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Gryffindor vs. Slytherin

posted 8 years ago by Calypso23
8 replies | jump to latest

Slytherins have a bad rap, especially among Gryffindors, but Gryffindors can be a bit hypocritical in their hatred against Slytherins. Here are some of the reasons Gryffindors claim to hate Slytherins:

Slytherins hate muggles and muggle-borns: First of all, Salazar Slytherin never claimed to hate muggles or muggle-borns, he just felt that the school should be kept within the wizarding community. This did not necessarily mean that he was prejudiced against muggles. Hogwarts takes special precautions to stay hidden and protected from muggles. Perhaps he thought that by allowing muggle-borns into the school, they would be running too great a risk of the muggle community finding out about the school and attracting either curious onlookers, or worse, muggles trying to destroy the wizarding world because they compare the wizards and witches to Satan worshippers. Furthermore, Salazar Slytherin never said that muggle-borns didn't belong in the wizarding community, he just didn't feel they should be taught at Hogwarts. Perhaps he had something else in mind for the education of muggle-borns. While it's true that there are some Slytherins that do harbor extreme prejudices against muggles, this does not represent the house as a whole.
For Gryffindors to make this claim about Slytherins hating muggles, aren't they guilty of stereotyping? The definition of a stereotype is judging an entire group of people based on the actions of a few.

All dark wizards have come from Slytherin: Not true! Peter Pettigrew ring any bells? He was one of the worst death eaters ever, and he came right out of Gryffindor! I would tend to bet that during the course of Hogwarts history, there have been dark wizards from each of the houses, not just Slytherin. Not only that, but there is a big difference between the phrase "All dark wizards came from Slytherin" and "All Slytherins are dark wizards". Just because most of Voldemorts followers came from Slytherin, doesn't mean that most of Slytherin are Voldemort supporters.

Slytherins think they're better than everyone else: This is one of the most hypocritical beliefs that have come out of Gryffindor house. The Gryffindors can be incredibly arrogant. From the time Harry arrived at Hogwarts, he already had it in his head that Gryffindor was the best house to be in. He knew nothing about Hogwarts or the four houses, all he knew was what he had heard from Hagrid and Ron, which was basically Slytherin=bad, Gryffindor=good.

In conclusion, I have to wonder what would have happened had Harry not had his mind tarnished with the belief that Slytherin is bad. The sorting hat considered placing him in Slytherin but he begged it not to. If he wouldn't have had all these prejudices placed in his mind regarding Slytherin, would he have been placed in that house? I wonder what the alternate universe would have looked like? Would he and Draco still hate each other, or would they be friends? Would Harry be the seeker for the Slytherin quidditch team instead of the
Gryffindor team? Would Snape still hate him?

[–] DerivedAbsurdity 8 years ago

Rowling chose to make Slytherin the evil house because she thinks ambition is bad. That's one of the clearest themes in the books. She thinks people are naturally divided into good and bad, for the most part, with some outliers here and there, and Slytherin embodies all the traits she thinks is bad and Gryffindor all the ones she thinks is good.

It would have been nice for there to be at least one good or likable character in the series who wasn't shown to have severe character defects (so, not Snape, Slughorn, or Drao Malfoy) who was in Slytherin, but Rowling wouldn't allow that.

[–] niks_foonts 8 years ago

Depends on what you mean by severe? I wouldn't say Slughorn had any major character defects other than vanity. He was overall seemingly a good enough guy. Besides, Scorpius and Albus are Slytherin in Cursed Child and Scorpius is a
pretty good kid.

[–] LostKiera 8 years ago

First of all, Salazar Slytherin never claimed to hate muggles or muggle-borns, he just felt that the school should be kept within the wizarding community. This did not necessarily mean that he was prejudiced against muggles.
Didn't he create the Chamber of Secrets and put a basilisk there for the sole purpose of killing mudbloods?

[–] NobodymournstheWicked 8 years ago

First of all, Salazar Slytherin never claimed to hate muggles or muggle-borns, he just felt that the school should be kept within the wizarding community.

And you are correct and Professor Minerva McGonagall does make a mention of it in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets that Salazar Slytherin wished to be more selective of the students being selected for Hogwarts and that he and the rest of the 3 co-founders of Hogwarts couldn't see eye to eye, as to I believe the rest of the founders were women and he was the only male out of the 4 of them. I guess some point after Salazar Slytherin left Hogwarts and assuming of his death that somewhere that students in Slytherin decided that students born to parents that are muggle like Hermione Granger are not good enough to be in Hogwarts. And I bet no other Slytherin students believes in them more then Draco Malfoy.

[–] Flibbetygiblet 8 years ago

Gryffindor was a man. 2 men and 2 women founded Hogwarts

[–] furienna 8 years ago

Rowling chose to make Slytherin the evil house because she thinks ambition is bad. That's one of the clearest themes in the books. She thinks people are naturally divided into good and bad, for the most part, with some outliers here and there, and Slytherin embodies all the traits she thinks is bad and Gryffindor all the ones she thinks is good.
She seems to have wanted to subvert that though in the later half of the series. Even though I still don't like Snape, he was given an interesting back-story and helped the good side in the end. And the Malfoys were also given some character developement, which let us see them as more than mean aristocratic snobs... And as for Horace Slughorn, I can't see him as a bad person at all. Furthermore, there will be unlikable people in the other houses too.

Intelligence and purity.

[–] LostKiera 8 years ago

Ambition is fine. Harry and Hermione are ambitious. Slytherins however value ambition before anything else which Rowling takes issue with.

[–] furienna 8 years ago

And as I said in my last post in this thread, JKR started to portray certain Slytherins in a decidedly more positive light in the later half of the series.

Intelligence and purity.