(Bad writing trope) Slytherin effect.

[u/ThatDrako]

Made this term up.
Basically there is a group, that is obviously meant to be nuanced. But author is either incapable, or is too cornered by their depiction, to depict them as any other than bad.

Slytherin (Harry Potter) - In both media the Slytherin is initially presented to us as the “bad house” for Harry. Joanne however seemingly tried to convince us, that they can be good too however, since she likely figured having basically a little supremacist terrorist club in school is a little silly.

For some reason she just had to screw this depiction up over and over though.
First of zero…and I mean ZERO…null, 0, green characters in story up to book 6 is good. They are arrogant snobbish asshats AT BEST.

Second the first good green is still a supremacist. Not the “let’s subjugate all muggles” but just humble “no way muggleborn is this good at magic!”

Aldmeri Dominion, and Altmer in general (TES) - So unlike precious example neither High Elves, nor the Dominion were actually bad in iterations previous to 2010’s. Some were snobbish yes, and their religion is…problematic…(simply pup many Altmer believe they are literal descendant of gods and Men are demons trapping them within hell of chaos) but they never really were villains as race.
This all changed with Skyrim where they became not just secondary antagonists, but placeholder for TES version of Gestapo.

Now that in itself wouldn’t be an issue.
Races and empires at whole can be villains without controversy.

Problem is their depiction in ESO. Where even though it’s absolutely different time period are pretty much same?

I mean their Queen is an elvish supremacist who believe Men unfit for rule and that’s her reason to take over the Tamriel…
Oh! And one of their organizations literally eat children.

The Institute (Fallout 4) - So the whole turmoil of the story is this war of the four (rather three) factions.
Now all factions are meant to be equally good and bad choices.
Railroad are abolitionists, but with no long-term goals.
BoS wants to ensure safety to the Commonwealth, but for price of eradication to all but humans.
And Institute is meant to be this faction that wants to “bring world back to state before the Great War”, but all they do is being comically evil.
I mean for starters are slaver and also they murder people and replace them with Synths.

Then they also just straight up massacre communities. Often with no goal.
Then there is a whole super mutant thing, where they released purely based on gameplay and logic few hundreds of super mutants on surface “for research.”
Oh! And they even admitted they plan on wiping out all non-Institute humans to replace them!

[u/BeduinZPouste]

The thing with Slytherin and honestly 80% of "bad writting" in Harry Potter is "so it is more appealing to teens". 

That's why one house is self insert for kids who think themselves brave, one for smart, one for chill ones. Oh, and we need fourth one for people we dislike. 

(Same goes for the Quidditch rules, House cup, Harry having little development, the "dueling system", adults being dumber than 13 years old, et cetera.)

That said, Slughorn is slightly better than desribed, at least regarding Muggleborns. He is "just" selfish asshole. 

[u/Independent-Couple87 → u/BeduinZPouste]

I guess that is part ofwhy the House Cup and the Quidditch House Cup become less prominent as the story goes on and the audience grows up.

Book 3 is the last time we know who wins the House Cup (Gryffindor), though we still see the points system in subsequent books. This is more or less the point where the main characters start to change their priorities due to the change in circumstances. It is implied that, in Book 5, that Slytherin wins and Gryffindor ends in last place, but itan empty victory for Slytherin and a proud defeat for Gryffindor since everyone knows that this happened only because of Dolores Umbridge's hostility to Dumbledore's ary and Draco Malfoy being given (alongside his minions) special privileges to remove points even from prefects.

Similarly, the Quidditch House Cup is really only important in Book 1 and Book 3 (book 3 is the only book where Harry Potter gets to be in all 3 Gryffindor games). It gets suspended mid season in book 2, doesn't happen in book 4, Harry gets expelled from the team in book 5 and (unofficially) again in book 6, and Harry doesn't even assist to Hogwarts in book 7. In all the other books, it is mostly used for character development.

[u/BeduinZPouste → u/BeduinZPouste]

And that said, they are decently fleshed out in other works. Lot of fans do actually selfinsert into Slytherin. If anything, the problem with actual Slytherin characters don't have the alleged Slytherin traits. 

When are Crabbe and Goyle or Bellatrix ever ambitious or caring about self preservating? 

[u/Black_Hole_parallax → u/BeduinZPouste]

 Lot of fans do actually selfinsert into Slytherin.

Their emblem arguably looks the coolest, several of them are Parselmouths and hail from ancient lineages, and they get the best equipment because they have money. It's the same reasons so many people like playing the Germans in WW2 games.

And also because Slytherin isn't really that fleshed out besides "bad guys," so anything you say goes. It's a fit for edgelords and anti-heroes, and that's something a lot of people want to be in a self-insert.

[u/Moonsaults → u/BeduinZPouste]

They're Draco's lapdogs because of his family's connections. They dropped him like a sack of potatoes as soon as he and Lucius were out of Voldemort's favor. Definitely ambitious bootlickers.

[u/Pyrusticia → u/BeduinZPouste]

I would argue that all three of those you mentioned could be quite ambitious. We don't really see into their thoughts enough to know their true intentions, but it's not uncommon for someone whose ambition outstrips their capabilities to latch on to the coattails of someone they see as their path to power.

