Me, Lying On The Floor, Staring At The Ceiling: I Can’t Believe Kent Parson Still Thinks Jack Zimmermann

a compilation of my favorite pride & prejudice posts 😌

HP theory: Salazar Slytherin left the basilisk to help the students, not attack them.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Salazar lately, and his Chamber of Secrets, and the basilisk. And I think it’s possible that the common perception of why he built the Chamber might be way off base. 

First, let’s start with what we are told about the Chamber. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m discounting information from the movie and focusing on the book because…well, movie. In then second book, Prof Binns tells the class that “Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic.”

This has always struck me as odd–the founder of a school wanting to kill children? Yes, he argued against admitting Muggleborns, which he saw as a serious security risk for the other children. But killing them is a very different thing altogether. In fact, on this same page, Binns dismisses the tale as “ludicrous.” There is no written evidence of Salazar’s reasoning; instead, all that’s left is a legend that has traveled by word of mouth, supposedly for a thousand years. Students are likely to twist even the most banal stories into legend, so the idea of “purging the unworthy” doesn’t seem very reliable. Plus, most important of all–who’s the one student who knew most about the Chamber, who talked about it to other students? Tom Riddle. It seems to me that there is a very good chance that “purging the unworthy” was really HIS motive, not Salazar’s. 

Next, let’s look at the animal itself. The basilisk is an incredibly unusual animal, and not because of its ability to kill. There are literally countless other ways to kill wizards, especially wizard children, a large number of which are much easier and would arouse less suspicion. Additionally, the basilisk can only kill or petrify a limited number of people at a time–assuming only one person can look it directly in either eye at once, that means it can only kill a maximum of two students at a time. This is highly ineffective for a large school. Spells would have been better! Blood curses would have been better! Simply jinxing the sorting hat to mark muggleborns would have been better. But he doesn’t do that. His reasoning can’t be because he’s a Parselmouth and can speak to snakes, because, remember, he never planned to use the basilisk himself. He never DID use it himself. In addition, the attacks are easy to prevent: looking through lenses or using reflections can foil an attack, and a 50-foot long snake is easy to see and attack (don’t forget that at the time of Hogwarts’ founding, there were no pipes for the snake to move around in. It COULD NOT have been Salazar’s plan for it to use the pipes.) This thing would never have been able to kill many students before the professors found it and stopped it. A “purge” of a large portion of the student body seems almost impossible. 

In addition, we know that basilisks do not answer to every Parselmouth. This is clear in book 2, for while Harry can understand the basilisk, it does not answer to him at all. Leaving a creature behind that might not respond to his own Parselmouth descendants, and could therefore attack even purebloods, is completely illogical and out of character. Everything that we have seen of Salazar speaks of him striving to create a safe place for his chosen students, not put them in danger.

Then there’s the fact that the basilisk had been put into a kind of suspended animation. It had lain dormant for centuries. Put that into Salazar’s own timeline. We know he had children, because we know he has heirs. We know they were magical. We can be reasonably sure they attended Hogwarts, as it was the only school in existence at the time. If Salazar really intended for his heirs to purge the school…why didn’t they? If that were his intention, he absolutely would have told his own children or grandchildren about it. Even if we try to explain that away by saying he feared the other founders, there’s no reason why his grandchildren wouldn’t have taken up the cause. But they don’t. For TEN CENTURIES. His descendants spread far and wide, they even go on to found magical schools in other countries (!), and not a single one opens the chamber until Tom, who was raised not by wizard parents, but in an orphanage. 

To me, there is only one explanation: Salazar did not intend to wipe out Muggleborns. He did not tell his descendants to awaken the basilisk and purge the school. That cannot have been his plan. If it had been, why on earth wouldn’t they have done it, and why would he have have chosen an animal that even his own children had at best a 50/50 chance of being able to control? Why not a curse, or a jinx, or an animal that would kill of its own accord? Why take this animal and deliberately put it into a stasis in which it can’t hurt anyone?

