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

[jkoney65]

No: HPFGUIDX 185628

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> Carol responds:
> 
> Maybe you'd read it that way, but without ever having read anyone
> else's reaction, I was appalled by McGonagall's behavior (much as 
I'd
> been appalled by her calling Harry's Crucio gallant and following it
> up with an Imperius of her own). Even though not one slytherin
> supports Pansy, Mcgonagall dismisses the whole lot of them on the
> assumption that they're dangerous, having already informed slughorn
> that she would kill any Slytherin student who fought for Voldemort.
> That some of the Slytherins might actually want to support Hogwarts
> never enters her mind. *She* sees them all as "dangerous" and
> "traitorous" (I'm not sure that "racist" enters into the equation
> since McGonagall has never expressed a view one way or another on
> Pure-blood supremacy, which, in any case, is not race). The reader,
> however, does not necessarily share her views (which, IMO, are 
shaped
> by her belief that Headmaster Snape is a murderer and therefore the
> students who admire him or were Sorted into the same House are
> potential murderers).
> 
> Carol, who thinks that a "vocal minority" has nothing to do with it
> and suspects that *many* readers on their own were appalled by
> McGonagall's "Housist" assumptions
>

jkoney:
I guess the question is what would you have had McGonagall do? She 
has a short time to get a defense of the school organized. She is 
already getting rid of the younger students to try and protect them. 
She is left with a group whose loyalties she doesn't know. 

Should she let them all stay? We find out for sure that Crabbe and 
Goyle would have fought against the defenders. We don't know how many 
others would have. And that's the problem she doesn't either. She 
challenges Slughorn to pick a side, because he was probably doing his 
best before this to not pick a side.

So she is left with a short time and possible enemies in her defense 
of the school. She makes the best decision she can in that time and 
tells all of them to leave. Is it fair? No. But how else is she going 
to determine in that short time who is trustworthy?

I'm sure I would have made the same decision. 

jkoney