Anti-Slytherinism: the last acceptable prejudice in Harry Potter
Reading faramircaptainofgondor’s excellent meta about why Sorting in Harry Potter is an outdated, harmful institution that needs to die, It made me think about the truly awful rap Slytherin and to a lesser extent, Hufflepuff get in series.
When it comes down to it, the only Houses shown to be worth being in are Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Gryffindors are brave, Ravenclaws are smart….and then Hufflepuffs are the kids left over after teams have been picked and Slytherins are evil because a load of Dark Wizards have been Slytherins.
Our initial view of Slytherin and Hufflepuff is filtered through Hagrid and then Harry in a classic case of how prejudice is learned, not inherent. On re-reading it’s obvious how mistaken these assumptions are.
Hagrid first brands Hufflepuff “a load o’duffers”, then mentions Slytherin was Voldemort’s house. So we already have the Houses It Sucks To Be In established, and it never really changes. While Hufflepuffs are generally portrayed positively, after one song calling them ‘patient, just, true and unafraid of toil’ the Sorting Hat reverts to labelling them ‘the rest’, we spend most of Goblet of Fire being reminded that they’ve had no glory in centuries and are frequently patronised (of course, this isn’t at all contradictory to the collective resentment in Philosopher’s Stone at Slytherin winning the House Cup 7 years running, oh no). And notably, Hufflepuff beats Gryffindor at Quidditch not once, but twice and everyone gets super-pissy because HA HA IMAGINE LOSING TO HUFFLEPUFF - OH SHIT. Amos Diggory comes across as obnoxious for the way he crows about Cedric’s achievements, but I can’t really blame him when everyone else thinks Hufflepuff is a synonym for loser.
Good for you Hufflepuff, you show those jerk houses. Anyway, back to the House Everyone Hates.
Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin,” said Hagrid darkly. “There’s not a single wizard or witch that went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin.”
After PoA, we know this to be complete rubbish, as Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor and committed the vilest betrayal in the entire series. And while Hagrid isn’t aware that Pettigrew did this, at this point he thinks Sirius Black, also a Gryffindor, is responsible for betraying Lily and James and killing Pettigrew. This is how deeply ingrained anti-Slytherin prejudice is, that he completely forgets that to claim every wizard that’s gone bad has been Slytherin. By doing this, Hagrid transfers this prejudice to Harry. When he gets to Hogwarts, he thinks the Slytherins look “an unpleasant bunch” because he has been pre-disposed to believe them unpleasant by what Hagrid told them. And he begs the Sorting Hat not to put him in Slytherin, because he doesn’t want to be in the same house as his parents’ murderer, and thus begins a series of Slytherin House being collectively held responsible for the deeds of one egregiously evil wizard.
And unfortunately, even Dumbledore, for all his talk of the school needing to unite after Voldemort’s return, buys into and propagates this anti-Slytherin nonsense. In CoS, Harry is worried that he’s just like Voldemort because of the many similarities they share:
‘It only put me in Gryffindor, because I asked not to go in Slytherin.’ ‘Exactly,‘said Dumbledore, beaming once more. ‘Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.’
Admirable words…or they would be if Dumbledore hadn’t just used Harry’s decision to choose Gryffindor over Slytherin as a shining example of why he’s not evil like Voldemort. And then in DH, Dumbledore says something which suggests how Sorting is actually pretty awful, but it gets buried in yet more anti-Slytherin prejudice:
“Karkaroff intends to flee if the Mark burns.” “Does he?” said Dumbledore softly… “And are you tempted to join him?” “No,” said Snape. […] “I am not such a coward.” “No,” agreed Dumbledore. “You are a braver man by far than Igor Karkaroff. You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon…”
Wow, nice backhanded compliment Dumbledore. The Head of Slytherin is brave, yes, but that doesn’t mean hey look guys, Slytherins have worthy qualities too! No, it just means Snape might have been sorted into the wrong house. And therein lies the problem with Sorting: it defines people by one prominent quality and ignores the rest. People are a mixed bag at any age; to pigeonhole kids with years of development ahead of them is crazy.
With Snape, Slughorn and Regulus, Rowling’s clearly trying to show there are good Slytherins too to offset the “Slytherin = Evil” impression, but it doesn’t do nearly enough to eradicate 7 books’ worth of a narrative portraying Slytherins as the enemy. It’s not just that the books are from Harry’s POV - there are no Slytherins in Dumbledore’s Army, but the Inquisitorial Squad is composed entirely of Slytherins; during the resistance under Neville, there is no banner representing Slytherin in the Room of Requirement; and we actually had to be told by Rowling outside the book that the people who came charging behind Slughorn after Harry’s sacrifice were Slytherin students and their families because there was no way of telling that from the writing. Rowling is absolutely guilty of lazy characterisation.
Everyone in-universe constantly harps on about Slytherins being horrible, but does it ever occur to them that things like centuries of prejudice, the OTHER THREE QUARTERS OF THE SCHOOL hating them and actively rooting for them to fail, and the Headmaster cheating them out of a House Cup triumph might have something to do with it? Why on earth should Slytherins be nice to people who assume they’re scum from the age of 11? Frankly, those aforementioned Slytherins who came back from Hogsmeade to fight for Hogwarts are the biggest heroes of the book, because they had every right to tell Hogwarts to go screw itself for years of being heaped with guilt-by-association for other people’s sins, but they didn’t. Because Slytherins are much better people that they’re given credit for.
