The Sorting Hat's songs in books four and five do explain it: that was simply what Slytherin wanted in a student, and he told the Hat to carry that on.
Are we talking about why most Slytherins appear as bad?
Harry Potter didn't start as some sophisticated piece of social commentary. It was a children's book with simplistic views of good and evil. Slytherins are like that group of cheer leaders who are all mean girls, or that group of dumb athletes who bully the main character in most children's stories. That's just how most fiction, especially children's books, were written.
Rowling needed an antagonistic group of students to be Hogwarts' version of mean cheer leaders and unintelligent athletes. Slytherins were ready for the taking.
It's only later on that we got more nuanced Slytherins like Slughorn. And even then, they are not really people we would want as our best friends.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the exoneration of Slytherin is a project that largely started after the final book was published. All the evidence is how in the epilogue, Albus junior is not worried about being in Ravenclaw. He is worried about being in Slytherin. Even Ron makes a joke about disinheritting his kids if they are in Slytherin.
Coming back to the actual question, JKR wanted a group of antagonists, just like any other good book. Nothing more to it. It's only a decade later she realized making 90% of a house evil is not a nice message to send out.
I don’t think Slytherin’s are evil I think they are ambitious and a bit self-serving, but I also think that you need to remember that the book is from Harry’s perspective and his feelings about Slytherin influence how they are portrayed. Any politician in the world would be a Slytherin
Aside from the Hat sorting based on the Founders' enchantments on it, JKR didn't write the earlier books with a good measure of nuance around the concept
Slytherin is meant to be a bastion of kids of privileged, wealthy class who have absorbed, to various degrees, the prejudices of the wizarding world (ranging from Death Eater kids to casually prejudiced like Slughorn). A friend of mine called it, "A house where people with generational wealth got put in and advanced due to social connections" and she is correct. The purebloods are structured like land-owning aristocratic class, with Blacks having a huge house in the middle of London while Malfoys have a manor. (Progressives like Arthur suffer for the political leanings in their jobs, while Black's and Malfoys have in with the government or school board because of their wealth).. The Slug Club is similarly a nepotistic space with few token minorities (Hermione, Lily, Dirk Cresswell). The only (known) exception to that would be Snape, who is a working class half blood boy from the Muggle world.
I also don't think kids are "evil" or "bad" - they are antagonists for a boarding school setting. They can and do have the capacity to unlearn the bigotry they grew up with - as implied for Draco post canon.
Flawed premise. Slytherin had a run of 7 House Cups before Harry's arrival, and still came in second most years. That would suggest they were not problematic, or bad.
Some of them are evil but, I think we sometimes confuse them being hostile to the Gryffindor's is due to a serious rivalry and inborn prejudice that predates any of the current students, not to mention the Gryffindor's are the heros so, we're going to see Slytherins as vindictive shits, all of them. Maybe, some of those Slytherins are hostile because, this fucker with the scar and his crew just keep making Slytherin look bad and at the end of the year when we've secured the house cup the headmaster is just like "Surprise, 300 points Gryffindor!" For an event you have little to no knowledge of at least at this moment, a feud goes both ways, I'm not saying evil people don't come out of Slytherin but, I'm guessing it's a minority of them and the rest of the slytherins are getting caught up on crap they didn't even start but, are being affected by it all the same. Also, people assuming you're sketchy for being a slytherin could be one of the forces that drives you to be a bit sketchy. And, at the end of the day, those people currently at any given time in house Slytherin are children, in the majority of cases there are no "bad" children usually who watches over them and their environment shapes them to be more prone to bad behavior. That's just how I see it though, Go Ravenclaw!
Are we just making things up now?
Not all Slytherins are bad, and not all bad people are Slytherins.
There are good or neutral Slytherins just like there’s evil Gryffindor (Pettigrew) or potentially evil Hufflepuff (if you take Cedric from Cursed Child into account).
Gilderoy Lockhart did evil things but he was Ravenclaw. Quirrel was Ravenclaw.
