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< Personae ~ The Hogwarts Houses and a Person's Inner Character |
| Jo Shomen |
 Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:20 am |
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Joined: 16 Jul 2007
Posts: 1
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(NB: All comments apply equally to both sexes. Gendered pronouns are used randomly. This accompanies a “Daily Prophet article” I have posted in Lumos. A previous version of this appeared in FictionAlley.)
A Guide to the Hogwarts Houses
At first glance the Sorting Hat seems to divide the student body into heroes, nasty people, brainiacs, and duffers. If it was really that simple, the Hufflepuff table would be huge and the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables would be tiny. Hufflepuff would always win the Quidditch Cup because it could choose its team from four times as many students. Instead, there are some good-guy Slytherins, even some who behave heroically (if spitefully). There's at least one Gryffindor (and a Head Boy at that) who seems to have joined the other side, and a Hufflepuff was the true Hogwarts Champion.
The truth is more complex. The Sorting Hat divides people according to the focus of their soul: Slytherins love themselves, Gryffindors love an ideal, Ravenclaw see the details, andHufflepuffs see the world.
A Slytherin has an intense personal focus – he matters the most, then the things he wants; anything else simply doesn't register. Slytherins are characterised by greed and selfishness, and this accounts for the high proportion of Slytherins engaged in white-collar crime, large-scale drug smuggling, insurance fraud, date-rape, and Death Eater activities. However, a Slytherin does not have to be morally deficient – there are many happy and well-adjusted Slytherin politicians, lawyers, and fashion designers. They are inclined to be competitive and ambitious, and this is frequently combined with great personal charm.
Slytherins make great leaders of research teams, as they excel at winning grants and contracts. Unfortunately they make lousy co-workers or supervisors of postgraduate students, as they could never be bothered remembering important issues in their colleagues' research.
Slytherins with great creative talent are the most likely of all the Houses to achieve international success. As opera stars, they are Divas with an explosive attitude. As rock musicians, they are lead singers whose talent and personal magnetism brings the band to fame. Then they cut loose for a solo career, leaving other band members to fade into obscurity. As artists, they funnel their talents into manga, computer games, or advertising. They become rich.
Slytherin parenting tends to be most successful if the offspring lend cachet to the parents. Slytherin sons who are the heirs to estates and noble traditions are sent to exclusive private schools. They are punished if they do not live up to their father's expectations. Slytherin preschool daughters wear cute outfits that match their mother's clothes. When the daughters become sexually attractive, about the same time as their mothers start to feel frumpy, the matching-clothes thing vanishes and the relationship deteriorates.
An amazingly rare and beautiful butterfly will not be noticed by a Slytherin, unless he wants it for his collection.
There stands a Gryffindor, golden hair stirred by the winds of Fame (or Infamy). That's okay, you can go right up and look, he won't notice you. His gaze is fixed on something that is More Important than Self.
Many Gryffindors are an inspiration: mountains to be climbed, evil to be fought, a Gryffindor is there. There is always a price, though, and sometimes it is paid by those who did not make the choice. A Gryffindor gladly dies for the Cause, but it is hard on his children, parents, lovers; harder still on the relatives of those he takes with him. Gryffindors are naturally drawn to professions of heroism and enrichment: healing the sick, breaking curses, diplomacy. Most Aurors are Gryffindor. Since they often end up investigating Slytherins that they disliked in their youth, the enmity between the two houses has become self-perpetuating.
Can you have Gryffindor bad guys? Dear me, yes. Idealistic wizards with insufficient understanding of moral issues doing evil that good may come, foolish witches heroically sworn to an ignoble cause, Gryffindors' hands are just as dirty as anyone else's. Worse, Gryffindor children brought up in war or oppression may have their heroism turned to a darker aspect. If the cause she champions feeds on hatred and uses violence, the results can be dreadful. A Gryffindor bent on self-sacrifice is immune to the balancing influences that discourage stupidity in normal people. Ignorant, she is a ticking bomb: it is critical that her education imparts wisdom, history, an ability to look at what the battle is about before leaping with drawn sword. The greater a Gryffindor's talent, the more dangerous her thoughtless actions can be.
An academic Gryffindor really cares about his subject and can make excellent scientist. Still, his doctoral dissertation will probably never be finished – he’s gone off to save something. He might notice a beautiful butterfly if it was endangered.
A lead guitarist, lost in the beauty of the music, is probably a Gryffindor. He doesn't care when the singer leaves the band and the money dries up, he's just happy to sit at home honing his craft. Very admirable, but he's too busy to get a day job. A Gryffindor artist cares about the purity of his art. He won't sell his paintings to people who don't appreciate them. He is poor all his life. He is divorced. In 1974 all the principle dancers of the Royal Ballet (London) were Gryffindors.
Gryffindor parents can be neglectful – instead of parenting, they’re somewhere else, doing something important. Then they die, leaving the children in poverty. The only thing that prevents Gryffindor from completely vanishing from the gene pool is their tendency to marry Hufflepuffs; at least someone is looking after the children. However, for a lucky few offspring, the family is the Cause. These Gryffindors make amazing parents: they sacrifice cheerfully for the children but are not over-indulgent, they support the children while encouraging independence. With outward calm but inner pain they eventually send the children out to seek their destiny.
