Really, as much as I like Headmaster Dumbledore, he seems a little too favorable toward Gryffindors. He makes sure that they win the House Cup Harry's first year and he is always on Harry's side. Always. It's never him handing out punishment, one would notice.
What makes this dangerous, like you said, is the fact that Harry seems to justify all this by saying to himself "I'm not in Slytherin. If I were truly Slytherin, regardless of my desires, it would have put me there. Therefore, in this society, I'm better than Slytherin," or something along those lines. He recognizes he makes mistakes, but he doesn't take responsibility for them.
This is true, and what I find interesting is that Slytherin is villainized from square one. Hagrid tells Harry that all the bad witches and wizards were in Slytherin, Ron tells him that it's bad (I think), Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Lucius, etc are all mean - isn't there a good side to the house? Being ambitious and cunning can actually be useful if you were, say, an entrepeneur.
Another thing that gets me is that some people will just say "they're evil!" as a motivation. Yes, they want to kill Muggles and Muggleborns. But why? What makes them want to? Why are they mean? And on the other side, the randomly nice [insert Slytherin here]. People like Draco and Prof. Snape are, in canon, not nice or fond of Gryffindors, our Hero and co., or anyone else, really.
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Date: 2004-11-03 07:22 pm (UTC)What makes this dangerous, like you said, is the fact that Harry seems to justify all this by saying to himself "I'm not in Slytherin. If I were truly Slytherin, regardless of my desires, it would have put me there. Therefore, in this society, I'm better than Slytherin," or something along those lines. He recognizes he makes mistakes, but he doesn't take responsibility for them.
This is true, and what I find interesting is that Slytherin is villainized from square one. Hagrid tells Harry that all the bad witches and wizards were in Slytherin, Ron tells him that it's bad (I think), Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Lucius, etc are all mean - isn't there a good side to the house? Being ambitious and cunning can actually be useful if you were, say, an entrepeneur.
Another thing that gets me is that some people will just say "they're evil!" as a motivation. Yes, they want to kill Muggles and Muggleborns. But why? What makes them want to? Why are they mean? And on the other side, the randomly nice [insert Slytherin here]. People like Draco and Prof. Snape are, in canon, not nice or fond of Gryffindors, our Hero and co., or anyone else, really.