Neville, the sorting hat, and N.I.N.E

[Fyre Drift Wood]

No: HPFGUIDX 43856

Carol Bainbridge decided to type:
> Something struck me about the sorting hat's response to Neville.  
It's not 
> a big line, but I wonder about its meaning now:
> 
> "The hat took a long time to decide with Neville."
> 

Fyre Wood (ME!) Replies.. woo-hoo!

I think that the sorting hat looks deeply into oneself and then 
decides where to place it based on two things. The first is the 
personality characteristics that qualify to be placed in one of the 
four houses. We know what those are (bravery, ambition, loyalty, or 
intelligence). 

However, what if perhaps the sorting hat also grants the desires of 
not only house placement, but just desires in general. Harry pretty 
much just chose his house... ("...not Slytherin. Not Slytherin.") and 
perhaps Neville did the same. 

Could Neville have been thinking the following which sitting under 
the hat?
Neville: "Oh gosh, everyone hates me already because I'm an 
incompetant moron who can't keep my toad near me... don't put me in 
that wretched Hufflepuff house where you're considered to be 
the 'Hogwarts Hippies' and care about nothing... but just being 
loyal."
(Okay, that was totally sarcastic and inappropriate, but you get the 
point. Please don't flame me for that^_~).

Perhaps Neville (like Harry) was having a detailed conversation with 
the hat and he was later placed into Gryffindor. Neville has shown 
all the qualities of that house thus far, but perhaps there are more 
that he has yet to show us. I'm still waiting for Neville to wow the 
pants off of Snape in potions and maybe to do something great and 
impress the general student population at the school.

We do know that Neville has a lot more guts than Harry and Ron since 
he did attempt to get a date before either of them at the Yule Ball. 
He asked Hermione, then Ginny... all before Harry and Ron decided 
that they needed to get in contact with their courage and just go out 
there and find a date. They were lucky that the Patil twins were 
available--- I would have found it better if they had went together 
just to prove that waiting until the last minute gets you no where.
____________________

Carol Bainbridge continued with:

> Every time I read that line, I just assumed that because Neville 
was such a 
> klutz -- and not terribly magical -- the hat had a tough time 
figuring out 
> where he belonged.  Now I have to wonder, especially with, but not 
> exclusively because of, the possibility that Neville will be 
working for 
> Voldemort under the imperious charm.  

Fyre Wood (ME!) replies... YAY!

I agree with you here completely. I at first thought that it was 
because he was nearly a squib that it took so darn long. 

I sincerely doubt that Neville is going to turn evil. I'm proud to be 
a member of "N.I.N.E" which stands for "Neville Is Not Evil." (Sweet, 
I jusdt came up with one of those creative letter-phrase thingies 
^_~... hooray!*Ahem* I will try to contain my excitement for the rest 
of this post.) Neville, like I posted earlier, will do something 
great. JKR has written too many times about the screw ups of 
Longbottom and she always does the unexpected. The average reader 
(one who is NOT a member of this group and tries to over analyse the 
littlest detail) will think that he'll turn evil and work for Voldy. 
It will in fact be the opposite.


I think that Carol Bainbridge brought up a brilliant point that I 
hope will continued to be argued. I would love to argue with someone 
about this =)

--Fyre Wood, who now ends this post because she just realized she's 
late for class... and yes, I'm a girl, as hard as that is to 
believe ;)