I seem to recall that Slughorn threw this fancy party, not long after being on the run for a year and lots of people showed up. Malfoy tried to crash that party. Slughorn has friends. Harry didn't particularly like him, but I don't recall all other students disliking him. Some may have joined the Slug Club for networking/whatever reason (like Harry), but I think it's safe to assume that some students just liked him and may have been flattered by the invitation.

That doesn't make him a bad person, it just makes him human. Not like he was actively hurting anyone by concealing what most people weren't looking for anyway. Good people don't consist of virgin white knights. Harry wasn't a personification of pure virtue.

 

The discussion is going in a way where one side tries to relativize concepts such as good and evil, while the other keeps sprouting more and more poorly interpreted parts of the books that, surprise surprise, they twist so to confirm their views.

I get the impression we won't be getting anywhere. Just to add my two cents, though, I'll say that good and evil don't exist outside your own head.

 

Even the non-Death Eater Slytherins were pretty bad. Umbridge was not a Death Eater but she was pure evil (and a Slytherin). Pretty much all Slytherin students in Harry's time were total jerks (unless you manage to show me one example of a decent one)

 

Ron trashed Slytherin in CoS when he said he would rather go home than be a Slytherin. Yes McLaggen and Smith were not very nice guys but not even close to how nasty Draco was.

Do we ever meet likable Slytherins like we meet likable, decent people from the other houses? Pretty much all Slytherin students were described as nasty little shits.

"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old loony, but I never knew he started all this pure-blood stuff. I wouldn't be in his house if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I'd've got the train straight back home..."
—Ron Weasley expressing his claims about Slytherin's views

 

Fact: Slytherin did not start the Pureblood stuff. He expressed his disagreement with teaching muggleborn children as he felt them to be a security risk. The pureblood ideology started taking form following the institution of the Statute of Secrecy.

Draco was also a kid raised by parents who were, by definition, terrorists. I'm assuming he was under a lot of pressure. His most heinous act has been to try and kill Dumbledore under the threat of Voldemort killing his family should he failed. His other actions were pretty much on par with any other kind of bully you can find in a school, which I would qualify as bad and yet not evil.

We've provided you with plenty of examples of Slytherin alumni who are likable and decent. However, you just seem to dismiss them out of hand because 'we don't see enough of them (Andromeda Tonks)' or according to you not decent (Slughorn), which are personal opinion and not fact. You want us to provide fact and yet you failed to provide it yourself.

Sure, we haven't seen much "good" Slytherin. We have seen a shit load of "evil" other houses however, or at least according to your standard. After all, Harry had the whole school against him (or almost) when he was entered into the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Now, you might argue that they were misinformed, but they were not. Harry publicly said he had not entered his name. Now if they were not misinformed, what were they? They must have been evil for their action of bullying an innocent child is evil, no? They actually sided with Malfoy in this instance and since Malfoy is evil (according to you, again), then surely they must be evil as well for following in his footsteps and encouraging it.

Do you see how stupid your arguments are now? Your initial question had merits. The answers you received, however, did not fit with your personal opinion and you have since then refused to accept logical arguments or facts provided to you, multiple times. You're happy to hide behind what you perceived as right and yet have failed to prove, multiple times.

Please do us a favor and stop.

 

Did you miss the part where I was talking about Slytherin "students"?

Also, those likable Slytherins you mentioned were like exceptions to the rule.

If Slytherins are overall likable, decent guys why do people like Ron, Hagrid and even Harry have a very bad opinion of them?

I can excuse Harry and Ron for being kids, but Hagrid is like 70 years old.

 

Ahhh of course, when we find something to counter your arguments it's an expection. Instead of giving us something hard and substantial you dissmiss what we say out of convience. What didn't I thought of that back in school? Would have made discussion soo much easier. Instead I had to argue, use proof, take on the poinst of my peers and use facts to disprove them.

Maybe those are things you should try one day.

Also why we only meet "bad" slytherins could be explained by taking Harry stance. We only meet his really close friends and rivals in school. He might had a few talks with Sally-Anne (before she stept back into the mirror of erised of course) or was to forced to work with Daphne, but its so unnesseray that we didnt hear of it. We dont see all slytherins so we must work with what we have. And we pretty much have, no not all of them are bad guys and not all bad guys are slytherin.

 

Age doesn't exactly mean you're free from prejudices, no matter how much you insist it's based on experience rather than irrational hatred. If anything, older people tend to be more set in their ways, and Hagrid has had an expulsion and a war in which he lost friends and acquaintances to foster his dislike.

 

We've provided explanation for the current slytherin student acting the way they are. I'm sure you can find it if you take the time to actually read the arguments that have been provided to you in both threads.

Your opinion. Here are the facts. Only 50% of all Slytherin shown can be considered "evil" according to your standards. One quarter is confirmed "good" and the other quarter had either not enough information (who could be considered good, except for their prejudice which I think you're going to use as an example of their "evilness" so I flagged them as Unknown).

That sample of 22 individuals spread over hundred of years is in no way a good indication of the tendencies of Slytherin students toward "evilness".

