Harry Potter Fans - Why have a Slytherin House at all?

The books and movies are from Harry's point of view so we don't see any thing else than "Slytherin is evil". The "dark side" is basically the death eaters (other than Voldemort) fighting for their rights.

Slytherins are said to be ambitious and since dark arts is something really above ones level, they are really curious about it. And slytherins aren't the only ones. Gryffindors and Ravenclaws have their share of death eaters too. Hufflepuff has the least because one of their qualities is loyalty.

Look at this from the purebloods/death eaters perspective and Ignore Voldemort for a few moments because he is a hypocrite. They are born into families that are purebloods for generations, they are born and brought up like royalty because of it. The wizarding world is theirs. But these muggleborns have come in and are violating the wizarding world where they have equal rights as the purebloods. Most purebloods want justice and hope that they do not let muggleborns in. That's what they thought Voldemort was doing but by the time they regretted it, it was too late because if they leave, Voldemort would kill them. This is what happened to Karkaroff and Regullas (if he hadn't killed himself, Voldemort would). It was stay and suffer or leave and die.

Voldemort took the whole thing to another level. He killed for fun and did not care about anyone. There are few death eaters that actually want what Voldemort wants. Most of them hoped that he would stay dead more than the normal public.

You could say that stuff like this is happening in our world too. Where I'm from, I am a local. I was born and grew up here, and so have my parents and grand parents yet people from all around the country come and settle here and the study or business opportunities for locals is decreased a lot because of outsiders. So obviously I will want to do something about it. But Killing is too far. Same can be said for the pure bloods.

All the houses have their own faults and this is the fault of slytherins. Gryffindors are brave but they are obnoxious. Ravencalws are smart but cold. Hufflepuff are loyal but quite. Slytherins are clever but self preserved.

Because if Slytherin was abolished the school would probably get ripped to pieces. All Slytherins become deatheaters, which is probably why the deatheaters have the smallest respect for Hogwarts. Get rid of Slytherin and you'll have a riot on your hands, plus it wouldn't solve any problem at all.

I can't really say for sure...

My guess would be that the keep it because it is part of their history..it was set up by one of the original founders of Hogwarts and they can't just erase that.

Also not everyone that comes out of slytherin is bad take snape for example he was good it just took us a while to figure it out. There are also good people in slytherin the same way there is more than likely bad people in all of the other houses as well.

And lastly..if wizards are gonna become evil then nothing can stop them, they would have went evil without the slytherin house, at least this way Dumbledore can keep a close eye on them because they are so nearby, you know "Keep your friends close & your enemies closer."

That's what I think anyway...hope I helped.

A hero is only as good as the villain he's facing.

FWIW, a lot of slimy bad guys graduated from Harvard, Yale and Cambridge.

It's mostly because the structure and idea of the novels are simply good vs bad, in the core of it. There's nothing wrong with that, but the removal of bad from the school situation would have stopped the novels from working. Arguably, Hogwarts diligently teaches all wizards and witches indiscriminately, so they have to take the potentially bad ones, and the sorting hat groups them all together.. because that's what it does... and they can't just get rid of them because they do have potential. In a school, bringing out potential is the primary objective, I think. In all honesty though I don't think that's what Rowling was thinking, it was more likely just the need for the bad guys, the minor antagonists such as Draco Malfoy.

I dont think it was suppose to be an "evil house" Harry was almost put in Slytherin. Its just that generally, the most ambitious people are yes, the most likely to succeed, but aslo the ones that are the most likely to do ANYTHING to succeed.

It wasnt supposed to be evil.

Because every story has to have villains.

Disbanding the house wouldn't stop the students from becoming Death Eaters or anything. There are plenty of decent Slytherins as well, Professor Slughorn for example. Not to mention, it's school tradition.

they are derived from the founders of the school, and are usually sorted based on lineage.

Because Harry wanted to see Hermoine's Beaver