A Ravenclaw’s focus is a narrow bright spotlight illuminating the tiniest detail. She is curious about everything and likes to have every fact tucked into a pigeonhole. As a teenager, she was preternaturally tidy and inclined to do her homework. Ravenclaws grow up to be librarians, accountants, and cleaners.
Ravenclaws invented nanotechnology. They make superb scientists, especially in the Western tradition (which assumes that if you take things to bits then you will understand the whole). This accounts for the perception that Ravenclaw is the House for brainy people. Actually, you don't have to be brainy to be a Ravenclaw, being obsessive will do. In the Oriental tradition, Ravenclaws are considered to have a lesser understanding.
Ravenclaws do very well in research, although co-worker harmony can be disturbed by arguments about definitions. A research team headed by a Slytherin but organised by a Ravenclaw is a heavenly place for a bunch of Gryffindor postgraduates to work. Eventually, the Ravenclaw gets tired of so little credit for so much work behind the scenes, and resigns. The research team crumbles from within.
In music, Ravenclaws like Techno/House, Bach harpsichord music, Palestrina. They create the kind of art that comes from a deeper understanding of the universe: turning equations into fractal pictures, or photographing distant galaxies. A Ravenclaw will dissect a rare butterfly.
Ravenclaws make pretty good parents (they've read all the books) - but they can be inflexible, nosy and judgmental. They are likely to know how to help a friend in need. If a Ravenclaw has a mental health problem, it is likely to be obsessive-compulsive disorder.
A Hufflepuff seeks balance and a broad vision. Unlike his Ravenclaw classmates, his lack of interest in details makes him slow to learn times tables, spelling, logic, or spells. He is unlikely to excel in Potions, but will do well in fields that require a holistic, intuitive understanding: healing, horticulture, Transfiguration, childcare. If he can struggle through tertiary education, a Hufflepuff may grasp the secrets of the universe (Einstein was a Hufflepuff). Hufflepuff philosophers are well regarded in the East; they are very good at koans.
The Hufflepuff reputation for mediocrity at school and at work is not about lack of talent, it's about unwillingness to sacrifice. They lack the ambition, obsession, or passion of the other three houses, so even extremely talented Hufflepuffs rarely achieve the pointy pinnacle of success. On the other hand (and unlike the other Houses) a Hufflepuff is most likely to reach the end of her life having enjoyed a moderately fruitful career, still on speaking terms with her children and spouse, healthy, and engaged in interesting hobbies. In middle age, a Hufflepuff becomes distressed about his lack of power or wealth, but this phase soon passes. Middle-aged Hufflepuff men sometimes buy brightly coloured sporty Firebolts, but they never feel comfortable with them, and mostly leave them in the shed.
Hufflepuffs do not engage in politics or power, they are too busy fundraising for their schools. They are valuable, but rarely appreciated, as umpires in Slytherin/Gryffindor Quidditch matches. In a rock band, Hufflepuff plays bass or drums. As artists, they tend to go for functional skills like pottery or silversmithing. A splendid butterfly will be loved by the Hufflepuff.
Hufflepuffs make great parents, but have trouble understanding children of passion or ambition. Think of a duckling hatched by a chicken - the parent clucks and flutters while the offspring dives into the dangerous element it was born to love. Such children often run away from home. On the whole however, living with a Hufflepuff is a peaceful experience. |
_________________
Jo Shomen
"We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that." - Marcus Aurelius |
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| tonksinger |
| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 6:43 am |
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Joined: 02 Apr 2008
Posts: 15
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Wow, you've put a lot of thought into this. Possibly too much.
One thing you haven't taken into account is the fact that people do not exclusively belong (personality-wise) to one House. There are Ravenclaws in the books who are mild and unfocused (Luna, Cho), Gryffindors who are only out for themselves (Peter Pettigrew, for example), and Slytherins who are obsessed with something beyond themselves (Snape). The Sorting hat chooses a House which best suitsthe person, not the one which completely defines who they are. Hermione is tidy, obsessive, and focused, but she's in Gryffindor. She's also academically ambitious and self-centered - she always wants to be the best.
I read your descriptions, and if that was what it went by, I wouldn't be in any of the Houses. I would be a Slytheravenpuff. Even the Hat admits it - Harry could have been in Slytherin or Gryffindor, but his personality would be the same. I see sorting as one of those irritating multiple choice questions where you yhave to choose the best answer - some of the other ones might seem right, but they are not as good as the correct one; yet even the one that is considered the best may leave out some aspect of a complete answer.
The definitions you put forward (while they were exhaustive and very well written), felt to me to be more about the ideal or most extreme versions of each house. The Sorting is based on generalities - Ravenclaws, in general are clever, Slytherins are ambitious and so on. As a person who picks up on things quickly, who has been accused of swallowing dictionaries in order to regurgitate definitions, and who is neither particularly self-sacrificing nor ambitious, I place myself in Ravenclaw. However, I am not tidy, nor am I particularly obsessive. Luna is not a particularly focused person - she switches from topic to topic, but she's very smart about people - and I don't envision her as being very tidy. Think absent-minded professor: very smart and clever, especially about topics he loves, but everything else just isn't important enough to merit much thought. |
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