Griffyndor vs Slytherin: Bookends in books 1 and 7

The following is brought to you (whoever is around who still stops by the Muggle Matters ghost-town blog) by the "Merlin needs (or at least wants) to take a break from studying for comps and prepping his syllabus for the fall" foundation. In prepping my syllabus for teaching an intro to Old Testament class this fall, I have decided to use the Harry Potter series in the introduction of the course to help explain some approaches in studying texts by applying them to a text college sophmores will have read (the course is one of several possible for fulfilling a core requirement text course - so I have to cover some of the "basics" of how texts in general are approached). Anyway, this has given rise to many "sideline" considerations of the material as a whole. This one is about the whole Gryffindor vs Slytherin tension, and in particular how it functions in books 1 an 7 as sort of "bookends" Pauli made a really brilliant observation once, to which I have been repeatedly indebted in how I think of some of the structural themes/aspects of the books (this one, dealing with the houses, which, as JKR said in interview is a straight lift from the medieval 4 elements cosmology, as John Granger reports in his books, is by nature a structuring mechanism). His observation was that Gryffindor house contains in it, precisely in Harry's year, all 4 houses, and so is a sort of melting pot. Harry (as John Granger and others, among them the sorting hat, have noted) has slytherin qualities. Ron is your straight-ahead hot-headed and fiery red Gryffindor. Hermione is the cool reason of Ravenclaw and Neville, with his knack for (and eventual teaching of) herbology, is a Hufflepuff nature. The fact that these will be "melting potted" together is evident from book 1, where, in the boats crossing the lake (contra the movie representation), these 4, and just these 4, wind up in the same boat together. That's the book 1 opening bookend. In book 7, after Voldy has Hargid (who also led, sort of carried, the troops across the lake in book 1) carry Harry in front of the Castle, Neville breaks through the silence spell and pushes through to shout something about Dumbledore's army forever. Voldy puts him on his knees and asks him if he wants to join the death eaters. Neville tells him where he can shove that idea and Voldy does the flaming sorting hat trick on Neville's head, which then gets transformed into the sword-in-hat trick (a thank you to John Granger here for noticing that great pun and for his pointing us to the Arthurian connections of it in book 2). The book 7 bookend here is the particular thing that Voldy says in this interchange: that there will be no m ore sortings; the house of his noble ancestor Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for all. So, in book 1 we have Gryffindor house "sufficing" for all in the manner of a sort of an umbrella house. In book 7 we have Voldy's alternative conception of what it means for one house to "suffice for all" - which is what we here in academic jargon land call hegemony (forced submission to a cultural etc identity). In other words, Voldy's is a plan of forced homogenization (everybody becoming exactly the same). The Gryffindor model, on the other hand, provides more room for people to maintain the traits that make them unique and interesting (Luna will always be SUCH a Ravenclaw), while still upholding certain universal ideals such as bravery and loyalty. PS: Granger had some nice stuff on Snape as the Slytherin/Gryffindor Androgyne (containing qualities of both, where we get "androgynous" from, which is the original use of the word, a character who has both male [andros] and female [gyne] characteristics) ... an interesting question would be whether or not Dumbledor would be right in sometimes "thinking we sort to soon" - Snape needs to remain a Slytherin for it to work. PPS: on a slightly related note to the last PS, I saw on Travis Prinzi's FaceBook feed that he has something at the Hog’sHead about Snape’s love for Lily: "Devoted, Sacrificial Love or Creepy infatuation)." I don't think they're the only two options. I'm sure different people, including Travis, will be weighing in at the HH with a more nuanced position, but I hope it goes beyond some mere 'middle-point' or 'mixture' theory because I don’t think those are even the only two possible poles in the matter. I think there is a lot more in there than meets the eye. I started thinking this when reading book 3 again recently – particularly in the part where Snape fills in for Lupin and Hermione is trying to answer the questions and Snape keeps docking house points on her for 'speaking out of turn.' And in the shrieking shack he is down-right abusive to Hermione, calling her a stupid girl (yelling it at her – all caps in American text). I think Hermione reminds him a bit of Lily (she certainly connects with Lily, via Slughorn and Harry, in book 6), and that this is like an open burning and festering wound to him. What she reminds him of is that he ruined a friendship. That friendship may have had possibilities of romance and marriage, and Snape may have even had specific conscious desires for that … but Lily was more than just a 'potential lover/spouse' to him … she represented friendship to him, a connection with somebody else, somebody to talk about hopes and dreams and fears and frustrations with (as little as young Snape wants to talk about it, I think it is important to him that Lily asks if his parents are still fighting). So I would add the possibility of not just deep, but, more-over, bitter remorse and regret (at points acerbically bitter, evidenced in his treatment of Hermione as the emblem of a still-open and festering wound). I never could buy the 'completely white hat' (or black hat even before book 7 came out) view of Snape … he's not an angel or a devil, he's a human – and there is a lot of ambiguity when it comes to humans. Anyway, that is enough of a break from studying and syllabus prep for now