Spoiler

• Merlin +
• Horace Slughorn +
• Severus Snape + (Bad in his youth, good guy in the end, right?)
• Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort) -
• Bellatrix Lestrange (nee Black) -
• Narcissa Malfoy (nee Black) - (Values her family above all else, which is a good trait)
• Andromeda Tonks (nee Black) +
• Lucius Malfoy -
• Phineas Nigellus Black +
• Regulus Arcturus Black + (Wanted to please his family, destroyed the Horcrux)
• Avery -
• Mulciber -
• Gemma Farley X (No idea, she was the slytherin prefect in Year 1)
• Dolores Umbridge -

1991-1997 school year

• Adrian Pucey X (Good guy who didn't cheat during Quidditch. No more info. No reason to believe him to be "evil")
• Blaise Zabini X (Prejudiced, but otherwise took no part in the war. He actually fled in DH)
• Draco Malfoy -
• Gregory Goyle -
• Marcus Flint X (Prejudiced, but otherwise took no part in the war.)
• Millicent Bulstrode - (Part of the Inquisitorial Squad. Basically a bully who took the opportunity that presented itself. We don't know what she did in 7th year. She's a halfblood.)
• Pansy Parkinson -
• Terence Higgs X (Pretty swell Quidditch player who didn't cheat. No more info. No reason to believe him to be "evil")
• Vincent Crabbe -
  
  Total: 22
• Good: 6 (27.2%)
• Evil: 11 (50%)
• Unknown/Abivalent: 5 (22.7%)

Hagrid is also a half-giant who was the victim of pureblood ideology and who was expelled following the direct interference of a slytherin who later ended up being a Dark Lord hellbent on purging Hagrid's race. How can he not be biased?

 

Ok, lets pretend Slytherin a good House. Lets ignore the canon fact that the vast majority of Slytherins we meet are total jerks. Lets ignore that Slytherin produced a huge number of murderous psychopaths while the other Houses didn't. Lets ignore that there were no Slytherins in DA, lets ignore that all Slytherin students left and Voldemort said they joined him, lets ignore that several character comment on how bad Slytherin is.

No, Slytherin is as good as the other houses. We clearly see that in canon!

 

Harry PoV.

Please don't use that term if you don't know what you're talking about. Voldemort was certainly a psychopath. Most of the DEs were certainly sadist, but not psychopaths. They had empathy, even if it wasn't directed at the main characters through which the story is present (again, may I remind you the book are written under Harry's PoV?)

Let's ignore that Harry, Ron and Hermione had no friend in Slytherin and as such could not guarantee anyone's trustworthiness for such a delicate group when it could have meant their expulsion.

Because Voldemort has never been known to lie.

That we can agree on since the majority of these people were biased as discussed previously, numerous time. At least you're learning something from these exchanges.

 

You're right about how the majority can define right and wrong, but it only works that way on specific conditions. Where, when and why are important, and since society is always changing, what is right today may not be right tomorrow. Public opinion is a fickle thing, and our own values are always being reinterpreted. A couple months ago, the Pope said that homossexuals could go to heaven as well. Ignoring the obvious reasons behind that decision, it was a pretty big deviation from millenia old ideals.

So, I view the relativism of right and wrong differently from you. The way you explained it, your views mirror how an ideal democracy should work, but to my mind, since it's impossible to define absolute good and absolute evil, good and evil don't exist outside your own head, said head being influenced by where, when and why.

When I said there were two sides, it was a generalization, yes, but not a binary description. I was grouping what I considered the two foremost opinions. If I recall correctly, the American elections do the same, don't they? There is a conservative political party and a liberal political party. The individuals may not agree on certain things, but there are certain matters that their parties are adamant on maintaining. (correct me if I'm wrong)

Yeah, there are somewhat decent arguments for why Slythering could be considered the amalgamation of everything that is wrong in the books, but my response comes from my own worldview instead of them.

 

ThatGreekLady

I think the reason why you seem to keep missing what everyone else is saying is that you're expecting us to prove to you that Slytherin is good (cough just like Gryffindor cough). Meanwhile, our arguments have been aimed at an issue that's related to the above, but not exactly the same: that Slytherin isn't evil.

There's a difference there.

It's impossible to prove to you that Slytherin is good because firstly, you're unwilling or unable to look past your own presuppositions and secondly, it's a nonsensical thing to even try to prove, as people have pointed out multiple times.

If it's not possible to prove that Slytherin isn't evil, it's at least possible to introduce reasonable doubt about that notion by providing proof that what we know from the books is either inconclusive or comes from a biased source, which is exactly what everyone responding to you has done.

Holy shit, you can stop already, WBA unlocks at 5 posts.

 

Discussing Pansy's action here is a good idea Sesc.

Pansy's decision is essentially one faced by entire peoples under authoritarian regimes. And I think you're right, if anyone seriously condemns individuals who cooperate with authoritarian regimes and who have a realistic fear of death due to non-cooperation then they're being unfair.

However, I do not think it's unfair to praise those who refuse to cooperate. In my mind we don't have a situation of "good choice/bad choice" but of "reasonable choice/better choice". I realize I might be over-reading what you were saying, because it seems far-fetched to say that turning over an escaped slave is just as noble a choice as hiding one, or that turning over (to go full Godwin) a family of Jews is just as noble as hiding them.

EDIT: Also, to your point about a "lost cause" you're correct. But only if you know 100% it's a lost cause. Sure people may have had their doubts, and thought it more likely than not that they were going to die, but clearly it wasn't a lost cause in the end.

 

They were only saved because Harry pulled a miracle and survived the killing curse again. Nobody could see that coming.

As about Pansy, she trying to turn in Harry is the last thing that bothers me. She seemed like a huge bully over the years.

That being said people can interpret Pansy however they like, however Rowling has stated that she loathes her and that she's not even good enough for Draco.

I wonder if most Slytherins were just meant to symbolize things that Rowling doesn't like.