I actually liked Slughorn, since you're looking for people who like him. That's the thing about generalizations based on perceptions. All it takes is one with a contrary view to collapse your entire argument.

And he hid the memory because he was ashamed of it. He realized the horror of what he had done when he answered that question.

Was the act cowardly?

Yes, definitely. But it also makes him human. It also shows that he sincerely regrets the part he played in Voldemort's rise, no matter how small.

 

I kinda liked Slughorn as a character, but if he was a real person, I'm not sure I would find him likable.

Also, he was still only one character. It doesn't change how the rest of the Slytherin was generalized as being "bad".

 

1) Maybe only Slytherins supported Umbridge (though there is Marietta Edgecombe, but we don't know that all Slytherins supported Umbridge.

2) No Slytherins were given an oppourtunity to join the DA.

3) 99% of the villains were not Slytherin. Hyperbole does not help your case. There were what 20 odd named bad guys total in the 7 books, of those at least one (Pettigrew) is a known Gryffindor and for about half of them we have no idea what house they were in. Even if every other bad guy was slytherin, 19/20 = 95%, not 99%. We know for certain that not all Death Eaters came from Slytherin house since someone like Karkaroff exists who almost certainly didn't go to Hogwarts.

4) You are looking at a small subset of a population and assuming that subset is representative of a whole. You have insufficient evidence to suggest that it is representative, particularly when you're looking at a highly skewed and biased sample like this. And certainly there is some evidence to suggest it's not wholly representative, you yourself listed some nice examples.

I really don't see why you are so fervent in your arguments and completely unwilling to see any sort of nuance in the situation.

 

Do you remember Harry when he was caught by the Snatchers in DH? They asked him what's his Hogwarts House and he said "Slytherin" assuming that was what they wanted to hear. Harry was right.

There's a pattern of bad guys being in Slytherin.

 

Some of his defining traits were that he was charming and likable.

That's your point of view and you are free to have it. The fact that there were decent Slytherins in canon is enough to convince me that they weren't the bad apples you're painting them to be.

 

I'm not painting them all as bad. Sure there were a couple of Slytherins who were decent people. This doesn't change that the overwhelming majority of Slytherins we see in canon are really, really bad.

 

That proves absolutely nothing and doesn't address any of the points that I raised in my post.

 

It does prove that it's safe assume the Death Eaters are Slytherins. Harry does it and he was proven right.

Also, didn't Karkaroff say something like "good,old Hogwarts" when he first appeared, implying that he probably was in fact a Hogwarts student?

 

Snatchers aren't Death Eaters, Bellatrix makes a point of that. It proves that muggleborns are less likely to be in Slytherin and the snatchers were looking for muggleborns.

 

guys you are making Slughorn a good guy just because he wasn't blood prejudiced, evil as in actively killed people, and didnt follow Voldemort.

Fact was that he was Spider or King Maker who didnt like limelight but made decisions behind the throne. He favored Harry coz he got the prestige using harry just as Ron used to get that I am harry potter's best friend. Dumbledore himself warned harry against Slughorn's manipulations...

Point is person needs not be murderer to be evil, good people can subtaly manipulate and have other people killed and that makes them even more dangerous.

 

Slughorn was a bit blood prejudiced. Didn't he show surprise that a muggleborn would be talented when we first show him?

 

You do realize that stupidity does not mean a lack of ambition. For all we know, while not as cunning as others, they have ambition to do well in life nonetheless. You and GreekLady just spends your time sprouting your opinions and treating them as fact.

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That's not an evil person. It's an opportunist and, to be honest, a very clever use of his influence. We see that Slughorn actually cares for a lot of his protégé (think Lily and Harry), and he fought against Voldemort in Book 7.

 

Agreed that and he totally overlooked Ron and Arthur (Remember molly telling) for being insignificant... that ain't criteria for being "good" "light" Dumbledore's man

 

At what point did Slughorn do anything that could be considered evil? He liked to be connected to famous or powerful people. While such a position may be used to gain influence which could be used for nefarious purposes, there is absolutely no suggestion that it was used for such purposes. And he does engage in a number of good deeds in DH. I think this comes back to a core premise of the problem in this thread, just because someone is ambitious or cunning in some way, does not by definition make them a bad person.

 

He never cared for harry other then for harry's fame or lily's alleged potion legend. then he care for all others like ron too... he is ambitious opportunist and what he did my manipulating Hagrid to get venom was not something a good guy do... it would only someone Slytherin do... proving the point

 

To be fair he seemed to care about Lily a bit. Didn't he weep when he and Harry talked about her death?

 

Slytherin is rooted and branched in pureblood ideology? If this, ahem, pureblood ideology is the bias against muggleborn wizards and witches, then you are mistaken.

I'll refer to you Taure's post in the first page of this thread, in which he links Pottermore and says,

Here, I'll link you, https://www.pottermore.com/writing-b...-malfoy-family


It tells us that this ideaology that there is an inherent inferiority of all things muggle and muggleborn is actually a recent (by 1990s standards) one, and so, the Slytherin House did not root itself in pureblood dogma.

ThatGreekLady.

Furthermore, the notion of Slytherin having almost all DEs is an undeniable fact, but, before you go on saying "I was right!", answer me this, if you were to create a radical group, who would you recruit first, someone from another city (House) you don't know, or those that you have lived with for years, studied with, played with, ate and slept with? The answer is easy. It is the latter option.

We have about 20 or so Death Eaters we know i.e. named DEs, and from Harry's first year at Hogwarts alone, we have about say, 6-7 named Slytherins. So you can assume we have about 42 Slytherins in 7 generations (years). If Tom Riddle started making fellow Slytherins DEs in, say the year 1942, he would have about 38 years (till 1980) to complete his DE set.

Taking the 6 Slytherin-per-year figure, we multiply 38 by 6 and get 228. By all means, Voldemort should have 200 followers and more, but he has about 20 (give-or-take 3) followers, we can assume that about 208 of those Slytherins from the period of 1942 to 1980 did not follow him. So the fraction of DEs equal about, what, an eleventh of the total Slytherins?

TL;DR, Slytherins aren't evil.

 

That's your own narrow interpretation. What I got from that line was Dumbledore trying to say "Gee, Snape, you're a brave man," in a roundabout way.

Because sorting frequently goes by family - that is, those boys culturally belonged in Slytherin, despite not possessing Slytherin traits. And it doesn't have to be only one way - some students are sorted to Slytherin for their cultural background, some for their traits.

Btw, ThatGreekLady, you really need to stop projecting your opinions on others. Slughorn was actually one of the characters I found most likeable in the series.

By your logic, all Muslims are bad, because most terrorists are Muslims.

 

So he did things that benefitted him and yet did you notice that the things he did never hurt anyone? He helps the students who he believes have a future ahead of them, and he doesn't care about their lineage or house... For the most part.