Topic: Harry Potter House Quiz

[FireDitto]

I was pretty sure we had this Quiz somewhere, but damned if I can find it.

*shrug*



Your in-depth results are:

Ravenclaw - 12
Hufflepuff - 11
Gryffindor - 10
Slytherin - 10

Harry Potter Sorting Quiz

[Buck]

I dont need to take this. i always get slytherin.

[The Diva]

Huh. 



Your in-depth results are:

Hufflepuff - 15
Ravenclaw - 14
Gryffindor - 12
Slytherin - 6

I've never been a Hufflepuff before.  I don't think it's really me.  I'm most definitely a Ravenclaw, if not a Gryffindor.

Mark, try it.  It's not like the others.

[The Diva]

One answer change and I got Gryffindor.  Interesting.

[K_O Hex]

I'm with Buck on this. I always get Ravenclaw.  Too sneaky to be a Gryffindor, but I lack the ambition to be a Slytherin.

[Officer Jaffa]

Mean Green, Bizzitches...

[I, Dæmon]

Griffyndor.  Strange, that is about the second time ever I have not been Hufflepuff.

[Ashe]

I've never once not gotten Slytherin.



Slytherin - 14
Gryffindor - 10
Ravenclaw - 8
Hufflepuff - 5

I think I tested some "Gryffindor" and "Hufflepuff" because people tend to base Slytherin characteristics off Draco Malfoy and Draco Malfoy is a shitty Slytherin.  I will stop here to keep from ranting.

[Ninja Ed]

There needs to be a Harry Potter house for the apathetic with a perverse sense of humor.  Rowling's quadsecting of human personalities is lacking.

[FireDitto]

So pretty much a Harry Potter version of TWN??

[Ashe]

Yeah.. The house system is seriously flawed.  According to Rowling it goes:

Morally righteous do-gooders who fight evil at all costs = Gryffindor
Evil evil self-serving baddies = Slytherin
Down with the book-learning = Ravenclaw
Do what they're told = Hufflepuffs

When really, if you get a bunch of brave, righteous Gryffindor types butting heads all the time, what they're going to do is become leaders or bullies.  The Slytherins are going to do the same thing, only they're going to be a lot more stealth about it.  The Ravenclaws have a self-interest all their own, and would probably butt-heads more with the Gryffindors than anything, and the Hufflepuffs are loyal and hard-working, so they're basically easy fodder for the Gryffindor and Slytherin to prey on.  Ravenclaws, too, if they so choose, but usually, you don't really need a Hufflepuff for studying schemes.

The difference basically goes:

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff have drive
Slytherin and Ravenclaw have ambition

Slytherin and Hufflepuff are fiercely loyal
(Slytherin because they put the selfish desire to keep the bond in tact over breaking it, no matter what the circumstance, and Hufflepuff, because they can't fathom betrayl and know forgiveness)
Gryffindor are selectively loyal
(fiercely loyal as long as you're on my side, and if you're not I fucking hate your guts, you rat bastard)
Ravenclaws have loyalties the way regular people might

It's a huge.. I don't know. I could probably type out pages and pages. I've read a lot of fanfiction that goes into house politics.  I think it's a really cool system and I wish she would've explored it more, because there are so many things she hinted at that were really interesting as far as that went.

[The Diva]

That's an excellent breakdown, Ashe.

[Gwydion Frost]

Ashe is the resident Hogwart's expert. Like, I think her thesis was a psychological breakdown of the Houses.

[Ashe]

It's a little sad, really.  I think it's really interesting the way the Hogwarts houses break down..

I don't write fic anymore, but I always said if I ever did, it'd be one where Harry was in the school as an adult, and someone said something to him about the Gryffindor and Slytherin playing Quidditch and he would say, "I don't see Slytherin and Gryffindor anymore, only spies and generals." Which is too simple, really, because it's not about that, but I think that's what it is.. It's not a house of good and a house of evil.. It's personality types.. And one is more likely to do bad because of ambition and the other because of righteousness. 

Dumbledore and Hermione are prime examples of this. 

Just like that same Slytherin loyalty and ambition can be used to do wonderful things, like Narcissa or Snape.

There's a lot of complex thought in that house structure and I wonder if Rowling has notes upon notes on it, or if she just said, "Good, evil, smart, and all the rest," and then threw it all away.

[The Diva]

I'm guessing in the beginning it was more just divided along those lines, but the more she got into it herself (and the more she realized adults were really into it), the more complex it became.

