The Sorting of Neville Longbottom

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 39980

Felicia wrote:

> (I am always puzzled why Neville - a gifted herbology student - was
> placed in Gryffindor. I know his Mum and Dad were attached but.....)

I don't really see what the fact that he's good at herbology has to 
do with it.  There is no evidence to suggest that ones area of 
academic expertise has anything to do with ones House affiliation.  

The current Herbology Professor is indeed the head of House 
Hufflepuff.  That doesn't mean that the Herbology Professor has 
always been a member of that House, nor that the Head of House 
Hufflepuff has always been an herbology specialist, nor that there is 
any particular connection at all between herbology and Hufflepuff.  
Certainly the Hufflepuff students in Harry's year are not taking the 
top marks in herbology.  Hermione is.  

There is a tendency, I think, for us to read the current alignment 
between Hogwarts' Heads of Houses and the subjects that they teach as 
indicative of some vast overarching schematic.  It is tempting to do 
this in part, I think, because one or two of them really do make a 
great deal of intuitive sense.  Slytherins are sneaky and 
Machievellian and dubious; so are poisons and sera; therefore 
Slytherin=Potions.  Hufflepuffs are hard-working and diligent; they 
are the magical equivalent of the tillers of the soil; they are 
the "salt of the earth;" therefore Hufflepuff=Herbology.  And so on.

It doesn't really hold up too well in the long run, though, does it?  
Surely clever erudite Ravenclaw doesn't really match up all that well 
to Charms, which involves a marked physical component (wand motion) 
and is also the art used for duelling.  I would think that it would 
be better aligned to Arithmancy, or perhaps even to History of 
Magic.  And does Transfiguration really have anything at all to do 
with the Gryffindor values of courage and valour?  Wouldn't 
Transfiguration actually align far better to House Slytherin, whose 
members believe in changing the rules of engagement to serve their 
own ends, and whose mascot is the snake, symbol of transformation?

No.  I don't think that even the current associations between the 
Houses themselves and the academic subjects taught by their Heads 
really hold up very well at all, once you start looking too closely 
at them.

The Sorting has nothing to do with academic expertise.  It has 
everything to do with values.  But the question of why Neville wasn't 
sorted Hufflepuff seems to come up quite often on this list, and it's 
always been bit of a pet peeve of mine, so I hope that Felicia will 
forgive me if I use her original comment (which I do realize was 
parenthetical in the first place) as a kind of launching point to 
dive into that issue.

-----

Why do people always think that Neville belongs in Hufflepuff?  I 
truly have never understood this at all.  I can understand why his 
placement in Gryffindor might give some people pause, but why on 
earth *Hufflepuff?*

These are the traits that the Sorting Hat itself has identified as 
associated with House Hufflepuff in its songs at the beginning of 
PS/SS and GoF:


-- just
-- loyal
-- patient
-- true
-- unafraid of toil
-- hard workers


In addition, we're told that the members of House Hufflepuff rarely 
achieve glory, and that they are widely considered to be rather a 
bunch of "duffers."

Okay.  Overall, the primary trait of the House seems to me to be 
*diligence.*  Diligence is the only trait repeated in both of the 
Hat's songs.  Furthermore, we have been told by Dumbledore that the 
Sorting is based on the Founders' own preferences in students, and 
the Sorting Hat's song in GoF, which explicitly states that it is 
describing the Founders' values, lists Hufflepuff's preferred type 
only as "hard workers."

So.  Is Neville a hard worker?  Is he diligent?  Is he "unafraid of 
toil?"  Is this a trait that he seems to place a high value on, or to 
aspire to, or to try to emulate, or to cherish in others?

I see absolutely no evidence of this.  Neville does not seem to be 
particularly hard working.  When Harry runs into him near the One-
Eyed Witch while all of the other members of their class are off in 
Hosgsmeade, he has not only not yet finished his vampire essay; 
he all but asks Harry to let him copy off of his.  In _GoF,_ we learn 
that Hermione has been giving him a great deal of help with his 
schoolwork.  We know that he is a poor student and that he often 
needs to struggle with the material, but we don't actually see him 
spending a whole lot of time studying, do we?  We often see Hermione 
deeply engrossed in her classwork while the other students are 
engaged in recreational activities in the Gryffindor common room.  We 
are never told of Neville doing the same.  If Neville really is 
diligent and hard working, then the text has never bothered to show 
it to us.  If diligence and perseverance are things that he 
particularly values in other people, then the text has never bothered 
to show us that, either.

I'm not saying that Neville is lazy, mind you, but diligence really 
doesn't seem to me to be either one of his notable traits or 
something that he values all that highly.


So on to the secondary characteristics of the House, then.  

"Just."  

Is being just, or "fair," a particularly important value to Neville?