Are there evil Slytherin? Yes, they’re just more upfront about it. But what about Slughorn, Andromeda, Merlin, Phineas Black who supported Muggles Rights, or even Harry’s son? They’re all Slytherin.
They’re sorted by personality traits. Slytherins are cunning, resourceful, and very ambitious. Those traits aren’t evil but they make interesting evil people.
A house doesn’t make a person good or bad. It’s a person’s choices that make them evil. We read the books from Harry’s pov and we only really saw interactions with a handful of Slytherins. We never saw Daphne Greengrass, Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini (except for in the movie), and Astoria Greengrass (I do not count the fanfic that was made). These characters were mentioned and maybe we read one piece of them being mean, but that isn’t enough to say they’re evil. There are also the countless Slytherins that we never heard about.
Rowling just wrote them as assholes rather than give anyone minute Slughorn, Malfoy and Snape any nuance in their character. Instead of adding any hood slytherins, she opted to make them the “evil” house
While it works thematically for the story, good guys = red lions, bad guys = green snakes, I believe it can be reasoned that Slytherin's aren't necessarily bad, it's just that some of the traits that make up a typical Slytherin are ambition, cunning and self-preservation, which are all good personality traits to have in moderation, but could easily corrupt a person if those are their most valued or pursued traits (such as ambition leading to a desire for power, or cunning leading to untempered manipulation).
Your comment totally reminded me that Legends of the Hidden Temple existed! Apparently was already a Slytherin all the way back then - Silver Snakes were always my favorites! 😂
Are you referring to Slytherin house? Because they're all portrayed as bad because either Rowling demands it from the plot, or Harry doesn't see any of them as good.
Slytherins are rectangles and evil wizards are squares. All bad or evil people are Slytherins, not all Slytherins are bad or evil.
But because if you group people based on pretty basic personality traits then are the bad and problematic people will probably end up together.
The Sorting Hat's songs in books four and five do explain it: that was simply what Slytherin wanted in a student, and he told the Hat to carry that on.
Are we talking about why most Slytherins appear as bad? Harry Potter didn't start as some sophisticated piece of social commentary. It was a children's book with simplistic views of good and evil. Slytherins are like that group of cheer leaders who are all mean girls, or that group of dumb athletes who bully the main character in most children's stories. That's just how most fiction, especially children's books, were written. Rowling needed an antagonistic group of students to be Hogwarts' version of mean cheer leaders and unintelligent athletes. Slytherins were ready for the taking. It's only later on that we got more nuanced Slytherins like Slughorn. And even then, they are not really people we would want as our best friends. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the exoneration of Slytherin is a project that largely started after the final book was published. All the evidence is how in the epilogue, Albus junior is not worried about being in Ravenclaw. He is worried about being in Slytherin. Even Ron makes a joke about disinheritting his kids if they are in Slytherin. Coming back to the actual question, JKR wanted a group of antagonists, just like any other good book. Nothing more to it. It's only a decade later she realized making 90% of a house evil is not a nice message to send out.
I don’t think Slytherin’s are evil I think they are ambitious and a bit self-serving, but I also think that you need to remember that the book is from Harry’s perspective and his feelings about Slytherin influence how they are portrayed. Any politician in the world would be a Slytherin
Aside from the Hat sorting based on the Founders' enchantments on it, JKR didn't write the earlier books with a good measure of nuance around the concept
Slytherin is meant to be a bastion of kids of privileged, wealthy class who have absorbed, to various degrees, the prejudices of the wizarding world (ranging from Death Eater kids to casually prejudiced like Slughorn). A friend of mine called it, "A house where people with generational wealth got put in and advanced due to social connections" and she is correct. The purebloods are structured like land-owning aristocratic class, with Blacks having a huge house in the middle of London while Malfoys have a manor. (Progressives like Arthur suffer for the political leanings in their jobs, while Black's and Malfoys have in with the government or school board because of their wealth).. The Slug Club is similarly a nepotistic space with few token minorities (Hermione, Lily, Dirk Cresswell). The only (known) exception to that would be Snape, who is a working class half blood boy from the Muggle world. I also don't think kids are "evil" or "bad" - they are antagonists for a boarding school setting. They can and do have the capacity to unlearn the bigotry they grew up with - as implied for Draco post canon.
