Harry Potter

Hermione might have a less prominent role, but Ron would get dragged in simply because his entire family are anti-Voldemort stalwarts. Dumbledore, Mc Gonagall, Sirius, his parents, and Lupin are all Gryffindor, so while there might not be much focus on Gryffindor, they would still be the hero house in a Supporting Leader kind of way. Like I said, it would be largely the same unless every hero was a Hufflepuff.

Also, if Harry were a Hufflepuff, he likely wouldn't be much more than a Classical Anti-Hero who fails a lot more than in canon. People play up the egalitarian, come one come all nature of the house, but Real Life is hierarchical. The strong and the remarkable and the intelligent flourish, and the weak are left by the wayside, one way or another. A house that picks up the dregs isn't going to amount to much, and a house that champions that kind of attitude isn't going to encourage acts of derring-do in their members. You can't impose equality on every aspect of life, and anyone who thinks they can likely suffers from Tall Poppy Syndrome.

edited 4th Sep '15 11:42:39 AM by CrimsonZephyr

While not every hero would be a Hufflepuff, far more of them would be — characters like Ron, Hermione, Neville, the rest of the Weasleys and so on would be largely supplanted by Hufflepuff characters who'd become Harry's close friends instead. The Weasleys might still join the Order of the Phoenix, but they'd never become Harry's surrogate family — likely they'd just be background members like Elphias Doge or Sturgis Podmore. Professor Sprout would replace McGonagall as the resident Reasonable Authority Figure, as the local authority Harry falls back on. Cedric would probably be a prominent character for the first three books, making his death in Goblet much more devastating.

I don't entirely disagree with your point, but I do think much of Gryffindor's importance as far as the main narrative goes would be rendered moot. Gryffindor's main importance would be being the house in which Harry's parents and their circle of friends met.

I'm surprised that Zephyr hasn't suggested using the sorting hat to disguise a gas chamber as Slytherin house. Kill 'em all early.

Snape is a rare example of a character who gets gratuitous character derailment from both the Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants sides of the spec—Jesus, did we seriously name BOTH of those tropes after Harry Potter?

...

That's a much better indictment of the Harry Potter fandom than anything I could possibly say about Snape.

That would eliminate a lot of problems.

You'd still get Lockharts and Wormtails slipping through, though. Safer to kill the whole lot, just to make sure.

With the way the books talk about Slytherin its not surprising many people would joke about having all of them killed, mostly cause the number of truly sympathetic slytherins can be counted on one hand.

I wonder why?

Because they were cunning enough to get though the war without making themselves obvious to both the villains and the heroes. :P

@ravenclaw discussion: Yeah, they bullied Luna and that's portrayed negatively. That's basically it, though— you can argue Marietta, but I think Cho defending her to Harry makes that one more of a neutral point. Bullying Luna for two years is terrible, but it's ~3 girls doing it— all of Gryffindor goes against Harry for a bit in Goblet of Fire. With Cho and Luna both as positives (Luna gets A++ for being as relevant as Ron in OOTP, Cho gets B+ for being a very strong character but having really shit circumstances) I'd say that overall it's a ~positive, or at least a neutral. Compared to Hufflepuff or Slytherin, it's clearly the second best after Gryffindor in portrayal.

Snape is what most anti-heroes should be. Him and Rorschach, who are obviously bad, messed-up people who happen to do good things with their lives as a whole, but do a fair bit of harm on the side because of how foul-natured they are. Most anti-heroes either get a gradual redemption (like Vegeta, who morphed from Enemy Mine villain to anti-hero to straight hero), or are so badass and cool that people forget about their flaws and the narrative eventually does too, reflecting the audience.

Alan Rickman aside, you can't like Snape. He's an abusive, small-minded, unrepentant asshole who just happens to be extremely competent and have a grudge against the Big Bad because he was capable of basic selfless love (although so were a few of the other Death Eaters, like the Malfoy family).

I don't think it was ever selfless love. Certainly not when Lily was alive; up to a few days before her death he was hoping Voldemort would kill off her husband and child so he could take Lily for himself (Dumbledore called Snape out on this during the Pensieve scene when Snape first came to him for help). Even after that he didn't care enough for Lily to treat her son decently, fairly, or in any manner befitting a responsible teacher. He badly wanted to atone in some way for getting her killed, but I'm not sure that qualifies as selfless.

It's interesting how even though Snape realized the error of his ways and joined the side of good, it was still for largely selfish reasons: Voldemort threatened and then someone that mattered to him, and unlike the other Death Eaters who sat around and took that sort of shit out of fear Snape jumped ship. His conversations with Dumbledore make it clear that this instance was only important to him because it affected him personally, and only the parts that affected him personally, and after the deed is done he agonizes over Lily and has to be reminded that there were other victims too.

It wasn't until well after his change of sides that he started to change, even if only slightly. He explicitly doesn't care about Harry specifically, but at the same time I do think he does actually care about the Order's cause by the time we meet him in the present. At some point I do believe he went from "Voldemort hurt me specifically, this isn't fair" to "what Voldemort and us Death Eaters were doing was evil and must be stopped:" a lot about his actions reflect that, especially when Harry isn't around (or he doesn't know Harry is around).

