CHAPTER DISCUSSION PS/SS 10, THE HALLOWEEN

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 188384


> Pippin:
> Regulus's plan, had it been successful, would have saved
> everyone, Muggles and Muggleborns included.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I do not get this.

Carol:

Maybe Pippin means that Regulus *thought* that his plan would save everybody, or, rather, that it would ultimately destroy Voldemort by making him mortal? Regulus didn't realize that LV had multiple Horcruxes.

Alla:
<snip> 
> And um, where are intelligent Hufflepufs? There was Cedric who I guess must have been intelligent if chosen as Champion. And???

Carol:
Ernie Macmillan? Admittedly, he studied more than anyone except possibly Hermione, but getting good marks because you study doesn't mean that you're not intelligent, as Hermione shows. Ernie must have earned an O in Potions or he couldn't have been in the NEWT Potions class. And I suspect that he got high marks on all his OWLs, with the possible exception of COMC.

Nor do Hannah Abbott and Justin Finch-Fletchley (who gave up Eton to attend Hogwarts) seem at all stupid. Hannah just lacks confidence, rather like Neville. I wouldn't call Zacharias Smith stupid even though we're supposed to see him as obnoxious and cowardly. Can't think of any others offhand, but I would say that Hagrid's remark about Hufflepuffs being "duffers" is wholly unjustified. It's strange and a bit ironic that he holds a view similar to Draco's ("Imagine being in Hufflepuff. I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"), which, of course, is identical to James Potter's view of Slytherin.

Hufflepuffs (with a few exceptions) are loyal, hardworking, and, as the Sorting Hat says in SS/PS, just. In other words, for the most part, they're all-around decent people, not "duffers" at all. That view is no more justified than little Severus's view that Gryffindors are all brawn and no brain or the idea (refuted by Snape, Regulus, Slughorn, and Andromeda Black Tonks) that all Slytherins are evil.

Oddly, the only House that we don't see stereotyped in some way is Ravenclaw (though an individual Ravenclaw, Luna, is ridiculed as an oddball). Possibly the other students think of Ravenclaws as "swots" or know-it-alls or eggheads, to use an American term, but we never see that because Ravenclaws play such a small role in the series.

Carol, just realizing that Harry fits the "nerd" stereotype (skinny with glasses) and noting that the Ravenclaws in general *don't*
>