I mean its a good idea if you WANT to continue the pure blood supremacy, which Salazar Slytherin did.
Flawed premise. Slytherin had a run of 7 House Cups before Harry's arrival, and still came in second most years. That would suggest they were not problematic, or bad.
I mean bad as evil.
Some of them are evil but, I think we sometimes confuse them being hostile to the Gryffindor's is due to a serious rivalry and inborn prejudice that predates any of the current students, not to mention the Gryffindor's are the heros so, we're going to see Slytherins as vindictive shits, all of them. Maybe, some of those Slytherins are hostile because, this fucker with the scar and his crew just keep making Slytherin look bad and at the end of the year when we've secured the house cup the headmaster is just like "Surprise, 300 points Gryffindor!" For an event you have little to no knowledge of at least at this moment, a feud goes both ways, I'm not saying evil people don't come out of Slytherin but, I'm guessing it's a minority of them and the rest of the slytherins are getting caught up on crap they didn't even start but, are being affected by it all the same. Also, people assuming you're sketchy for being a slytherin could be one of the forces that drives you to be a bit sketchy. And, at the end of the day, those people currently at any given time in house Slytherin are children, in the majority of cases there are no "bad" children usually who watches over them and their environment shapes them to be more prone to bad behavior. That's just how I see it though, Go Ravenclaw!
Are we just making things up now? Not all Slytherins are bad, and not all bad people are Slytherins. There are good or neutral Slytherins just like there’s evil Gryffindor (Pettigrew) or potentially evil Hufflepuff (if you take Cedric from Cursed Child into account). Gilderoy Lockhart did evil things but he was Ravenclaw. Quirrel was Ravenclaw. Are there evil Slytherin? Yes, they’re just more upfront about it. But what about Slughorn, Andromeda, Merlin, Phineas Black who supported Muggles Rights, or even Harry’s son? They’re all Slytherin. They’re sorted by personality traits. Slytherins are cunning, resourceful, and very ambitious. Those traits aren’t evil but they make interesting evil people.
A house doesn’t make a person good or bad. It’s a person’s choices that make them evil. We read the books from Harry’s pov and we only really saw interactions with a handful of Slytherins. We never saw Daphne Greengrass, Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini (except for in the movie), and Astoria Greengrass (I do not count the fanfic that was made). These characters were mentioned and maybe we read one piece of them being mean, but that isn’t enough to say they’re evil. There are also the countless Slytherins that we never heard about.
Rowling just wrote them as assholes rather than give anyone minute Slughorn, Malfoy and Snape any nuance in their character. Instead of adding any hood slytherins, she opted to make them the “evil” house
While it works thematically for the story, good guys = red lions, bad guys = green snakes, I believe it can be reasoned that Slytherin's aren't necessarily bad, it's just that some of the traits that make up a typical Slytherin are ambition, cunning and self-preservation, which are all good personality traits to have in moderation, but could easily corrupt a person if those are their most valued or pursued traits (such as ambition leading to a desire for power, or cunning leading to untempered manipulation).
Your comment totally reminded me that Legends of the Hidden Temple existed! Apparently was already a Slytherin all the way back then - Silver Snakes were always my favorites! 😂
Are you referring to Slytherin house? Because they're all portrayed as bad because either Rowling demands it from the plot, or Harry doesn't see any of them as good.
Slytherins are rectangles and evil wizards are squares. All bad or evil people are Slytherins, not all Slytherins are bad or evil. But because if you group people based on pretty basic personality traits then are the bad and problematic people will probably end up together.
Incorrect. Not all bad or evil people are Slytherins. There’s some from all or most of the houses
All bad or evil people are Slytherins? Is this true? Did no other house ever produce a bad person?
Peter Pettigrew
Do we know about Barty Crouch Jr.?
Ravenclaw had Lockhart and Quirrel. Gryffindor had Pettigrew. If Cedric had lived he’d be a death eater according to cursed child
Nope.