In particular, his relationship with Draco shows a lot more about how much better of a person he's become over the years than his relationship with Lily is - which even in the end is still a selfish pining over something that was never his in the first place. In maintaining Draco's well being he takes a lot of risks and acts far more selflessly than you would expect, even taking into account that it was Dumbledore who planned the whole murder thing.

It's a shame we never get to see what measures he took to protect the students as headmaster during Voldemort's takeover.

edited 20th Sep '15 9:48:52 AM by KnownUnknown

I like to think that he's why Ginny was never targeted for being Harry's girlfriend. The Carrows went to him with that and he listed of a bunch of girls, called Potter a womenising scum like his father and said that Potter was so arrogant that he wouldn't care one bit if they hurt one of the many girls he had used and disposed off, as such targeting Ginny for her connection to Harry would be pointless.

"called Potter a womenising scum like his father"

Which would be hilarious, because James seemed like the Single-Target Sexuality type re: Lily.

I dunno that we can say one way or the other, given how little we know about James's dating life. (Unless there's a four-page paper on Pottermore on the subject or something.) Judging from the power couples in the main cast, I suspect he wasn't single-target, though. Take Ron and Hermione. They both spent time crushing on Viktor Krum other people, went dating separately, and so on, but they're high school sweethearts who got married and had kids, and if you took a snapshot of them at the right time they'd look as single-target as James does. Similar deal with Harry and Ginny, except I don't have a mancrush joke for that.

I suspect Snape would think of him as a womanizer regardless, because big dumb jock why do chicks always go for jerks and not nice guys like me.

In fairness, Snape had a bit more grounding to call James a jerk than your average redpiller.

Snape's also quite a bit worse than your average redpiller. Not many of them are neo-Nazis or Klansmen, for example. Snape has such a strident and unreasonably vociferous fanbase because the Harry Potter fanbase in general is filled with neckbeards and legbeards, who share his sense of entitlement. Young Snape is pretty clearly a Nice Guy (tm), gunning for a Childhood Friend Romance while also being a burgeoning Wizard Nazi. These people are unsavory, irritating, and dangerous to associate with in real life, but because his rival is a big bad, mean Jerk Jock, they instantly attach to him.

I mean, look at all those vile online dating profiles that read something like:

That's the kind of person young Snape is.

edited 24th Sep '15 6:20:35 AM by CrimsonZephyr

I think his fandom stems more from being a pretty interesting characters? I mean, I know I really liked his arc after the chapter where Harry views his memories.

the main flaw of snape is not his asshole personality but that he never move away from his grunts: he never get better from his abuse by his parent, the bullying from James and his gang, his mistake with Lily or her death from voldermort, everytime something shake him he never recover from it, as far he is concern Sirius,Lupin and James never grew up their way just get away with it and now pretent everything was fine.

And to be fair I can see why he think that way, the idea that you bully manage to not only grew up but be succesfull(and in some cases, better than you) is someting hard to acepted, let face it, James story is the "atractive jerk jock who learn not to be asshole and win his life"

So way Snape is pretty much a magical version of Dr.house: everybody lies, everybody never change and deep inside everyone is a jerk, he is a victim of his own nature as people who mistreat him.

edited 24th Sep '15 10:51:28 AM by unknowing

I never liked Snape, though I don't have as much hatred towards him as I do to the Malfoys and Dursleys.

edited 24th Sep '15 3:54:34 PM by Superjohn

Selfless love would have been looking at Harry and seeing the qualities of Lily he loved so much. Recognizing that this boy is the only thing left in the world of her. Making the effort to take care of him and help him succeed in life. Loving him like he was Snape's own son.

Instead, Snape looked at Harry and saw his own petty insecurity staring back. Harry was his last chance to be jealous toward James and possessive toward Lily. He treated the boy like the disease, the aggressor, the foul monster that ripped her away from him. A chance to spite his romantic rival.

Snape never stopped loving Lily, but his love was never selfless.

EDIT: Simply put, the fact that Snape hated James more than he loved Lily is plainly evident in how he chose to perceive their child.

edited 24th Sep '15 3:09:14 PM by TobiasDrake

He did that dosent it? that is why he protect the boy so much.

Also he see Harry as miniture version of James: arrogant,brash,etc as far he is concern harry is more James clone than Lily child.

And of course Snape hate James more: in the end he never pay for being a jerk and gain Lily heart, Harry remain him of that fact every day...and even him understand the implication of dumblodure plan.

"in the end he never pay for being a jerk and gain Lily heart, Harry remain him of that fact every day...and even him understand the implication of dumblodure plan."

Why would he need to "pay?" Oh, poor baby wizard Nazi didn't get the girl.

edited 24th Sep '15 4:13:43 PM by CrimsonZephyr

I do wonder if Snape would have treated Harry any differently had he looked like Lily instead of James. Or if he had been a girl and looked like Lily. Maybe been in Slytherin for the full pack.