House-related ramblings
Jul. 2nd, 2005 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_t_rainTrue Confessions of a Teenaged Multimagus is up at Riddikulus. (As with a lot of my one-shots, it was a toss-up between there and TDA, and neither seemed quite right. FA really needs a house for gen-fluff.)
Speaking of housing things, everybody seems to be writing essays about the Hogwarts Houses lately, so I thought I'd join in. Despite the fact that in real life I dislike personality tests in every way, shape, or form, I've always found the House system rather intriguing.
The confusing aspect of the House system is that there seem to be multiple Sorting standards in play at once, plus a few oddball stereotypes that may or may not bear any relationship to the Houses’ “official” characteristics:
1) The “official” version, given to us by the Sorting Hat in PS / SS: Students are Sorted into Houses based on their virtues and values (courage; studiousness; loyalty, justice, patience, and hard work; ambition and cunning). None of these qualities has anything to do with a student’s blood-status, and, with the possible exception of justice, they are morally neutral.
Even this relatively straightforward standard leaves some cracks in the system. What should the Hat do with a person who is extremely patient but also bone-lazy, for instance, or with someone who doesn’t display any of the House traits in particular?
2) Sorting by birth / ideology. Occasionally this seems to be a consideration in canon (we’re told that Salazar Slytherin only wanted to teach purebloods, although the Sorting Hat does not always seem to follow his wishes; Hufflepuff, on the other hand, has a policy of treating all students the same). We’re also told that the Malfoys and the Weasleys have strong family traditions of being Sorted into Slytherin and Gryffindor, respectively.
There are hints that this standard applies in canon, but in fanon, Sorting-by-ideology has taken on a life of its own. Gryffindors as well as Hufflepuffs are typed as politically liberal and open to non-purebloods, though the canon evidence on this point is spotty. Hence, it’s a popular fan assumption that Sirius was the first Black ever to be Sorted into Gryffindor and that his family must have freaked out. (In fact, Sirius’ House affiliation is never mentioned in the books, and for all we know it was a non-issue for the Blacks.)
Ravenclaw is the “ideologically neutral” house in this formulation. In fanfic, it’s a popular House for outside observers of the gathering storm; Death Eaters whom the author doesn’t want to place in Slytherin; and characters who have to grapple with divided loyalties (fanon nearly always places Andromeda Black in Ravenclaw, to the point where many readers are convinced this is canon).
These are reasonable conjectures with some canon support, and some or all of them may turn out to be right – but for now, they’re not actually canon.
3) Sorting by choice. Again, this has some basis in canon. Of the handful of students whose House preferences we know, all of them have ended up getting their first choice; and in Harry’s case, at least, his wishes seem to have been the deciding factor. But once again, some fans have taken these hints and run with them to the point where they assume that all students have freely chosen their House, which seems unlikely. (I’ve seen it seriously argued that Sirius’ parents must have been abusive, because otherwise he wouldn’t have disliked them enough by the age of eleven to choose to be Sorted into Gryffindor – which ignores the fact that Sirius hasn’t got a Slytherin bone in his body, quite apart from various other unwarranted assumptions.)
4) House stereotypes, fanon version. Memorably summed up in Morrighan’s hilarious Sorting Fred as Gyffindors are foolhardy / And Hufflepuffs are thick / And Ravenclaws are dead boring / And Slytherins are sick. (If the author is a Slytherin fan, replace “sick” with “rebellious, sarcastic, and Ever So Much Cooler than everybody else.”)
Some of these beliefs are, in fact, held and perpetuated by the characters themselves – but for the most part, they don’t jibe with what we’ve actually been shown in canon. They are, however, wildly popular in fanfic.
5) House stereotypes, JKR’s version. I do think JKR engages in House stereotyping herself, whether accidentally or deliberately. In canon, most Hufflepuffs are noble, polite, and a bit bland. Ravenclaws tend to be good-looking, popular, and rather shallow, and they seem to date around more than their peers in the other Houses. Gryffindors are all over the map, but essentially good – which in JKR’s world is virtually synonymous with having a healthy skepticism toward rules and authority. The Slytherins we’ve met are all nasty, unpleasant people, and despite the fact that the Hat describes them as having a certain willingness to disregard rules, they seem to be fond of authority, order, and hierarchy in practice.
There are outliers – Peter and Percy in Gryffindor, Luna in Ravenclaw, Zacharias in Hufflepuff – and I strongly suspect that we’ll learn in HBP that Theodore Nott is made from different stuff from his Housemates. But by and large, JKR seems to have her own mental stereotypes for each House. Interestingly, the fandom doesn’t seem to have picked up on many of them, and by and large, I have a feeling that readers don’t like them. We want to see Ravenclaws who are not love interests and Slytherins who aren’t nasty little brats.
