Home › Forums › Off-topic › Everything else off-topic › Harry Potter Reread: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone › Reply To: Harry Potter Reread: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
I have to point out that at no point does Harry ask to be put into Gryffindor. The only thing he says is “Not Slytherin! Not Slytherin”. The hat didn’t bring up Slytherin at that point, either.
Excellent point. Makes me wonder where the Hat wanted to put him originally. Harry sort of jumped the gun; he’s responding to something that hasn’t even been uttered.
It seems the hat is listing qualities of most of the houses, there, not singling out just one. It’s only after Harry mentions the Slytherin house that the hat plays a bit of Devil’s Advocate with him.
Yes, that’s true but that’s sort of one of my larger and more problematic points. All of those qualities–courage, smarts, ambition–exist in all the house. It’s not like the Hufflepuffs sit on their bums and don’t want to win the House Cup. But each of those items have been relegated to one specific house. You see courage and it’s Gryffindor; smarts is Ravenclaw; and Ambition is Slytherin. People, as a whole, tend to associate one characteristic to both the house and the people who reside in it. It’s what fosters bigotry and misconception because those traits are good but they can also be bad.
Courage to the extreme is recklessness
Smart to the extreme is arrogance.
Ambition to the extreme is ruthlessness.
3. Is Harry’s fear of Slytherin justified? Yes, because those are his emotions and feelings. He’s feeling them, not anyone else. And if he’s not comfortable with the situation, then someone tell him differently isn’t going to change anything. Let’s take a personal example. I’ve terrified of flying and yet I have a cousin who flies airplanes and know numerous people who love to fly. No matter what they tell me, or how many statistics they cite, it isn’t going to change my fear or my feelings on the subject. It’s my fear, I’m justified in feeling it. So if Harry is adamant to not be placed in Slytherin, for whatever reason, then that’s his decision.
This is a very good point so thank you for bringing it up. You’re right that people’s feelings are justified because they are THEIR feelings and I’m not trying to belittle Harry or dismiss his feelings. But, to play Devil’s Advocate here, at what point do we stop accepting people’s fears as justified because “subjective” and try to help them overcome. You’re flying example is a good one but it’s also not something that affects those around you. Voldemort, we will learn, has a fear of impure blood and a taint in the Wizarding world. Are his fears justified because “subjective?” Is it okay that he feel this way and acts on that fear because they are his feelings and he’s feeling them? Or do we label his (and his ilk) differently because he is acting on those fears? Going back to Harry, while he certainly doesn’t act on those fears in the same way that Voldemort does, Harry does act against the Slytherins, and Draco specifically, throughout the series. He is constantly suspicious and mistrustful of Draco, Snape, and anyone who belongs to Slytherin, simply because Slytherin.
this will become important when we get to book 2 and Harry’s fear of Slytherins become even more personal with his Parlsetongue