The Sorting Hat

[flying_ford_anglia]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C7256
From: flying_ford_anglia
Subject: The Sorting Hat
Date: 8/19/00 5:59 am  (ET)

Just to reiterate - it was Arthur Weasley who said, "never trust
anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its
brain." [CoS-UK, p242].

Talking of which, I guess The Sorting Hat falls into that category. JKR
has said that we'll learn more about this 'character' in future books,
and we may learn more about the sorting process then. In the meantime,
we could question the hat's motives for sorting certain students into
certain Houses.

I like the idea, proposed by someone earlier, that there may be fewer
Gryffindors and Slytherins than members of the other Houses. I think
it's fair to say that all the students have a mix of qualities, so it
may be that the Sorting Hat looks for the rarer traits of Gryffindor
and Slytherin first, and if they are not there, sorts to Ravenclaw and
Hufflepuff. This would explain why Hermione did not make it to Ravenclaw:
her Gryffindor streak took precedence.

Neil