The Slytherin philosophy is basically to be the best,

to be great --

that means working hard,

always thinking a few steps ahead of your opponent,

and being ruthless in your pursuit of excellence.

Because Slytherins are so obsessed

with proving themselves superior to others,

they can be guilty of arrogance and powerlust

“There is only power and those too weak to seek it.”

Slytherins are very often selfish or self-interested.

But on the positive side,

they show impressive mastery of their crafts.

And as much as the Harry Potter series maligns this house,

Slytherin at least is never overlooked

or insignificant-feeling,

unlike the other two supporting houses.

Slytherins are known for their supreme power,

importance and achievement.

“Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness,

no doubt about that.”

This drive to work hard and achieve greatness

is embodied in Slytherin's most infamous member.

Tom Riddle a.k.a. Voldemort is undeniably terrible,

but he's also very impressive --

he's an orphan who became one of the most powerful wizards ever

thanks to talent, ambition, and dedication.

“I fashioned myself a new name,

a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak

when I became the greatest sorcerer in the world.”

The only reason Harry even has special skills

is that he has some of Voldemort in him.

“he transferred some of his powers to you

the night he gave you that scar”.

And it's implied that Harry could have reached new heights

if he'd been sorted into Slytherin.

“You would have done well in Slytherin”.

Harry and Voldemort also share certain qualities

that Gryffindors and Slytherins have in common --

they're both extremely driven

and they'll do anything necessary to win their fight.

“You possess many of the qualities that Voldemort himself prizes:

determination, resourcefulness,

and if I may say so, a certain disregard for the rules”.

Slytherin's colors are green and silver.

Unlike Gryffindor's warm tones, these cool colors tell us

that Slytherins are cool, calculating, and controlled.

Slytherins are logical and analytical.

In the first Harry Potter book, the Sorting Hat tells us

that the house's defining quality is single-minded resourcefulness:

“Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends.”

So Slytherins are masters of strategy and long-term planning.

They apply themselves to their goals with rational, smart steps.

They think around and through problems,

rather than acting on their gut impulse like fiery red Gryffindors.

Slytherins are deeply ambitious.

Both green and silver -- thanks to their links to currencies --

evoke associations with money and greed,

and many Slytherins do value wealth and social status.

“My father can afford the best.”

Then there's the idea of “being born with a silver spoon in your mouth”

or getting something “on a silver platter,”

so silver also speaks to the privilege

that many Slytherins are born into.

Green also brings to mind the phrase

“Green with envy”

and Draco certainly resents Harry

for all his fame and special attention.

“Famous Harry Potter.

Can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page.”

We often think of silver as second place, less precious than gold,

and Slytherins feel like they're always coming in second

after the Golden Gryffindors.

In our world, you wouldn't necessarily think

that Gryffindor's tendency to act first and plan second

is all that admirable.

But somehow these reckless, spontaneous Gryffindors

are always coming out on top in the Harry Potter series.

It's not like all Gryffindors are the most talented

or skilled people at Hogwarts

“He possesses no measurable talent, his arrogance rivals even that of his father's

and he seems to relish in his fame.”

A lot of the time,

Harry and his friends seem to get by on dumb luck.

“Last year, he really did fight off You-Know-Who in the flesh.”

“Look, it all sounds great when you say it like that,

but the truth is, most of that was just luck.”

In the Sorcerer's Stone, when Dumbledore awards Gryffindor

last-minute points to hand them the House Cup,

this would feel like pretty blatant favoritism to the Slytherins

who have been working all year to win that cup and

have been leading in points.

And from this perspective,

couldn't you start to get why Slytherins resent Gryffindors,

who seem to keep getting handed success

even though they don't really apply themselves in an intelligent way?

We can even see the Slytherins' sense of unfairness

in the starting premise of the story:

“How is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent

was able to defeat the greatest wizard of all time?”

Voldemort exerts exceptional effort to become the greatest

wizard of his time, but a little baby beats him

and becomes a celebrity just for passively receiving

his parents' love.

Slytherins' house element is water.

And like liquids,

Slytherins are slippery, fluid and hard to pin down.

In astrology, water signs are considered to be intuitive,

emotional and sensitive.

Because they're so hyper-aware and sensitive,

Slytherins are image-conscious.

They're extremely concerned with how they're perceived.

The water element may also connect to potions,

Snape's subject of choice.

“I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science

and exact art that is potion-making.”

Potions is an understated art that's all about the slow simmering

of carefully chosen ingredients.

“I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory and even

put a stopper in death.”

Purposeful, patient and precise is classic Slytherin.

Harry Potter may focus more on the negative associations,

but green, silver and water have a lot of positive connotations.

Silver, the metal, is malleable and adaptive,

and Slytherins are far more subtle in their thinking

than straightforward Gryffindors.