With so many different standards and unspoken assumptions in play, it’s no wonder fans get into arguments about where OCs or undefined canon characters should be Housed, and what House placement "means," anyway. There’s often a further discrepancy between how readers perceive that the House system does work in canon, and how they want it to work. (For example, I think JKR probably perceives Tonks as a Gryffindor – but I actually want her to be a Ravenclaw, both because we need more interesting Ravenclaws and because it’ll shut up the people who say she’s stupid. Likewise, I want there to be non-Slytherin Death Eaters and non-DE-in-training Slytherins -- so I wrote 'em.) The House system is one of those untidy corners of canon that tempts fans to use fiction as a soapbox for their own views or as a corrective -- which is fine, so long as they know they're doing it. When they insist that their take on the House System is the One True Answer, things tend to get very ugly, very fast.
Speaking of housing things, everybody seems to be writing essays about the Hogwarts Houses lately, so I thought I'd join in. Despite the fact that in real life I dislike personality tests in every way, shape, or form, I've always found the House system rather intriguing.
The confusing aspect of the House system is that there seem to be multiple Sorting standards in play at once, plus a few oddball stereotypes that may or may not bear any relationship to the Houses’ “official” characteristics:
1) The “official” version, given to us by the Sorting Hat in PS / SS: Students are Sorted into Houses based on their virtues and values (courage; studiousness; loyalty, justice, patience, and hard work; ambition and cunning). None of these qualities has anything to do with a student’s blood-status, and, with the possible exception of justice, they are morally neutral.
Even this relatively straightforward standard leaves some cracks in the system. What should the Hat do with a person who is extremely patient but also bone-lazy, for instance, or with someone who doesn’t display any of the House traits in particular?
2) Sorting by birth / ideology. Occasionally this seems to be a consideration in canon (we’re told that Salazar Slytherin only wanted to teach purebloods, although the Sorting Hat does not always seem to follow his wishes; Hufflepuff, on the other hand, has a policy of treating all students the same). We’re also told that the Malfoys and the Weasleys have strong family traditions of being Sorted into Slytherin and Gryffindor, respectively.
There are hints that this standard applies in canon, but in fanon, Sorting-by-ideology has taken on a life of its own. Gryffindors as well as Hufflepuffs are typed as politically liberal and open to non-purebloods, though the canon evidence on this point is spotty. Hence, it’s a popular fan assumption that Sirius was the first Black ever to be Sorted into Gryffindor and that his family must have freaked out. (In fact, Sirius’ House affiliation is never mentioned in the books, and for all we know it was a non-issue for the Blacks.)
Ravenclaw is the “ideologically neutral” house in this formulation. In fanfic, it’s a popular House for outside observers of the gathering storm; Death Eaters whom the author doesn’t want to place in Slytherin; and characters who have to grapple with divided loyalties (fanon nearly always places Andromeda Black in Ravenclaw, to the point where many readers are convinced this is canon).
These are reasonable conjectures with some canon support, and some or all of them may turn out to be right – but for now, they’re not actually canon.
3) Sorting by choice. Again, this has some basis in canon. Of the handful of students whose House preferences we know, all of them have ended up getting their first choice; and in Harry’s case, at least, his wishes seem to have been the deciding factor. But once again, some fans have taken these hints and run with them to the point where they assume that all students have freely chosen their House, which seems unlikely. (I’ve seen it seriously argued that Sirius’ parents must have been abusive, because otherwise he wouldn’t have disliked them enough by the age of eleven to choose to be Sorted into Gryffindor – which ignores the fact that Sirius hasn’t got a Slytherin bone in his body, quite apart from various other unwarranted assumptions.)
4) House stereotypes, fanon version. Memorably summed up in Morrighan’s hilarious Sorting Fred as Gyffindors are foolhardy / And Hufflepuffs are thick / And Ravenclaws are dead boring / And Slytherins are sick. (If the author is a Slytherin fan, replace “sick” with “rebellious, sarcastic, and Ever So Much Cooler than everybody else.”)
Some of these beliefs are, in fact, held and perpetuated by the characters themselves – but for the most part, they don’t jibe with what we’ve actually been shown in canon. They are, however, wildly popular in fanfic.
5) House stereotypes, JKR’s version. I do think JKR engages in House stereotyping herself, whether accidentally or deliberately. In canon, most Hufflepuffs are noble, polite, and a bit bland. Ravenclaws tend to be good-looking, popular, and rather shallow, and they seem to date around more than their peers in the other Houses. Gryffindors are all over the map, but essentially good – which in JKR’s world is virtually synonymous with having a healthy skepticism toward rules and authority. The Slytherins we’ve met are all nasty, unpleasant people, and despite the fact that the Hat describes them as having a certain willingness to disregard rules, they seem to be fond of authority, order, and hierarchy in practice.
