⛧ First Church of Hypocrisy, Blasphemy, and Self-Righteousness ⛧

I love the Harry Potter books, but I have a real beef with how J.K. Rowling portrayed Slytherin house in the books. First of all, all the villains come from Slytherin house, except for Peter Pettigrew, who isn't even a villain, just a coward. So, it's all about ambition, is it? Ambitious people are all villains? There weren't any decent people from Slytherin except Slughorn, the token "good Slytherin." And "ambitious" as how they judge evil is hardly fair, look at Percy Weasley! A right asshole, yes, and a bit too trusting of authority figures, but I would never classify him as evil.

Secondly, everyone from every other one of the houses were good? No villains from Ravenclaw? Seriously? Ravenclaw, the house full of braniacs, never produced any evil geniuses, mad alchemists, or any other kind of villain? And Gryffindor, home of the brave and the people rejected from other houses, only ever produced one sniveling coward of a villain? Uh huh. And Hufflepuff? It takes a lot of hard work to be evil. Completely unrealistic, that there were no villains from anywhere other than Slytherin house.

Thirdly, I hate how all the Quidditch players on Slytherin team (except Malfoy) are these enormous brainless goons. An apt description of many jocks for sure, but this makes Slytherin look like a bunch of idiots. Surely, ambitious people wanting to win would be clever about it, knowing the rules inside and out, working on ways to ride the line instead of outright cheating. IE, taking advantage of loopholes, being sneaky about things, avoiding fouls from blatant cheating.

Besides, the whole notion of a school promoting cheating via Slytherin house where "[Slytherins] will use any means to achieve their ends" is pretty frakking stupid to begin with. Seriously, the cheating surprises them for what reason?

And most importantly, the whole way they choose who is in which house is frakked up anyway. Who the heck knows who they will be when they grow up? People change all the time. Someone might start out listless and unfocused and end up finding focus later in life. I shudder to think where the hat would have put me. In school, I loved to learn but detested homework, had no ambition, and was not a particularly brave person. I have changed much since then, gaining ambition but still struggling with doing the work. Judging by the apparent fact that Gryffindor seems to be where they stick people who don't really fit the descriptions of the other houses, I'd probably have ended up in Gryffindor.

Also, some poor small kid may be ambitious enough for Slytherin and yet completely unable to cope with the inevitable bullying. (Look at Snape as an example. He found a group to attach himself to, but still... in fact, given that the group he attached himself to were led by a magical Charles Manson, this may add to my point.)

Further, how does the hat choose which house a brainy yet ambitious person goes in? Why didn't Hermione end up in Ravenclaw? Also, I would think the Sorting Hat would need more than a few minutes to decide. A better system would be to have some sort of pre-sorting house where the Hat can take a week or so to mull over the options for each student before deciding their final destination. Which would have the added benefit of all the first years getting to know each other outside the restrictions of being in different Houses, which would encourage networking and friendship among the Houses.

There isn't enough focus on Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff anyway, for my taste. My favorite character in the whole book is Luna Lovegood, and she's a Ravenclaw. And why she didn't end up if Gryffindor is anyone's guess. She never struck me as particularly brainy; not an idiot for sure, but why Luna and not Hermione? Though it could be that her intelligence was hidden somewhat by her peculiarities.

My preferred vision of Slytherin is one where people would learn to make something of their lives. Instead of where the dunces and evil people end up, Slytherin would be where the future shapers of tomorrow would go. Slytherin house would look for people with creativity, vision, and untapped potential. Slytherin would be where people who, through one means or another, will grow up to have power in the world. Whether in obvious ways like becoming powerful political figures or business owners, or more subtle ways like famous authors or famous artists. Slytherin would be the house to take kids who don't know how much potential they have, and mold them into great human beings whose names will be on the lips of others for centuries to come. Ravenclaw may have the brainy bookworm type, but Slytherins would be intelligent too! We'd be sly and crafty; our House would shape us to be driven, determined, confident, and self aware. It would teach us all the best things about the Left Hand Path, such as can be found in "Uncle Setnakt's Essential Guide To The Left Hand Path," where ambition would meet ethics and be given a moral compass. Not the same moral compass as the Right Hand Path, to be sure, but a more balanced approach. One that does not defend all laws as good just because they are laws, and also does not promote lawlessness; Slytherin house would, like a responsible Left Hand Path, teach that laws are tools, and if a law is broken, to work to fix it or replace it. Or, if a law is irreparably broken, such as one denying oppressed persons the right to marry, to work towards getting that law removed. And like a truly balanced Left-Hand Path, Slytherin house would teach that hatred is a self-defeating poison, and anger good only in small doses. As such, I don't think people like Tom Riddle would have made the cut in *my* version of Slytherin.

With this ideal in mind, I wear my Slytherin scarf with pride. (Literally. I own an actual Slytherin scarf.)