I see no evidence for this one way or the other.  He doesn't strike 
me as UNfair, by any means, but justice certainly doesn't seem to me 
to be one of his most highly cherished values.  When targetted in the 
hallways by Draco Malfoy in the first book, for example, he chooses 
to suffer in silence rather than to object to this unchivalrous
and rule-breaking behavior.  He doesn't object when McGonagall 
accuses him of leaving his cheat-sheet of Gryffindor common room 
passwords lying around either, even though as it later turns out this 
was an unjust accusation.  We never see him going out of his way to 
defend Harry any of the many times that Harry stands falsely accused 
of something, or to insist upon a due consideration of both sides of 
the argument when someone makes a sweeping generalization or an 
unfair statement.  So there is no evidence that justice is something 
that Neville particularly values either.


"Patient."  

Yes.  That Neville is.  He is *exceptionally* patient.  He curls up 
to sleep on the floor of the corridor outside of the common room 
while waiting for someone to come along to let him in, rather than 
going out to seek help.  He puts up with all manner of abuse from 
others with a certain degree of aplomb -- or at the very least, of 
resignation.  Patience I will certainly grant him.


"Loyal."  

Well.  Now, *that's* an interesting question, isn't it?  Is Neville 
loyal?

He does tell Draco Malfoy that Harry fainted when confronted with the 
dementors at the beginning of _PoA,_ but we are given absolutely no 
clue as to how this exchange of information came about.  It could 
have been an unthinking slip -- Neville *is* forgetful -- or it could 
have been something far less benign.  Neville's true motivations are 
still very much a black box in canon.  It is, however, not all that 
encouraging on the loyalty front, and neither is the fact that he 
does not speak a *word* during the confrontation on the train at the 
beginning of _GoF._  He is just in the middle of talking to Ron about 
the QWC -- Ron has just tipped the Krum figurine into his hand -- 
when Draco and his cronies show up.  That's the last we hear from 
Neville.  It's not even altogether clear whether he is present for 
the entirety of the conversation, or whether he slips silently away 
somewhere in the middle of the scene.  One thing he certainly does 
*not* do, though, is to leap faithfully to Ron's defense when Draco 
starts mocking him.  That just doesn't happen.

Nor is Neville particularly loyal to his family.  He tells the other 
students stories of his upbringing that place Bent Uncle Algie in a 
very poor light.  He speaks "gloomily" about his Gran's insistence 
that he should be upholding the family honor, as if he himself
doesn't think it a particularly worthwhile or purposeful goal.  He 
does visit his parents over his holidays, true, but we don't even 
know if he would be doing that if he weren't taken there by his 
Gran.  

Again, I'm not saying that Neville is disloyal, but I really don't 
think that he exhibits extraordinary loyalty either.  I wouldn't 
identify it as one of his striking characteristics, nor do I see 
evidence that it's a trait that he values all that highly.


"True."  

Is "true" a synonym for "loyal," or does it mean "truthful?"  I 
suspect the former, but since we've already covered loyalty, let's 
look at Neville's honesty, shall we?  Is Neville honest?

Hard to say.  He's willing to 'fess up to McGonagall for losing his 
password list.  He's willing to admit to the other Gryffindor 
students that he's allowed himself to get bullied in the hallways -- 
always a humiliating admission.  He doesn't blurt out stuff about his
parents to anyone, true, but then, no one's ever actually *asked* him 
about his parents, now, have they?  

At the same time, though, Neville certainly is *secretive,* isn't 
he?  He doesn't tell Hermione what's really bothering him after 
Crouch/Moody's DADA class.  He doesn't tell anyone about his 
parents.  He has to be pressed before he'll admit to being bullied, 
or to losing his passwords (he did not, you will note, mention it to 
anyone when they *first* went missing).  And, as I argued in message 
#36772, I think there is evidence to suggest that Neville has been 
deliberately leading others astray when it comes to the true extent 
of his magical capabilities.

None of which precisely makes him dishonest, but it doesn't make him 
*forthright,* either, which is the type of honesty implied by the 
word "true." 

So why Hufflepuff?  Why does everyone think that Neville ought to 
have been sorted into *Hufflepuff,* of all houses?

If I were Helga Hufflepuff, I wouldn't have touched Neville with a 
ten-foot pole.  She wanted stable, hard-working, straightforward, 
salt of the earth type students, didn't she? I don't think that she 
was terribly keen on the idea of trying to teach neurotic little 
weirdos with serious magical learning disabilities and far more 
emotional baggage than can fit into the overhead compartment.  That 
just doesn't seem likely to me.

In fact, if I were Helga, I think that I would have tried to foist 
Neville off on somebody else.  *Anybody* else.  Probably 
Godric. 'Cause you know, the thing about those warrior types with the 
great big swords is that they can never resist a *challenge.*  They 
just love lost causes.  And they're suckers for orphans and widows, 
too.  And puppy dogs.  And the lame and the halt.  They're just big 
old *softies,* is what they are.  Sentimental.  And verrrrrry easy to 
manipulate.

Which is pretty much exactly what I think happened inside that 
Sorting Hat.



-- Elkins