Because there’s another important characteristic of basilisks: their venom. It can destroy horcruxes. Basilisk venom is one of only two things in the entire wizarding world that can do so. This makes it incredibly important in the fight against dark magic, perhaps the most important tool there is. Out of Voldemort’s seven horcruxes, a whopping five of them were destroyed by basilisk venom–the cup and the diary with fangs, and the locket, ring and Nagini with a sword that had been imbued with the venom. The fight against Voldemort could NEVER have been won without that basilisk and its venom, especially since basilisks had not been seen in England since the 16th century. Without Salazar’s basilisk, there is a very good chance they would not have found another one. And that venom could even have been extracted from the basilisk while still dormant. 

It is because of Salazar Slytherin and his basilisk that Voldemort was defeated. Because Salazar did not purge the school of muggleborns; because he did not instruct his children or grandchildren to do so; because he did not place a conscious monster in the school. Instead, he took the most valuable tool in the fight against the dark arts, placed it in the safest stasis he could, and stored it in the safest place in the wizarding world. He left that tool as a precaution against any dark wizards that would ever threaten Hogwarts. 

And it goddamned worked. 

you dont get to tell me that representation doesnt matter when im crying over cemetery boys because its the first book ive ever read with a trans main character. i didnt realize how much this book would mean to me. because ive never had that in books or any media.

it is so fucking important that young kids have characters and stories that they can relate to and see themselves in because previous queer generations didnt have this. im still very young and part of a generation that is being exposed to more representation, and even i didnt see any queer characters until late middle school.

so when i see a character talking about things like his family deadnaming and misgendering him, wearing a binder and being uncomfortable without it, and not feeling confident enough to even use the correct bathroom, i think, “hey, i feel those things. i experience these things. i resonate with these things.” and i want all young lgbtqia kids to have that feeling because its the fucking best thing in the world.

Gotta keep a straight face u guys

based on this post

Websites for when you want to:

un-disgruntle yourself

comfort someone

be comforted

go to a quiet place

press a magic button and fix everything

get a hug

see something cute

hear rain noises

play cute games 

cut something/someone (blood)

break something

open a window

have a guided relaxation

listen to nature sounds (or here)

do nothing for 2 minutes

play the piano

make cute ecards

make cool music 

get an idea for what to do

avoid boredom

watch a dream

have a stickman adventure

play a fun and philosophical game

talk to someone

make sand designs

listen to ambient coffee shop noise

turn off addicting sites so you can study (mac only)

make cool symmetrical designs

get your thoughts out of your head

play a cool game

be calm

sort through something that’s been troubling you

look at the galaxy

reaf after finishing

svsss

Do you think MXTX deals with themes of self-worth in all of her stories? I'm thinking of Luo BingHe, Wei WuXian, Xie Lian, and Hua Cheng specifically... but also Shen Jiu, Jiang Cheng, Jin GuangYao, and Mu Qing... are there similarities? Differences?

Daaamn, that’s a whole lotta characters to examine here XD

…And really, there’s only more to be added because self-worth is absolutely a recurring theme in MXTX’s stories, and a common hardship to grow from throughout individual arcs. I’d throw in Jin Ling, Qi Rong, Wen Ning and Zhuzhi-Lang too. 

There are certainly plenty of parallels & foils to be found and noticeable patterns are observable in the way self-worth is explored, especially in what caused it and how characters try to cope or compensate for it. 

To do some broad categorization (and some can fit in more than one category!):

Some have self-worth issues stem from the guilt of having committed horrendous acts at one time: Wei Wuxian, Xie Lian and Wen Ning

For MANY in which it’s the result of an abusive background: Jin Guangyao, Hua Cheng, Luo Binghe, Qi Rong, Zhuzhi-Lang and Shen Jiu. 

And for some it’s an inability to live up to expectations: Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling

Mu Qing is kind of a unique case, but uhhh more on him later. 

With the exception of the few antagonists who got tragic endings, we see most of these characters attain resolution in their arcs and move forward in life with greater confidence.

But what’s striking is just how consistently important human connections is shown to be at empowering people and healing the pain caused by those deep-seated insecurities. Having unconditional bonds are what allow even the villains in MXTX worlds to experience moments affirming their humanity. On the whole, connections are integral to the development of all these MXTX characters as they navigate through their issues with their self-worth, so let’s examine the various ways these two linked themes are explored. Since I’ve already written long-ass posts about Hua Cheng here and Wen Ning & Zhuzhi-Lang here, I won’t talk about them much. Also, Shen Jiu will be saved for another post 😉

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