[HPforGrownups] Re: House assumptions

[Ben Jones]

No: HPFGUIDX 45263

I rarely post, but houses are one of my pet interests.  I tend to think that
the Marauders were in different houses, but I seem to have a different idea
about what puts a given person in a given house.  Feel free to tear this to
shreds and bring me to my senses.

I don't think houses have much more to do with why people do things than
what they do or even how they do it.  As I see it, Gryffindors are motivated
by basic emotions and want others to like them.  The members of the Trio
each react differently to the things happening around them, but in every
case, they are motivated to act by how they feel right then, often making
rash (or brave depending on your point of view) emotional decisions without
considering much else.  I could go into detailed examples, but this is all
just to get to the Marauders anyway.  The point is the real common ground I
see among Gryffindors is what spurs them into action.  Slytherin are
motivated by ego (in the sense of the word without a value judgment) and
want others to admire them.  What motivates someone (Hufflepuff) to be loyal
and diligent?  I think they are motivated by reputation and want others to
trust them.  As far as Ravenclaw, it's not so much a matter of being smart
as much as being motivated by pragmatism and wanting others to understand
them.

If you buy these (which you probably won't--again I could give more
examples, but I don't want to belabor this too much), Remus and Peter are
actually the easiest to peg.  We don't know a great deal about what they did
over the courses of their lives, but we know more about their basic
motivations.  Remus wants more than anything to be trusted, which is only
natural since the first reaction most everyone has to him once they find out
he's a werewolf is to mistrust him.  In the shrieking shack he mentions a
number of times how important it is to have (especially Dumbledore's) trust.
I think he fits perfectly into Hufflepuff.  Peter is even more transparent
in his motives.  Everything he does is based on his evalutation of what is
most pragmatic.  Sirius mentions that Peter never did anything unless he
could see what was in it for him.  Voldemort knows that Wormtail wouldn't
have come to serve him if it weren't his only practical option.  Peter
himself tries to excuse his actions by asking what was there to be gained by
opposing Voldemort.  He couldn't conceive of acting to retain trust or
because it felt right, and he's perfectly comfortable with anonymity, so
admiration isn't key for him.  It seems to me that despite his lack of
talent, his motives place him in Ravenclaw.  As for Sirius, although I take
Hagrid's statement about every bad wizard coming from Slytherin as a very
broad generalization, I can't see even him saying that if the person he
thought to be the worst wizard other than Voldemort himself wasn't from
Slytherin.  I also think it fits with what we know about him.  What better
way to seek admiration than by excelling at academics and pranks.  James is
firmly in Gryffindor and I don't think its a stretch to say that he could
participate with Sirius (and the others) in doing many things with very
different motives.  Living in different houses does put a damper on a
friendship, but I don't think its insurmountable or even implausible.  James
did have the invisibility cloak, which would have facilitated rounding up
the gang for late night excursions.  The Gryffindor Trio and the Slytherin
Trio are really the only canon characters whose close friend we really know
for certain.  There could be all sorts of other friendships that go on that
simply never enter into the plot.  Besides which, I think Harry and Ron's
friendship was set on the train and I like to think they would have
maintained it even if they had ended up in different houses.

Well, despite my best efforts, this ended up rather long.  If you made it
this far, please feel free to let me know what you think about these
ramblings.

Ben

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