[HPforGrownups] Re: The Hat Sorts, The Wand Choses

[Aja]

No: HPFGUIDX 32037


The Fourfuries wrote:

> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Hollydaze" <hollydaze at b...> wrote:
> > Hermione says quite plainly on the train that she want's to be a 
> Gryffindor (she is). Malfoy says in Madam Malkins shop that he wants 
> to be a Slytherin (he is). Ron in wanting to live up to his brothers 
> is "desperate" to be in gryffindor and so (even if he doesn't say it 
> outloud) you can presume he wants to be a gryffindor (he is). And as 
> for Harry, he doesn't choose the house he wants to be in, but he does 
> choose the house he DOESN'T want to be in.

I think this is a very important point to make considering that Dumbledore
so specifically tells harry that it is our choices that determine who we
are, far more than our abilities.

> People, people, people!  This is the world of magic.  What good is a 
> Sorting Hat if the kids are the ones that do the sorting?  Let's not 
> be so analytical that we read the fun out of the books, okay?

but analysis *is* half the fun! :)

> The fact that Malfoy, Granger and Weasley got what they wanted is not 
> so much evidence of their power to choose than it is testimony to the 
> Sorting Hats accuracy, and their respectively uncomplicated 
> personalities.

Again, if personality was everything, I believe JKR makes it quite clear
that the sorting would be simpler than it is for Harry.  Let's look at
Neville, for example.  He seems to be made for Hufflepuff, just as
Hermione, with her intelligence, might make a perfect Ravenclaw, but for
whatever reason, they wound up in Gryffindor.  If personalities
alone determined the makeup of all the houses, then each of the houses
really *would* be a flat stereotype of the qualities they have been chosen
to represent, and we would have missed all these delightful arguments
about what makes a Slytherin a *true* Slytherin, etc. :)

> 4FR (amazed at the Hat's good humor, considering how well it must 
> know the minds of humans.)   

Aja (amazed at JKR's existentialist tendencies--viva the power of choice!)

"i would love to be marinated in draco angst stories for about an hour
before doing anything slightly unpleasant, and then i would never whine
about anything except withdrawal."   --Masoumi, Diagon Alley
(http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/fiction/writers/masoumi.html)