^^ Agree

^^^ agreed, but at the same time, I don’t think the audience (children) would understand that prejudice can go both ways. They just think “Slytherins and snakes are bad.” And to get a little meta, snakes represented evil in the books (and movies). Who was the horcrux they had to defeat? A snake. What did Voldemort vaguely look like? A snake. What attacked Mr. Weasley? A snake. It seems as if the snakes are conspiring against Harry.

Ravenclaw's mascot is already an eagle...

Its a snake because "SnAkEs ArE eViL aNd So Is SlYtHeRiN"

Slytherin was a dark wizard. He keeps a giant snake in the basement to kill students. Almost every dark wizard who goes to Hogwarts is in Slytherin. The mascot makes sense.

^^^ But not every Slytherin is evil or a dark witch or wizard. However, making their symbol a snake, a animal that within the series represents darkness makes it seem as such. The mascot does make sense in-universe, but from a writing standpoint, it just makes Slytherins look bad, or dark, or whatever synonym you prefer.

^^^^^^ I agree SO HARD (especially the snakes being beautiful part bc they sure are)

^^

Isn’t that the point. Harry Potter is still a children’s book so JKR a made the bad guys obvious. Before Harry even gets to Hogwarts, Hagrid says Slytherins are evil. Yeah, she makes then a bit nicer later on, but at the start she made them purposefully evil.

You would also need an animal that kids actually know. Kids know what snakes are and that snakes are dangerous and sneaky. I don’t think most kids would know a golden eagle is sneaky and different from a Ravenclaw eagle. And it’s not like making the mascot a golden eagle will stop JKR from making it evil. Instead of red eyes and weird slits for his nose, Voldemort will just grow gold wings.

There’s some symbolism asides from snakes are evil.

“We’re like our emblem: sleek, powerful, and frequently misunderstood.”

“Our emblem is the serpent, wisest of all creatures.”

Snakes also sometimes symbolize healing and all that, even if they are sometimes evil. Snake symbolism just depends on where you look.

And of course, snakes are sneaky little things that slither around doing who knows what... and there are a lot of green/silver snakes.

(Instead of a golden eagle, I say a fox should be Slytherins alternate mascot. Any child who’s watched Dora knows that they are sneaky and cunning so it’s easily recognizable. They’re also pretty cool.

Slytherin sounds like slither, like what a snake does. Boom!

Snakes are beautiful. Shut up. Snakes are awesome.