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

[jkoney65]

No: HPFGUIDX 185627

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "julie" <juli17 at ...> wrote:
>
> Julie:
> Just curious, but how do you know it is a "vocal minority"
> that noticed or felt a lack of resolution or redemption of
> the Slytherins after reading the books? This list itself is
> a very tiny minority of readers, and I'm not sure I could
> assert that a minority on *this* list read the passage as
> McGonagall justly expelling the entirety of Slytherin House
> as a dangerous, traitorous, racist element. 
> 
> In fact, in an interview JKR was asked why no Slytherins 
> came back to fight, and she replied "But of course they did."
> This indicates to me that not only a few readers on this 
> list were left wondering about the Slytherins and the lack
> of definite resolution to their story in the books. Whether
> it adds up to a minority or a majority I don't know--and I
> don't know how we really would without a survey on the 
> subject representing a cross-section of all HP readers.
> 
> Julie, who would find such a survey of general readers'
> interpretations and feelings about different aspects of
> the HP books very interesting, and no doubt illuminating
> to read, whatever it revealed.

jkoney:
I guess it would seem like a vocal minority because other than this 
group I hadn't run across anyone else in other groups or people that 
I personally know who read the book who ever brought it up. I realize 
that isn't a scientific survey, but it certainly makes it seem like a 
minority to me.

"But of course they did" seemed to me that JKR thought it was obvious 
enough through the story and the epilogue where the house still 
existed that it didn't have to be spelled out. And since I was 
thinking that way myself, and hadn't heard many others question it, 
it would never have occurred to me to question it.

In my opinion I also didn't think that it was that big of a plot 
point that needed a definite resolution. But I also never believed 
that Slytherin's were completely evil. Mabe nasty pieces of work, but 
that doesn't make all of them killers.