Then again, I could see it being a real driving force for her the way some things are here when folks talk about their own work.

[Ashe]

The thing about JK Rowling as a writer is that she has a brilliant imagination, but sometimes she only creates enough of her world to serve her story... And other times she creates more of that world for the characters she likes the best.  If you notice, she only likes the Gryffindors and a few select Ravenclaws, so it doesn't serve her purpose to think about how the houses interact with one another too much.

[Ninja Ed]

It gives her a point of view though.  And a clear delineation between good guys and bad guys.  Which is a hallmark of all fantasy.  I mean, if all characters were of ambiguous morality it'd be...reality and not for kids.

[The Diva]

Damn, Ed.  That was deep.

[Gwydion Frost]

Deeper than the puddle which is his soul... :p

[Number 14330]

Just like that same Slytherin loyalty and ambition can be used to do wonderful things, like Narcissa or Snape.

You know, I think it would be interesting to look at the original reasoning behind a structural instance like the sorting hat. If we assume that the houses are basically ways of dividing students into arbitrary groups based on dominant personality traits, that raises serious questions about the effects of the system. Is it really good for a child (remember, these kids are sorted at age eleven) to be defined in the following many years by its pre-pubescent behaviour patterns? After all, the houses define their social circles more than most other factors, as far as I can tell.
For this reason, I think one needs to look at the houses, not as divisions of personalities, but of talents (or "drives").
While dumping every self-serving, cunning kid in the same cellar for 7 years is grounds for banging our collective pedagogical head against the wall, the cultivation of ambition among students seem a lot more justified. The unfortunate side-effect is that the negative sides tend to fester a bit (we see this with Crabbe/Goyle/Malfoy as their egocentrism and brutality escalates and with Harry's "Saving-people-thing" - I.E. his perhaps justified paranoia and possible hero complex).
I think an enviroment of this sort would be interesting for sociological studies - among other things we are dealing with a school in which every child carries a potentially lethal weapon (which is also an essential implement in most classes) - weapons that have in many instances been used on other students, but with remarkably few restrictions being made. Since it is possible to limit the types of magic possible at Hogwarts (e.g. Apparition), one has to wonder why this has not been attempted with certain other types, such as spells used exclusively for personal combat.

It gives her a point of view though.  And a clear delineation between good guys and bad guys.  Which is a hallmark of all fantasy.  I mean, if all characters were of ambiguous morality it'd be...reality and not for kids.

I'm of the school of thought that kids can handle a lot more than they get credit for, but the observation stands.

[Ninja Ed]

Christian, that was just way too deep for Harry Potter.  People are born good or born evil coming out of the womb, and can be conveniently divided into 2-4 easily recognizable categories.  Do not mess with this logic.

Speaking of social analysis of fantasy literature:

LOTR - ethnocentric Western European racism?

[Gwydion Frost]

Christian, that was just way too deep for Harry Potter.  People are born good or born evil coming out of the womb, and can be conveniently divided into 2-4 easily recognizable categories.  Do not mess with this logic.

Speaking of social analysis of fantasy literature:

LOTR - ethnocentric Western European racism?

Which group...? The isolationist hobbits? The elitist elves? The kingdoms of men...?

[Number 14330]

Most multi-sentient-species fantasy literature veers towards racism (fantastic racism!) a bit, in my opinion. Probably because the humans will invariably be in the center of the universe (which might tell us something about actual racism, if every imaginable universe is defined based on its relation to the subject or subject-group).

I mean, look at Harry Potter. Those goblins? They're definetly sentient, but no significant number of them seem to hold any sort of important positions anywhere in wizarding society, not counting their banking operation (which has unfortunate connotations for a group described as greedy and with unusual noses). Is there some kind of unofficial segregation going on? Presumably there is nothing preventing a goblin child from performing magic, so why are there no goblin students? This is way more overt with the centaurs and house elves, but the goblin-issue always unnerved me a bit more because nobody seems to mention it. Maybe there is a reason they're so grumpy when people come to Gringotts.

[Ninja Ed]

I never realized the bit about the banking and the big noses.



I love LOTR btw.  But reading it, and realizing how everything in the West was good and decent and civilized and how everything in the East and South was barbaric and evil, I went "wait a minute...I'm from the...SONOFABITCH"

[Gwydion Frost]

So, this thread has me thinking... mayhap we could have sociological dissertations on the popular/great literature of all time, pointing out the interesting parallels and patterns (like Christian's observations of the veiled Jew reference in Rowlings works...)