I mean, they seem to have all the qualities that are normally frowned upon. They're the racists for example, I don't think we ever meet anyone with racist tendencies from any other House. They're also apparently the genocidal maniacs, seeing how every Death Eater was a Slytherin (except Pettigrew, I guess).

Do we ever meet a good Slytherin? I guess Slughorn was one. Snape too (even though Dumbledore implied he should have been in another house).

Do you think Slytherin was kinda a place to shove all the baddies?

 

HP started out as a children's series and even in the first book Snape saves Harry's life and Voldemort was hitching a ride on a Ravenclaw. It's easy to say that these, along with Pettigrew, are exceptions to the rule that yes, Slytherin is where bad people go, but it just wouldn't be true. It's a shallow, overly simplistic view that doesn't give the big picture. The argument that most DEs were Slytherins is a poor one imo. Most DEs were Slytherins because Voldemort was a Slytherin and that's the pool he drew his supporters from.

 

I don't know, do we ever see any redeeming qualities about Slytherin? I like Snape but he's not what you'd call a good person.

 

While I hate to stereotype people, Rowling did seem to use Slytherin as a place to 'shove all the baddies'. Apart from as you said, Pettigrew (and perhaps Quirrell if he counts-I think he was a Ravenclaw), I can't recall any bad guys who are NOT from Slytherin.

Some might argue(in fanfictions at least)that James and Dumbledore are bad guys. The bully and the manipulative overlord type people but they are not portrayed that way in Harry's point of view by the end of the book or the majority of series in fact.

We do meet a few good/not evil Slytherins but I have to say that if there is a villain in the Harry Potter universe, chances are he/she's a Slytherin.

Edit:I just noticed that ScottPress basically said most of what I was trying to get across before I had a chance to post. Sorry?

 

About Slytherin? I wouldn't know, we don't know much about Sal. As for Slytherin house, I'm saying all stereotypes are always bad, but here I think we have a skewed view. The Slytherins we get to know in the books do pretty much suck at being decent people, but nowhere that I recall is it said that this is representative of the average Slytherin. Unless there's Word of God on that.

Malfoys really cared about each other, in their own way. Some people would say that's a redeeming quality.

 

I think Slytherin gets a bad rep honestly. There's nothing so clear cut in life as to say that one portion of the population is bad, and the other is good. Slytherin's supposed to stand for cunning and ambition, not the "evil" trope that people like to stick them under. Cunning and ambitious can be "evil", but so can the traits of other houses, so it's really unfair to say that Slytherin represents everything "wrong".

 

Except that in the books it seems that way. Do we ever see a villain being exceptionally brave or something?

Even Pettigrew, the Gryffindor, was the biggest coward ever and very cunning.

 

Loyalty can be a bad thing, if it's misplaced or if you believe in some extreme ideology or person. We see this with the DEs themselves; while we don't know if any of them are Hufflepuff (I don't see any reason why there wouldn't be one), we see the kind of fanatical loyalty in some of them (Bellatrix, Crouch Jr.). In real life example, you have the Hitler Youth.

 

Barty Crouch Jr. was a shitstain, but he was also smart and loyal and brave, given that he willingly and successfully lived in the same castle as all his worst enemies for the better part of a year in a bid to restore his master to greatness. He also got twelve OWLs, however much that counts for.

Edit: Half-Ninja'd by Basilisk haha

 

And yet he was most likely in Slytherin.

 

I hesitate to call Pettigrew cunning. Sure, the whole faked death scenario could be considered cunning, but on the other hand his life was on the line (Sirius would've definitely murdered him, or at the very least brought him to trial, where he would've gone to the Dementors and that would've been that) and so he didn't really have much of an option to escape, especially since Sirius knew about his Animagus form.

As far as being brave, one could argue that Voldemort was brave for going down the path that no other mortal had ever travelled and all that whatnot. I mean, sure it's for personal gain, sure it's for evil purposes, but it's brave for him to attempt something that could very well kill him.

 

Regulus Black was brave when he ventured to retrieve Voldemort's Horcrux and died for it, willingly.

Narcissa was brave when she lied about Harry's death, for the sake of her son.

Merlin was awesome.

Those are what I can think of at the top of my head.

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It's never stated. The only thing we know about his school years is that he received 12 OWLS. In comparison, Hermione got 10. It could be argue that he was a Ravenclaw if we are stereotyping.

 

That's...kind of the point? Like, yes, he was (probably) in Slytherin, but you asked if there were examples of Slytherins having outstanding qualities from other houses. Barty Crouch, Jr: the Slytherin with brains, courage, and loyalty. Even when he was evil.

Edit: And even if he wasn't in Slytherin, that just makes the whole thing more nonlinear. It'd be another non-Slytherin in Voldemort's crew.

 

Yes, but bravery was their redeeming quality. Do you get what I mean? These people were bad until they acted bravely. Snape was bad until he acted bravely. In other words you're bad until you bring your Gryffindor side out.

Was Merlin even in Hogwarts? I certainly didn't see that in the books.

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No the point was that Slytherin qualities are the only ones who are shown to be bad.

 

Merlin was supposedly a Slytherin, I think it was in the Slytherin welcome speech from Pottermore. I don't think they'd say that if he obviously never attended Hogwarts, so we'll say he at least attended.

And either way, Barty Crouch was still a villain who used Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff qualities to commit evil: he was loyal to a villain, daring enough to do great deeds in his name, and smart enough to make them work.

 

Obviously not all of Slytherin is bad but the point is, doesn't the whole house symbolize everything that IS bad? I kinda think that was originally Rowling's intention.

If you want to make a case for Slytherin having redeeming qualities, you would need to show examples from the books.

 

I think that generaly this is a case of:

All[read:most] 'evil 'people are Slytherins but not all Slytherins are 'evil'.

That's my take on it at least. I say that since Slytherin has the majority of and most obvious and/or important baddies 'Slytherin qualities are the only ones who are shown to be bad'(Quoting ThatGreekLady here).

This wasn't very clear but I think you'll understand what I'm trying to say. I believe that Rowling made it fairly clear that Slytherin has the 'bad' traits since they house most bad people.

 

You keep forgetting that the narrative is shown through Harry's pov. It definitely was portrayed as bad. Harry just learned, at 11yo, that Voldemort had murdered his parents. Voldemort who happens to be from Slytherin. He also got insulted and had his friend insulted by the first Slytherin he personally knew (Malfoy). And been told by the first nice adult and the one who got him his first birthday cake and present, that Slytherin was for bad wizards.

Of course Slytherin was shown to be the house of the villain in Book 1. The point was that Harry discovered that not everything is black and white, as demonstrated by his acceptance of Slytherin in naming his son after Snape and telling him that being sorted into that house will never mean that his parents love him less in the Epilogue.