You have such interesting posts, and how you do it I know not. I love your idea that people love different characters when they change themselves, and that might really explain why I didn't love the Slytherins at first, but that these days I do love them.
I must confess that when I first read PS/SS I felt good when Dumbledore stole the House Cup from the Slytherins. That tells somethign about me that I'm not proud of. At first I identified with Hermione, because she really resembles me in many ways, but that's changed. She is still one of my favourite characters, but I don't see her as myself any more. Yes, we do resemble each other, but there are also fundamental differences.
I must say that when I started to like Draco I first liked the fanon!Draco, the cool and witty one, and that I've come to learn to love the canon!Draco only gradually. I think the process started when I had to defend the Slytherins in general to my friends. I tried to explain why I didn't think it was 'the evil House'. Also, people here at livejournal have made me realize that there's so much more in Draco than I thought at first.
Perhaps I've come to like the Slytherins because I've realized I'm in many ways like them. That if I learn to accept those traits in myself (ambition, loyalty to 'my people', certain coldness and indiffence, which however doesn't mean unjustice) then I must accept them in the Slytherins.
Part of the reason I resented the Slytherins at first and liked the Gryffindors unconditionally is perhaps that I've never really learned to read critically. That wasn't taught to us at school, and I really did take the narrator at face value. It has made a great difference to learn to think myself and to realize that these books are from Harry' point of view, which isn't the most reliable one.
2. Firmly deciding that their being hurt did not excuse their hurting me--this is such a strong belief for me it drives me crazy when people accuse me of trying to "excuse" bad behavior in fictional characters. Really, I don't. I would just rather stop it than punish it.
Many people confuse 'understanding' and 'excusing'. I understand why Snape might behave the way he does, but I still don't accept his behaviour. (And although this is off-topic your point (was it yours?) about Snape being the only one who has had to make a conscious moral choice is really a good one.)
It's very concerned with justice in a way that I just am not--that's why it's so made up of power struggles. There are victims, and bullies, and heroes who protect the victims from bullies.
Hmm, that's interesting, and I must say I don't subscribe to that school either. I believe in justice, of course, in a way that if you murder someone you must be punished for it, but I also believe in mercy. I'm afraid that the HP books will end with the 'light' side winning and punishing the 'bad' people, only because they were at the different side of a civil war (and that really happens in real life, happened at least in Finland after the civil war in 1918-1919, I think), and I can't see anything positive to come from that. It will only divide the Wizarding World even more, and at some point the tension is bound to break out. I believe trying to heal the breach would be much more efficient, and luckily the Sorting Hat's song gives some hope. (After all, in Finland the breach between the two parties of the civil war didn't start to heal before they had a common enemy in World War II.)
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I must confess that when I first read PS/SS I felt good when Dumbledore stole the House Cup from the Slytherins. That tells somethign about me that I'm not proud of. At first I identified with Hermione, because she really resembles me in many ways, but that's changed. She is still one of my favourite characters, but I don't see her as myself any more. Yes, we do resemble each other, but there are also fundamental differences.
I must say that when I started to like Draco I first liked the fanon!Draco, the cool and witty one, and that I've come to learn to love the canon!Draco only gradually. I think the process started when I had to defend the Slytherins in general to my friends. I tried to explain why I didn't think it was 'the evil House'. Also, people here at livejournal have made me realize that there's so much more in Draco than I thought at first.
Perhaps I've come to like the Slytherins because I've realized I'm in many ways like them. That if I learn to accept those traits in myself (ambition, loyalty to 'my people', certain coldness and indiffence, which however doesn't mean unjustice) then I must accept them in the Slytherins.
Part of the reason I resented the Slytherins at first and liked the Gryffindors unconditionally is perhaps that I've never really learned to read critically. That wasn't taught to us at school, and I really did take the narrator at face value. It has made a great difference to learn to think myself and to realize that these books are from Harry' point of view, which isn't the most reliable one.
2. Firmly deciding that their being hurt did not excuse their hurting me--this is such a strong belief for me it drives me crazy when people accuse me of trying to "excuse" bad behavior in fictional characters. Really, I don't. I would just rather stop it than punish it.
Many people confuse 'understanding' and 'excusing'. I understand why Snape might behave the way he does, but I still don't accept his behaviour. (And although this is off-topic your point (was it yours?) about Snape being the only one who has had to make a conscious moral choice is really a good one.)
It's very concerned with justice in a way that I just am not--that's why it's so made up of power struggles. There are victims, and bullies, and heroes who protect the victims from bullies.
Hmm, that's interesting, and I must say I don't subscribe to that school either. I believe in justice, of course, in a way that if you murder someone you must be punished for it, but I also believe in mercy. I'm afraid that the HP books will end with the 'light' side winning and punishing the 'bad' people, only because they were at the different side of a civil war (and that really happens in real life, happened at least in Finland after the civil war in 1918-1919, I think), and I can't see anything positive to come from that. It will only divide the Wizarding World even more, and at some point the tension is bound to break out. I believe trying to heal the breach would be much more efficient, and luckily the Sorting Hat's song gives some hope. (After all, in Finland the breach between the two parties of the civil war didn't start to heal before they had a common enemy in World War II.)