[sorry for spam! I really should use preview and not try to reply direct from Yahoo . . .]
*sips cognac*
Now, now, don't make fun of poor Aristotle. Besides, I was thinking less of a cognac-and-sherry Cambridge Aristotle, and more of a beer-and-franks at the White Sox game Chicago Aristotle. :)
Phineas could be saying that a Slytherin can only act so far as it won't inconvenience him, so he's never going to risk his life at all. I don't think this is exactly true, since we've seen Slytherins risk their lives, so they might just do it in a different frame of mind.
Maybe the issue is that Slytherins are too inclined to overvalue their own lives compared to those of others. I mean, people who are accustomed to being puppetmasters can easily come to see themselves as indispensible. Who was that English aristocratic twit during WWI, who said, "I am what the working classes are fighting and dying for?" Or was that a character in a Waugh novel?
Which brings us to the idea that you could see any virtue as the basis for the others the same way. . . Whatever virtue is your basis is the one you use to reach for all the others.
This is a really interesting idea -- that every person tends to have one central or dominant virtue that they use to coordinate all the others. Have to think more about this.
I like to think of him as a Gryffindor who loved the ideal of courage but then settled for the trappings of it without the real thing.
Oh, Lockhart is such a Gryffindor! I don't know why, but I always assumed that, too.
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Date: 2005-02-10 07:05 am (UTC)*sips cognac*
Now, now, don't make fun of poor Aristotle. Besides, I was thinking less of a cognac-and-sherry Cambridge Aristotle, and more of a beer-and-franks at the White Sox game Chicago Aristotle. :)
Phineas could be saying that a Slytherin can only act so far as it won't inconvenience him, so he's never going to risk his life at all. I don't think this is exactly true, since we've seen Slytherins risk their lives, so they might just do it in a different frame of mind.
Maybe the issue is that Slytherins are too inclined to overvalue their own lives compared to those of others. I mean, people who are accustomed to being puppetmasters can easily come to see themselves as indispensible. Who was that English aristocratic twit during WWI, who said, "I am what the working classes are fighting and dying for?" Or was that a character in a Waugh novel?
Which brings us to the idea that you could see any virtue as the basis for the others the same way. . . Whatever virtue is your basis is the one you use to reach for all the others.
This is a really interesting idea -- that every person tends to have one central or dominant virtue that they use to coordinate all the others. Have to think more about this.
I like to think of him as a Gryffindor who loved the ideal of courage but then settled for the trappings of it without the real thing.
Oh, Lockhart is such a Gryffindor! I don't know why, but I always assumed that, too.