There are outliers – Peter and Percy in Gryffindor, Luna in Ravenclaw, Zacharias in Hufflepuff – and I strongly suspect that we’ll learn in HBP that Theodore Nott is made from different stuff from his Housemates. But by and large, JKR seems to have her own mental stereotypes for each House. Interestingly, the fandom doesn’t seem to have picked up on many of them, and by and large, I have a feeling that readers don’t like them. We want to see Ravenclaws who are not love interests and Slytherins who aren’t nasty little brats.
With so many different standards and unspoken assumptions in play, it’s no wonder fans get into arguments about where OCs or undefined canon characters should be Housed, and what House placement "means," anyway. There’s often a further discrepancy between how readers perceive that the House system does work in canon, and how they want it to work. (For example, I think JKR probably perceives Tonks as a Gryffindor – but I actually want her to be a Ravenclaw, both because we need more interesting Ravenclaws and because it’ll shut up the people who say she’s stupid. Likewise, I want there to be non-Slytherin Death Eaters and non-DE-in-training Slytherins -- so I wrote 'em.) The House system is one of those untidy corners of canon that tempts fans to use fiction as a soapbox for their own views or as a corrective -- which is fine, so long as they know they're doing it. When they insist that their take on the House System is the One True Answer, things tend to get very ugly, very fast.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 11:18 am (UTC)Exactly, and it seems to apply to plenty besides the House System.
I say, let people have their fun--I take the liberty of having my own from time to time--but let it stay fun.
Ooh, the house system! Prepare for a lengthy rant...
Date: 2005-07-03 02:50 pm (UTC)Like with most things in HP, I have a dual opinon. As a literary device, the House system works well. It's only when you analyse the books that the absurdity of it becomes clear. I'm interested to see if JKR actually does make a theme of it - there seemed to be a couple of hints in OotP that maybe a more serious critique is upcoming in canon. I rather wonder if at the end of book 7, the four houses will be disbanded and everyone put together.
The thing I dislike about the sorting system is the way that children are pigeonholed at such a young age, and the endorsement of this pigeonholing by the entire adult wizarding world. It's one thing to tell an eleven year old 'well done, you're brave/ clever' but it's another to tell them 'you're sneaky' or send them to the 'house of duffers' (I know the latter is just what Hagrid tells Harry, but that opinion seems quite engrained in the community).
Sorting Hogwarts-style just doesn't work when looked at logically (in my opinion). The population isn't divided neatly into four quarters, one brave, one clever, one nasty, and one decent and dull. There are people who don't seem to fit in anywhere, and others who would apparently fit several houses.
Plus JKR doesn't follow her own rules. Slytherins are meant to be ambitious and cunning, yet are mainly portrayed as stupid, and in the case of Crabbe and Goyle, willing to blindly follow a leader. Meanwhile Gryffindors, whose defining characteristic is bravery, mainly appear to be brainy, loyal and decent as well. Whilst Hufflepuff, despite being the hard-working house, lag well behind the others in all the competitions. The implication is that decent= stupid, which I hope is incorrect.
Sorry, I'm ranting. Never get me started on the house system... I think you're right about fans having discrepancies between how the system actually works and how they'd like it to work. And the urge to find characters who buck the trend and don't fit into the house stereotypes. I personally hope that characters like Tonks don't turn out to be Gryffindors, just because it seems like everyone who's any good is in there, however wildly different their character. Yet I suspect that they probably will be.
Hannah
Re: Ooh, the house system! Prepare for a lengthy rant...
Date: 2005-07-04 01:13 am (UTC)Well, actually what Hagrid tells Harry is "everyone says Hufflepuffs are duffers, but --" at which point Harry interrupts him. So I'd say JKR sets up the Hufflepuff stereotype as inaccurate from the very beginning (and continues to do so throughout the series, since we have yet to meet an incompetent Hufflepuff). And I hope she's planning to complicate our view of Slytherin as well.
Interesting idea about the Houses being disbanded at the end of the series. I wonder if the Sorting Hat is going to revolt in Book Seven?
Re: Ooh, the house system! Prepare for a lengthy rant...
Date: 2005-07-05 04:29 pm (UTC)Noticed this in passing when posting a longer general comment - while you're right, it's not too different from the old grammar school/secondary modern real-world cutoff where kids were separated at age 11 (and which still works that way in many areas? - it tends to be a wealthy-or-not thing, I suppose). And at least lessons at Hogwarts are integrated - the 'better' houses get exactly the same teaching as the 'lesser' ones!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 04:58 pm (UTC):: raises the familiar call for The Good Slytherin, at least::
no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 10:33 pm (UTC)I think you mean jive, not jibe: jibing is conflicting, jiving is going together.
It's very interesting that Jo's version of Ravenclaws differs so much from the fanon version.
