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No, it’s not, because I never said all bad wizards come from Slytherin nor that all graduates of that house go bad. You’ve misread what I wrote
No you….Harry. It’s bad thinking on Harry’s part–he’s being totally independent but it doesn’t mean that his logic is sound. Harry tends to color Slytherin’s with the same brush. I never said that Harry is incapable of independent thought. He is 100% capable of it. We’ll get to it next chapter but he has a ton of agency in this matter. But his choice is colored by what he’s heard from others who only give only a few very select examples of what Slytherins “are.”
The fact that a really really evil wizard who chose to harm people and killed his parents went to Slytherin is what really dissuaded Harry from wanting to be associated with it — not just the source of that new fact (i.e. Ron and Hagrid).
No, I totally agree that it doesn’t really matter who told him (though, it coming from his first two real friends ever certainly doesn’t hurt because you are more inclined to believe people you like than people who rub you the wrong way) but he uses this new found fact to color the whole. That’s part of human nature too. We see one bad example of something and the culture or group from which that person comes to be representative of the whole. For example: all Terrorists are Muslims therefore all Muslims are Terrorists. We live in America; we know how prevalent THAT philosophy is, thanks in no part to the news media and their reporting tactics because we, by and large, trust our news media to be objective and not have an agenda.
If Harry had found out that Voldemort had belonged to Gryffindor, I doubt Harry would’ve wanted to belong to it. You make Harry sound incapable of independent thought.
No I’m not. I am actually just asking a question. I’m not trying to take anything away from Harry in terms of his ability to think things through. But JKR set this up specifically, I feel, for this purpose. Harry is confronted with two families or people who align differently. Voldemort/Draco = Slytherin = bad. The Weasleys = Gryffindor = good. Therefore Slytherin = bad and Gryffindor = good, without thinking that maaaaaaybe there’s something in between. That maaaaaaybe there’s more to both houses than what Harry is seeing/hearing. That’s actually a HUGE theme of this first book as a whole, the idea that things aren’t what they seem. Even without going into the big reveal at the end who is really the Big Bad, Harry embodies that very idea. It’s being cast in very simplistic terms in Harry’s head, granted because of his traumatic past, but simplistic nonetheless.
The question I asked is two fold. Voldemort and the Weaselys end up in Gryffindor. Harry is now presented with a conundrum. The villain who killed his family (bad) and the family who just “adopted” and helped him (good) both belong to the same House. In other words, the house you belong to must not define the kid of person you are destined to become. He sees that a house can produce both. But, like I said, JKR set it up so that it seems black and white (or green and red) when the whole series–but specifically this matter–is anything but.
Independent thought doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of being wrong in your thought. If anything it means you have the capability to be wrong (or perhaps a better word here is narrow minded) more often.