Fair enough but wasn't the Marauders/Snape conflict more because Snape was into the Dark Arts? (not that this was a valid reason to bully him like that of course)

 

I have no idea how you went from "Fred and George hissed when the first Slytherin was sorted" to... all that.

Slytherin is represented by a snake. Snakes hiss. Fred and George hissed. They didn't boo, they didn't say they dislike Slytherin as a whole (in which case they should dislike their grandmothers), and it doesn't mean that they have presumptions about Malcolm Baddock. They probably just thought it was funny to hiss like a snake when the first Slytherin was sorted. Kind of like how, later in the book, when Harry is revealed as a Parselmouth in the Prophet and is said to have seizures, you have "Over at the Slytherin table, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were laughing at him, tapping their heads with their fingers, pulling grotesquely mad faces, and waggling their tongues like snakes."

You're talking out of your ass. You have absolutely nothing to base your claim that "The Marauders' reason for antagonising Snape was mainly motivated by being in Slytherin, given how they deemed Slytherin and Junior Death Eater to be synonymous." Nothing. Sirius knows his family are all in Slytherin, and he certainly doesn't view them as Death Eaters, and even likes some of them. The Marauders fought with Snape because he was an ass, not a Slytherin. Rowling had explicitly said that the "love triangle" played a big part in the enmity between James and Snape - Snape hated that James "fancied" Lily, and vice-versa. From this interview: "James always suspected Snape harboured deeper feelings for Lily, which was a factor in James’ behaviour to Snape."

So, please, stop trying to reshape the books to fit your interpretation.

 

Hissing also means expressing disapproval and the sentense is literally followed by Harry wondering whether this kid knows he's going to the House of the dark wizards. It's a clear implication imo.

Also, I must tell you that I've read the books in Greek and they translated this part saying that they expressed disapproval. I doubt Rowling doesn't know what's going on in the translations.

Also, we've seen that Snape and James antagonized each other before Lily was even a thing because we know they exchanged insults on the train when they were 11.

 

Again, if that's what you make of the scene, it's your own interpretation. It's not outright stated, no matter what your translation said (and as one who had originally read the series with a translated version, I can guarantee you that Rowling did not have input into every little detail her translators had gotten wrong or interpreted incorrectly). So Harry thinks Slytherin's reputation for Dark Magic is something that should worry a young kid sorten in there (it certainly worried him when he was sorted), it doesn't mean that he, Rowling or the Weasley twins think that everyone in Slytherin is evil. That's simply your own oversimplified, black-and-white mentality showing.

James and Snape antagonized each other while James already knew Lily and her connection to Snape, though he probably didn't care about her at the time. So what? I have had plenty of petty fights as a kid, which did not inspire lifelong grudges. The fact (as in, Word of God) is that the "love triangle" had a part in James and Snape's enmity. There were obviously other reasons for it, but it certainly wasn't just because Snape was in Slytherin. (Again, blatant oversimplification)

 

I think most of Slytherin is made up of pure-blood students. It would be easier to develop a pro-pure-blood sentiment there than in other houses which I assume have a better balance of blood. Now multiply this effect over multiple generations and it's easy to see why Slytherin students are slated to be more bigoted with a family that's bigoted and an echo chamber for a house.

In addition to the above, it might be the case that they are morally questionable because everyone treats them that way. Instead of Slytherin students being treated the way they are because of their morally questionable dispositions. It would explain the good-to-bad ratio in Slytherin. Here's the trope in question: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThenLetMeBeEvil

 

If you think that I personally think of them as evil, you have mistaken the purpose of the thread. The question is "Do you think Slytherin was intended to represent everything that's "wrong"?" as in whether Rowling intended to be seen as "Don't be Slytherin little kids."

 

It's a gradual thing that changes when you read further into the series. The first impression is supposed to be that Slytherin is the house of bad guys, and then that first impression starts to break as you learn more and more about the individuals beyond the labels, until in the epilogue you see Draco as a perfectly respectable husband and father and have Harry pointing out that Slytherin is a house the same as others. This gradual change is even underlined with young Albus being afraid of being labeled Slytherin, because he doesn't know better yet.