Any fandom issue gets ugly very fast when somebody insists that their take is the One True Answer.
Yay on House rants! Ataniell93 wrote a very good one here.
Guess who has a wireless internet connection in her dorm! w00t!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 02:44 pm (UTC)Oh, I'd say justice is very much a moral value in its own right. It's certainly the only one of the House traits that I can't imagine leading someone to join the Death Eaters, or at least being used in the service of the Death Eaters (setting aside people like Crouch, Senior, who seems to have given the DE's cause an inadvertent boost). Thanks for making me think about that, though.
BTW, I looked "jibe" up in two dictionaries and they both seemed to think it meant "agree."
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 06:10 pm (UTC)I can't think. I'm too tired.
Really? Jibe = jive? I'd always heard it used as conflictionary. I shall blame my mother.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 06:49 pm (UTC)* I've seen some people speculate that Umbridge may be the elusive Evil Hufflepuff, but I don't really buy it -- it's clear that at Harry's trial she has no interest in uncovering the truth whatsoever. I do think Crouch, Senior is a worst-case example of justice run amok, but what he does isn't all that bad, especially compared to the damage that unbridled ambition or courage or intellectual arrogance can do.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 11:50 pm (UTC)I have a hunch that JKR is preparing for some more depth and some stereotype-busting on this topic. But I just can imagine she's going to mess up that part because her ideas of "good" (and maybe "bad") are just too simplistic. (Some fanfic achieves depth specifically by showing how those wonderful Gryffindor virtues can look rather less virtuous seen from the other houses' perspectives. Not that I prefer that pendulum to swing too far the other way!)
On a totally different note, are you going to participate in this extraordinary challenge? It's not every day that a major newspaper sets a HP fanfic challenge...
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 12:08 am (UTC)That is too cool for words! Thanks for the link!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 04:20 pm (UTC)I think you're right about there being multiple standards - even the Hat's songs seem to change the basis from book to book. Of course, it may be just one of those things JKR added more for whimiscal effect than deep analysis (like quills, pointed hats, flying broomsticks, and house-elves thinking it shameful to be given clothes), but based on the way things developed in OotP I do suspect this may be something she's actually planning to open up and make more greyscale from a very black-and-white beginning (as with, e.g., Dumbledore's behaviour). We've seen some inter-House unity with the DA and mention of other legit groups such as the Charms and Gobstones Clubs which are presumably inter-house, and a strong hint that the Gryffindors should be working to get some Slytherins on board. Also, we have had at least one Evil Gryffindor (Peter) and Good Slytherin (Phineas and probably Snape too). I do agree that fanon does tend to play by its own rules though ...
Your point 5) about JKR's house stereotypes is interesting, but I think there are as many differences as similarities at the moment, and any apparent pattern may be just due to a combination of sample bias and the fact that there should be at least a moderate degree of overall stereotyping based on the original idea of the Hat? I actually tried to think how many non-Gryffindors we'd seen more than a mention of, and it's a fairly small number.
For Hufflepuff it's basically Ernie, Hannah, Justin, Susan, Zacharias, and Cedric, and only the first and last of these has had more than a line or two. They seem to have a fair range of personality types and aren't necessarily all that noble or polite (apart from Cedric).
For Ravenclaw we have Cho, Luna, Michael Corner, and at a pinch Terry Boot, Roger Davies, Padma and Anthony Goldstein, most of whom we know nothing much about. Of that lot, even Roger doesn't seem to really live up to his name as a romantic stereotype (two girlfriends we know of and one more he asked out - for a sports captain, that's practically monastic). Cho seems to be a long-term sort of girl, and as for Michael - well, all the (perfectly valid) Ginny-is-not-a-slut arguments can be flipped around - here's a 15/16 year old who dates a younger girl from a different House for an entire year, and only goes looking elsewhere when she dumps him. As the possessor of a male ego, I don't blame him one little bit for that. :) Hardly a player. Fanfic may have the Ravenclaw common room making a Babylonian orgy look like a quiet night out at the pub, but I don't think JKR does.
As for the Slytherins ... an interesting one, and there does seem to have been a bad bloc of them in the MWPP era, but the only contemporaries we've really seen do much so far are Draco's group plus the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad, who may well be outliers themselves (given that they were handpicked by Umbridge). We don't really know anything much about Crabbengoyle (who AFAIR have never actually had a line of dialogue in the books), and even Pansy hasn't shown herself to be more than just pettily spiteful and crushing on Draco. Certainly they've been sneaky at Quidditch, but that's not a solely Slytherin trait - we had Cho blocking Harry, for example, and Harry himself dive-bombing the Slytherin Chasers.
So, another long ramble for not much conclusion. Sorry about that. :)
group dynamics
Date: 2005-07-05 04:28 pm (UTC)