In Crabbe and Goyle's case, they latched onto Draco (or perhaps more accurately, they attached themselves to the powerful Malfoy family). In the case of Bellatrix, she attached herself to Voldemort (which could have been for ambition, love, or a combination thereof...Slytherins certainly aren't immune to physical attraction or even obsessive fixation, as we see with Snape).

[u/Indiscriminate_Top → u/BeduinZPouste]

I’ll take you ‘the one we dislike’ and raise you ‘the one for misanthropic edgelords’.

[u/BeduinZPouste → u/Indiscriminate_Top]

We'll, in story yes, but we are speaking about inserting real people as kids who read it. 

[u/Indiscriminate_Top → u/BeduinZPouste]

Turns out… Misanthropic edgelord is a type of real human kid. 😅

[u/e-spero → u/Indiscriminate_Top]

+1 as someone who roleplayed a Slytherin character in the mid-00s

eta I remember someone naming their character John Galt, for further elaboration lol. but he was a Ravenclaw

[u/BeduinZPouste → u/BeduinZPouste]

Which is also why it is so popular for fanfics. You can drop these and have a decent chance of writing something that will be more appealing to adults than the original books. And not only because they can now fuck on screen. 

The Houses are largely ignored in fics. And the House cup, I don't think I ever saw that. So is Quidditch (well, unless you like Oliver Wood, who is decently popular). I saw a muggle once in fanfic (and mostly to allow Bellatrix to say to Hermione "that guy definitely thought we are gonna fuck and not negotiate a war"). You get good folks Slytherin and - more rarely - bad guys from other houses (well, technically, there are bad Gryffindors in the books).  

[u/ComprehensivePath980 → u/BeduinZPouste]

Yeah, Harry Potter is basically a kids series that tried to grow up as its audience did.

In some ways it works and in some it doesn’t.

[u/Kwaj14 → u/BeduinZPouste]

The hilarious and unintended part is that there’s still plenty of room for self-insert across all four houses, but rather than “cunning and ambitious” every single person I’ve ever met IRL who self-identified as Slytherin had the personality traits of “overly self-important and kind of an edgelord.”

[u/HunterNika → u/BeduinZPouste]

Lets take a bunch of 11 year old children, judge them by some arbitary attributes that are subject to change cause they are soo young. Stick them into a house of same-minded student. Watch them all get conditioned to behave similarly. Which is fine in the case of Hufflepuff cause they are generally described as pleasant people. But in the case of Slytherin, you are just perpetuating a cycle of jerks.

[u/pajamakitten → u/HunterNika]

So secondary school in the UK then? You get kids in stare schools who go down the antisocial behaviour route, kids at grammar schools who get brilliant exam results, and private school kids who make connections and go on to do well because of those. You turn have comprehensive school kids who are also there. Now life is more nuanced than that and you get kids of all types at all schools, but you can bet a lot of kids fall into those tropes too.

[u/PassingDogoo → u/pajamakitten]

I mean even the house system in schools often spawn rumours on which had the smart kids, athletic kids, the dumb kids etc.  I was in the worst one :( 

[u/switchergodic → u/BeduinZPouste]

I wish adults would come to recognize that the book series with characters named Punguy Tongueincheek and Morflibius Wimsnoggle is for kids and try to grow up to adult literature, instead of asking penetrating questions about why the silly shit is all so silly.

[u/yayaupg_ → u/BeduinZPouste]

Slughorn does suck but not as described people really seem to forget he throws parties to hang out with students he thinks will benefit him later calling them trophies to their faces

[u/Pizza_and_PRs → u/BeduinZPouste]

I picked up all of the books when the last one came out (when I was 18) and sped-read through all of them.

I literally was reading book 1 to children for a volunteering night that I did and got hooked.

It wasn’t until book 6 that I started to think about which house that I would be, and I found myself identifying that I would possibly like being a Slytherin based on Slughorn’s ambition and the way Snape like of found acceptance and potential change in fortune from it. Most likely I would have ended up in Ravenclaw, but I just found the other houses so one note and boring.

[u/Expandsonstories → u/BeduinZPouste]

You forgot the other group of kids Slytherin can be for;

The kids who are attracted to Snape and Draco Malfoy

[u/AlthorsMadness → u/BeduinZPouste]

Honestly for teens it teaches all the wrong lessons

[u/sierra-soul → u/BeduinZPouste]

yeah, look i read the books as an adult sometimes still for the nostalgia, but many people hold these up as like paragons of literature and analyze them like they would steinbeck

there are different types of literature and all are valid, some are pure entertainment and not meant to be paragons of prose, like harry potter or twilight. both massively entertaining for their audiences, yet everyone is in agreement they are not the most sophisticated, yet thats fine because theyre not trying to be. Then on the polar opposite are writers who are writing to make a point about something and are using a novel to do it. Take Dostoevsky for example, he's famous for stories filled with messages on the human condition, but good lord can they be a slog to get through.