In my opinion the symbolism is pretty damn obvious; even Albus gets that Slytherin looks like the house of evil.

And I don't think Slytherin represents anything; it's not a symbol of anything else, it's only a label that stands on it's own. Muggleborn, Pure-blood, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff; it's all the same. The important thing is the individual behind the label.

 

If that's the case then why did Slytherins for the majority of the series acted only a certain way? Sure Draco might have turned it around later in his life, but for the majority of the series he was a caricature who acted like a dick just for the sake of being a dick.

 

Because JKR was writing the series from a Gryffindor-biased perspective. Obviously Harry would be against Slytherin, because of what Hagrid told him, the nastiness of both Draco and Snape since the first day at Hogwarts, etc.

But we actually see him grow to the point where he is ready to name his child "Albus Severus". That was the closure, that Slytherins are not all evil Death Eaters working for Voldemort.

 

Rowling definitely portrays Slytherin as the 'evil' house in canon, at least in the first books. Later on this changes, which may be a reflection of the protagonist's growing maturity or perception, learning to view the world in not just black and white.

 

Yes. Or at least I think it was an intentional plot device in the first book. I think we forget that the HP series was touted as a series that grew with the audience. The 'Slytherins are evil' was meant as a starting point. I think that, and the concept of evil in general, was one of the things that was originally intended to develop as the characters did. Sadly, Rowling kinda dropped the ball with the last 3-4 of the books. We see some hints of it with Umbridge, McLaggen, Snape etc. who don't fit the childish sorting hat imposed paradigm. The books just never fully realized that concept. There are hints and things are implied but nothing is dealt with directly. Instead the characters (and to an extent the readers), instead continue to exist in an oblivious haze.

 

Wasn't Umbridge a Slytherin? It says so in the wiki.

 

McLaggen was just a bit of a dick, he was not evil, or even a bully. Umbridge is a confirmed Slytherin. Snape was not a good person because he bullied little kids.

So yea, they did fit the childish sorting paradigm.

 

Snape was a good person. He spent most of his life as a spy for the Order, he protected Harry, he even said that he was trying to protect all the people he could in the memory scenes in DH. Was he a particularly nice guy no not really but that doesn't mean he was bad/evil.

 

I like Snape as a character but I don't think he was what most people would call a good person. He was a pretty bad teacher, very biased, he often insulted and terrorized little kids. He also had his own reasons for doing things, some would argue that if it wasn't for Lily he would probably never turn "good".

 

You just said it Lily was the reason he was "GOOD" not evil. Regardless of his personality he was a good person at heart.

As for Slytherin they represented wizard culture and keeping that culture within themselves. Unfortunately people like Salazar Slytherin, Voldemort and his death eaters gave that sentiment a bad rap by hurting the people around them.

 

Guys, I want to clarify that I don't hate Slytherin traits. I value ambition very much, my brother is the definition of cunning, my own parents are racists but other than that they are not bad people and wouldn't support actively harming other races.

The problem is that I feel Rowling does paint these qualities negatively by making literally every Slytherin, except Slughorn and Andromeda, very bad people and making it seem like being racist automatically means you support racial genocide.

Lets look at all major Slytherin characters.

Voldemort: Evil for the sake of evil.
Bellatrix: Pure evil.
The Malfoys: They were perfectly fine with racial genocide and only started feeling differently about it when Voldemort started treating them like shit. Yes, Draco wasn't fine with murdering people himself but he was ok with the Death Eaters at least until he saw how it really was like.
Pansy Parkinson: A caricature, even Rowling has said that she "loathes" her. She seemed fine with the idea of Draco being a Death Eater.
Slughorn: The only Slytherin with redeeming qualities, but he was still portrayed pretty negatively with how he always sucks up to powerful people.
Snape: He was a jerk and a bully. He was on the good side, but this doesn't change that he bullied little kids. Heck, he was Neville's worst fear for Christ's sake.

Andromeda is so irrelevant that she doesn't even matter. She literally only appears once.

it seems to me that Rowling just doesn't like traits like being ambitious, cunning and valuing self-preservation.