[HPforGrownups] The sorting Hat?? Accurate or not?

[Troels Forchhammer]

No: HPFGUIDX 55454

At 15:51 16-04-03 +0000, graniteworks at sbcglobal.net wrote:
>Is that why Neville Longbottom is in Gryffindor?? He doesn't
>really seem to have the bravery that Godric Gryffidor honored.
>He stood up to his friends in HP&SS(#1)at the end right before
>Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to stop the socerer's stone from
>being stolen.

I think you underestimate the importance of that situation - at
least its importance to Rowling (and she is, after all, the one
who matters). In a talk show with WBUR "the Connection" on
October 12, 1999, JKR said:
    "I mean, I deeply admire bravery in all forms, and that's why
      ... in book one, if - if people have read book one they'll
      remember that Neville Longbottom, who is a - who is a comic,
      but I - he's not a tr- wholly comic figure to me, Neville is
      actually quite a tragic figure to me as well because there's
      a lot of Neville in me - this feeling of just never being
      quite good enough -- I mean I - we've all felt that at some
      point, and I felt that /a lot/ when I was younger, and I
      wanted to show Neville doing something brave - it's not as
      spectacularly brave as Harry and Hermione do, but he - he
      finds true moral courage in standing up to his closest
      friends - the people who are on his side, but he still
      thinks they are doing wrong and he tells them so - so that's
      a very important moment for me too in the first book. "

http://www.hogwarts-library.net/reference/interviews/19991012_TheConnection.html#part18

Troels