Rehumanizing the Slytherins

[sagedarkwoods]

This is the shorter version of an essay I presented at the Popular Culture Association conference on Thursday April 9. If you would like the full essay (be warned, it's 20 pages), send me a message.

Comments

[pathology_doc]

the audience sees Slytherins as the Other, the enemy, the ones to be loathed simply because they exist.

It's ludicrous and simplistic to claim this, and you know it. Slytherin House is seen as evil by Harry/the reader for very good reasons, the first of which is Draco Malfoy - a spoiled, bigoted, hateful little shit just like Dudley Dursley, who goes out of the way to conflate his own twisted values with those of his House even before he's sorted into it. Harry is quite justified in not wanting to be in Slytherin House, given that Draco claimed to typify the kind of child who was sorted into it.

Slytherin House's troubles began when Tom Riddle started there - IMO it was he who turned the place into a cesspit of vileness. Before that, the worst you could have said about Slytherin was that it attracted self-serving opportunists like Horace Slughorn, and the odd pureblood bigot who didn't as yet have a focus for his evil and who might still be told by his classmates to shut up or apologize if he said the M word. THAT's the real

[shiftingpath]

"Harry was never able to see any other face of Slytherin but the one that was presented to him - hostility, bigotry, foul play, cruelty and eventually outright evil. Why not? Because he was too busy trying to stay alive and sane in the face of everything it was throwing at him. He wasn't God, and he was busy enough saving himself and his friends from imminent death without being able to worry about who might, or might not, need saving from within the pit of vipers that was assailing him."

And yet for all he's the saviour of the wizarding world, for all his sacrifices and good deeds, there's no mention of "redeeming" Slytherin, no attempt to turn the other cheek. He returns hostility and foul play with more of the same, and it's the only way he deals with Slytherin.

[zanesfriend]

Well, for crying out loud, he was between 11 and 17; one can hardly expect an old head on young shoulders. And in the Epilogue he did tell his son that there would be no shame in being sorted into Slytherin, so we know that his attitude matured over the years.

[losyark]

Pathology: I think, respectfully, that you've missed the point. You're attacking the argument based on the idea that the essay is saying "Slytherin = not evil" and use the examples of the evil acts that occur within the books and are perpetrated by Slytherins as proof that yes, "Slytherin = evil

[lynnella]

I'd appreciate a copy of it - my email is ilovelucille89@gmail.com.

[chu_totoro]

I'd like a copy, too. :3 a.bar.of.soap@gmail.com, please.

[color_me_amazin]

I would like a copy as well please. :) erinrecord2@gmail.com

[dianaprallon]

I'd be really pleased if you sent me a copy of the whole paper. =D

dianaprallon at gmail.com