Green is associated with life, vitality, and nature.

And Slytherins have astonishing potential for growth, rebirth and renewal.

Just as water can take different forms,

Slytherins can change and transform -- as we can see in Snape

“He was the bravest man I've ever known.”

“Why didn't you tell her?

You knew it was me. You didn't say anything”

and even Narcissa, when she lies to Voldemort

that Harry is dead.

“Dead?” “Dead.”

Of all the houses, Slytherin is probably the one

most closely linked to its house animal, the snake.

“There's a reason the symbol of Slytherin house is a serpent.

Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth.”

Even their name sounds like the word “slither,”

as in “the snake slithered across the grass.”

In Western literature and culture, snakes are associated

with cunning, treachery and deception:

The serpent in Genesis tempts Eve to eat

from the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

leading to the fall.

The serpent there represents Satan,

while the griffin of Gryffindor's name has been associated with Christ.

So the story immediately paints Gryffindor and Slytherin

as good versus evil --

one literally has a Christ symbol in its name,

and the other's name sounds like the movement of the animal

traditionally linked to the devil.

And the Harry Potter story mostly reinforces the Western idea

of the snake as devious and evil.

Voldemort himself looks snake-like

with his smooth, hairless head and slits for nostrils.

And Salazar Slytherin's basilisk is a monstrous incarnation

of the house's spirit --

which is why only Voldemort can control it

as heir to Slytherin.

“Parseltongue won't save you now, Potter. It only obeys me”.

Voldemort's snake, Nagini also embodies terrible violence.

But there's also another snake we meet early on,

at the zoo in The Sorcerer's Stone.

Harry understands that this unaggressive animal is just mistreated.

“He doesn't understand what it's like,

lying there day after day

watching people press their ugly faces in on you”.

In fact, he feels a sense of kinship with the snake.

“Do you miss your family? I see.

That's me as well. I never knew my parents either”.

So there's a way in which the snakes of Slytherin

are misunderstood and villainized from the start.

Outside of Western culture, There are a lot more

Positive associations with the snake.

It's often been linked to sexual desire and fertility,

the mysteries of reproduction.

In ancient Egypt the uraeus, or rearing cobra,

was a symbol of royalty and power.

That reminds us of Slytherin's legacy

as a grand, important house.

Egyptians also saw the snake as life-giving --

just as Snape protects Harry for so many years.

“Don't tell me now, that you've grown To care for the boy.”

snakes shed their skin, and the Slytherins we know best

reveal new sides to themselves,

symbolically shedding their skin in an act of rebirth.

So the snake is an animal of contradictions:

it represents deadliness and vengeance and life and renewal.

Its venom can be poison or medicine.

Ultimately the snake is a symbol of duality,

of both good and evil, and their interconnectedness.

And Slytherins have both darkness and the capacity for light inside of them.

The Slytherin common room Is in the Hogwarts dungeons

Underground, just as Slytherins are symbolically hidden away,

their true natures not immediately visible to the outside world.

The room is partly under the lake,

which puts Slytherins close to their element, water.

The underwater location visualizes that Slytherins aren't afraid

to face the deeper, darker truths of human nature.

Some of them are interested in the Dark Arts.

The darkness and greenish light make the common room feel

a little eerie not entirely comfortable --

Echoing how Slytherins keep people at a distance.

The house ghost is the Bloody Baron,

not the most welcoming character.

In the books, we learn that he was in love with Helena Ravenclaw

but eventually stabbed her in a rage --

and when he realized what he'd done,

he turned the knife on himself.

So this tragic backstory captures a lot about who Slytherins are --

they have intense feelings that they don't know

how to express in a healthy way, and this can be a fatal flaw.

But they often come to repent the error of their ways.

In the books, the Bloody Baron Chooses wears chains

to atone for his crime.

The house name comes from Salazar Slytherin,

one of the founders of Hogwarts.

“Three of the founders coexisted quite harmoniously.

One did not.”

“Three guesses who.”

Salazar is a Basque name meaning “old hall,”

so this connotes the impressive, long legacy of Slytherin.

The Slytherins' fixation with their impressive past

might help explain their problematic history with bigotry.

Salazar Slytherin himself thought Hogwarts should be for purebloods only.

“Salazar Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students

ddmitted to Hogwarts.

He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families.

In other words, purebloods.

Unable to sway the others, he decided to leave the school.”

And this bias lives on in later Slytherins.

“Associating with Muggles.

And I thought your family could sink no lower”.

The pureblood issue in Harry Potter is an obvious analogy for racism.

“Her speciality was muggle studies.”

“It is Ms. Burgises belief That muggles are not so different from us.

She would, given her way, have us mate with them.”

The very prejudice Draco Malfoy has blond, typically Aryan looks,