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The HMS STFU - Once again the downtrodden Slytherins mount up and ride...
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| | Subject: | Once again the downtrodden Slytherins mount up and ride... | | Time: | 10:30 pm |
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| oryx_leucoryx writes "If Rowling insists on equating blood-prejudice with race-based antisemitism..."
The overall essay actually is quite well-reasoned and doesn't slip into Slytherfen apologia nor does it try to make the stupid equivalency between anti-Muggleborn prejudice and expressed dislike of Slytherin as somehow both being racist.
However, the comments...
Well, here's the gem from Lynn posting as Anonymous:
I agree that the Slytherins seem more paralleled with Jews than Muggle(born)s.
THIS PERSON FAILS SO EPICALLY A SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION IS A CANDLE COMPARED TO THIS FAIL.
I am now facepalming to avoid divoting my desk with my head.
ETA: Lynn cracked me up with this latest addition to the commentary:
As for the last paragraph: the stereotypes exist, unfortunately. They are blatantly untrue. Are you genuinely suggesting that I wish to present them as true? Just in order to make a point in a discussion of the Harry Potter books -- or do you believe I have a more sinister agenda?
Yes, we're just lying in wait 24/7 to leap upon deluded fen and claim that they're secretly plotting nefarious things.
Please. Delusion of fen is enough of a mockable hobby in and of itself we don't need to believe people like marionros and pstibbons have sinister agendas.
Though if I start seeing a pink Power Ranger that resembles Hermione Granger...
ETA2: duj came along in the last comment on that entry and while she had a point about movie canon leaking in (shockingly for a Snapefen, considering how much they make stuff up generally) she got all superciliously smarmy about it near the end. | comments: Poke a delusional shipper     |
| my first reaction to hearing the Sorting Hat's description was:
"Hey, the Slytherins' virtues sound like the nicest things antisemites say about Jews. I want to like these people."
WUT?
Yeah, the second part is a weird reaction, but they were so clearly being set up to be villains that aligning their virtues with the things antisemites say made me automatically sympathize with them. (I'm Jewish, btw.)
Okay, that made no fucking sense. And either way, Hogwarts is not Jewish vs. Antisemites, ffs.
Not only are the Slytherins described as ugly, the statue of Salazar in the Chamber is described as "monkeyish." I.e., less evolved.
What does this have to do with anything?
The Slytherin equivalent of the blood libel/host desecration can be found in the Dark Arts and interest in them. The Chamber of Secrets and the monster left there to attack children also strikes me as particularly parallel to the blood libel.
So, you sympathize with Slytherins because...?
Not to mention the fact that Harry, by dying to save his friends/the world and coming back to life again, is unfortunately (for so many reasons) presented as paralleling Jesus. And who kills him? The character the books present as the epitome of Slytherin. Ick.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... NO. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| My god, what is this I don't even
I wish I had a great picture but nobody has one with a cat in it with a suitably befuddled expression.
That Lynn person is... uh, very opinionated.
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| | Okay, I can comprehend and vaguely see where most of that's coming from. But there's a point and then there's stretching your point to hit things ten feet away while intentionally stretching around the one RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.
First of all, that's only one thing, and second, "cunning" has been used in many many non-WASP stereotypes (pretty much all of them, really, when you think about it), and third, I don't believe her because seriously who read the Sorting Hat's song in that kind of depth on their first time through? | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Except you know for the bit where the Blood Libel = blatantly bigoted piece of lying horseshit...and the monster in the chamber = something that actually existed and killed at least one student, and came close to killing several others. We know this. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-20 01:46 pm (UTC) |
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| Aside from everything explicitly stated in the first comment here...my only other truly WTF???? moment was when "Lynn" tried to argue that Umbridge was in Hufflepuff. Apparently she missed a whole lot of subtext there, not least of which was Umbridge's intense favoring of SLytherins and hatred of Half-bloods.
*facepalm* | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| | Eh, that's not so unreasonable. She's intensely loyal to Fudge, and is slavishly devoted to the ideals of order and subservience to authority. So there's a fair chance that she actually was a Hufflepuff. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Dear Internet,
NOTHING IS LIKE NAZIS/THE HOLOCAUST EXCEPT FOR THE NAZIS AND THE HOLOCAUST.
Yeesh. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| And although the Malfoys could indeed define Aryan in looks, Lucius' behavior does match a certain Jewish stereotype. He's the filthy rich one who uses his money to control the government.
Lynn
Oh yes, only stereotypical Jews can be rich and control the government. The stupid, it burns. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| | I'm between slapping these people with a history book, The Merchant of Venice, Maus by Art Spiegelman, or Night by Elie Winsel. Possibly all four, bound together to a cluebat. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-20 08:28 pm (UTC) |
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| Lucius' behavior does match a certain Jewish stereotype. He's the filthy rich one who uses his money to control the government.
Therefore, the series might be renamed Harry Potter and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion...
I see stupid people; I see them all the time... | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| I agree that the Slytherins seem more paralleled with Jews than Muggle(born)s.
WTF WTF WTF | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| I agree that the Slytherins seem more paralleled with Jews than Muggle(born)s.
 | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Alternatively - because Slytherfen have such trouble distinguishing, here's a quick aide-memoire for them:
 | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| I agree that the Slytherins seem more paralleled with Jews than Muggle(born)s
...what.
Maybe they resemble the jews from an alternate universe. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| So, let me see if I get the logic of the OP here right:
a) Some deranged lying bastards once said that Jews were evil and ate babies.
b) I am Jewish.
c) Therefore, evil baby-eaters are my friends.
That's wrong. That's not how it works. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-23 06:52 pm (UTC) |
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| But even so, my first reaction to hearing the Sorting Hat's description was:
"Hey, the Slytherins' virtues sound like the nicest things antisemites say about Jews. I want to like these people."
...Just, what the hell?
Lady, if that's the first thing you thought when you read that, maybe the problem is you and not the text. But, I suppose that goes without saying with Snapefen. ;)
And I might not be up on my mythology, but aren't goblins usually described that way in folklore? It's not like JKR sat down and went "Hmmm, how can I make these creatures more Jewish?" Of course, goblin folklore could've come from antisemitism, but I think that's a fact that most people don't really think about (or are even aware of in some cases).
-Simplefaith | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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The HMS STFU - Once again the downtrodden Slytherins mount up and ride...
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