowling doesn't, and because she doesn't,  we simply have to assume
that there wasn't one.

Pippin:
She gives us loads of examples, IMO, it's just that some readers keep
finding reasons not to count them. 

For example, Regulus doesn't count because he's not a current student.
Draco doesn't count because he didn't renounce blood-ism.  Slughorn
doesn't count because he's snobbish. Narcissa doesn't count because
she was selfish. Andromeda doesn't count because Harry never
explicitly thinks of her as a Slytherin. Snape doesn't count because
he might have been a Gryffindor if he'd been sorted later in life. (So
might many others.) 

And yet they all risked their lives to defy Voldemort and they all
helped to save innocent lives. If they'd done as much against the
Nazis, IMO they'd have memorials at Vad Yashem. 

Pippin