the Sorting Hat

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 44681

"psychodudeneo" writes;

<< We're never really explained quite WHAT the Sorting Hat is.  Is it a 
totally independed entity?  Does it draw on the spirits of the founders of 
Hogwarts?  We don't really know quite what goes on during a Sorting.  We know 
what the Hat says to Harry, but we don't really know how it's getting it's 
information.  It's assumed that it just reads minds, but it seems to do more 
than that. >>

Well, if nothing else it is one powerfully charmed object (leading me to 
suppose that Godric was probably the Hogwarts Charms Master in the early 
days). I suspect that when the Sorting Hat was first being "programed" each 
of the founders put it on and thought about what qualities their ideal 
student would have. Which gifts they wanted to train and guide. Creating a 
template, as it were. And the Hat compares each of the students it sorts to 
find the closest match. When there is an all but perfect match (as in 
Malfoy's case) the Hat doesn't even ask the child's oppinion, just shouts out 
the name and moves on. In most cases it has to reach a little and invites the 
child's feedback.

I suspect that a few of the more questionable placements which we have seen, 
(Crabbe and Goyle, Longbottom) have less to do with some hidden quality which 
they *have* than with the absence of some quality which the founder of the 
house to which they might appear to be more suited would have demanded. 

For example; Longbottom *appears* to be best suited for Hufflepuff. Why? 
Because of Hufflepuff's reputation as being a "lot of duffers"? Probably. 
Longbottom certainly appears to be a full-scale duffer. But was Helga 
selecting for duffers? No. Helga was selecting for good little 
"other-directed" worker bees who perform as a team and don't rock the boat. 
Just about every quality she placed a premium on (fairness, loyalty, 
kindness) was aimed at greasing the wheels of cooperation within a 
self-defined group, topped off by the endurance necessary to get the job 
done. 

I don't really get the feeling that Neville, for all that he needs a lot of 
one-on-one help from others in his classwork, is really all that much of a 
team player. He's much too self-contained for Helga's taste. Any of the other 
founders valued that quality more than she did. Neville's detachment isn't of 
the intellectual order that Rowena favored either, and ghod knows he is too 
direct for Salizar. Godric would have taken him on, and gladly, 
self-sufficiency and straightforwardness are qualities he apreciated. There's 
no mystery at all in Neville's placement. He's a Gryffandor.

-JOdel