CHAPTER DISCUSSION PS/SS 10, THE HALLOWEEN

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 188381

 
> Alla:
> 
> We do not of course, but this is the most extrapolation I am willing to grant based on what we do see and based on me thinking that Snape is not typical Slytherin. And of course we NEVER see unless we are talking about Snape Slytherin saving somebody they do not like. 

Pippin:
If you're prepared to argue that a behavior is typical when you admit you can't document it even once, I don't know how to answer you.

But as  for saving people they don't like, Narcissa saved Harry from Voldemort. Draco lowered his wand against Dumbledore and  refused to identify the Trio until it no longer mattered. Slughorn came back to the aid of all the Hogwartians, not just the ones he liked.  He fought side by side with McGonagall, who suspected him of planning treachery, and Shacklebolt, whom he probably doesn't know. Regulus's plan, had it been successful, would have saved everyone, Muggles and Muggleborns included.


 
> Alla:
> 
> So let me ask you a question in turn before I answer yours. So we have books, which **SORT** young people in Houses based on the idea that supposedly one trait of their personality is so dominant, just SO DOMINANT that they need to be sorted in the house where presumably all other people have ONE or two at most personalities trait prevail.
> 
> These houses are left standing at the end of the books, all four of them, nothing changed that all four personality types can mingle with each other and live and learn from each other.

Pippin:
Huh? House segregation is not so absolute as you suggest. Many activities, most importantly NEWT classes, are mixed.  Advancement, in a literal sense, requires being able to work with others outside one's own House. Also, it seems that few people are a perfect fit for one House and one alone, since the Hat has to take some time with many of them.
 
 Of course I don't think it's  plausible that people can be classed in four personality types based on the four elements, but it might be possible that everyone's mind does not work the same way, and that the different ways that people think  complement each other. Would it matter whether people valued  power, wisdom, loyalty or courage the most if they could only realize there is one thing which is the greatest source of all of them?  I don't think I have to tell you what JKR shows it is :) 

In any case, I was talking about *negative* stereotypes which have grown up around the Houses and are never mentioned by the Sorting Hat. Hufflepuffs are duffers, Gryffindors are brainless, etc. I think Slytherins save their own skins first is one of them. It is, IMO, shown to be as empty and harmful as any of the others, even if some Slytherins, like Phineas, actually believe it. Draco believed it. He didn't expect to have any trouble carrying out his mission on the Tower. But, you know, even in the Potterverse, believing something doesn't make it true.

Pippin