i’ve
seen a LOT of discourse about the slytherin house, from calling them
all bigots or the innocent victims of discrimination because “they were
a few bad ones” and i just want to share my opinion on the issue
in
the book, literally almost every single slytherin we meet was a
bigoted asshole. they also, correct me if i’m wrong, all came from
rich pureblood families were at least halfbloods with a strong connection to a pureblood family )
the
only good slytherins i can name at the top of my head are andromeda
and regulus. we have a few grey characters as well, like slughorn,
but they are, well, grey. and those two good characters ? were
originally bigoted asshole who changed.
so
do we conclude they are only assholes in slytherin ? no ! i have more
thoughts
in
all the books, the pressure on pureblood kids to land in slytherin is
made very clear, and that makes sense ! Pureblood families are
rich, and rich families, whether fictional or real, tend to push
their kids toward excellence. It makes sense they would value
ambition so much.
And
then, since they are very traditional familes – may i remind
everyone the slytherin house is supposed to value traditions – they
ask for everyone in their family to remain in slytherin. So the
result is clear : we have an entire hogwarts house that every
rich bigoted pureblood kid join. That means a lot of bigotry all
together in one place.
What
would happen if a muggleborn kid had a great slytherin personnality,
and went there ? Things would be awful for them ! They
would be rooming all year long with people who were taught they are
inferior, invaders, etc… that is a terribly unsafe position to be
in. kids can be cruel. and even more so when we know they were a lot
of older slytherins who were already death eater in their last
years ! ( draco, regulus, probably snape, and a lot more who
were only background characters )
i
know hogwarts top priority isn’t the safety of its students ( it’s
more something like “how many extremely dangerous creatures
can i stash in a single room ?” ) but really ? would
you let a muggleborn kid walk into that deathtrap ? HELL NO !
so
my theory is that the sorting hat might be at play here. what if he
was mindful of the issue when he as sorting students ? tried to
discourage them to go there ?
i know about this issue : my mother tried to deter me from
applying to a certain college because it used to have very far-rights
groups on the campus – but this is not the place for my own college
issues. my point is : that is something that happen. that’s
realistic.
ihis
is just a theory, i’ll admit i didn’t go looking for proofs all over
the books. maybe people can find clues to show that’s it untrue ( and
if you do please do share them ! i love meta discussions, as
long as they stay polite ) but it really seems logical to me that
people would try and protect muggleborn children from taking this
risk
