MWPP & the Trio + Neville: Four Houses Theory?

Wed Aug 6 02:03:52 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 75594

Erm. Uh, Pippin, brief disclaimer here before the body of my post: I *hate* the Four 
Houses Theory. (It needs an acronym, btw.) I couldn?t tell you why I hate it, but I hate 
it. Just fyi.

Pippin wrote:

> I am a recent convert to the Four House theory for MWPP. What 
> changed my mind was the Mirror that Sirius gave Harry. He says 
> they used it when they had separate detentions. Sounds 
> plausible...except that in five years, Harry's had only one 
> detention where he wasn't being closely supervised by a 
> teacher. I think even Lockhart would have raised an artfully 
> shaped eyebrow if Harry had pulled out a mirror and started 
> talking into it!

> Judging by Harry's experience it seems that the times when 
> James and Sirius had separate detentions *and* weren't being 
> supervised would be rather rare, hardly worth working up a 
> special piece of magic. On the other hand, if you needed to 
> communicate regularly with people in different Houses, the 
> mirrors would be ideal.

Yeah, except. . . well, we've already got to assume that Sirius is lying here. Given all 
he's already told Harry about his family, why in the world would he mind telling him 
he was Sorted Slytherin, *especially* if he transferred later? If Harry isn't going to hold 
the DE brother against him, I doubt he'd hold the initial House placement against 
him.

Anyway, it may well be that either: 

A. Hogwarts policy re detentions has changed in the last twenty years

or 

B. Harry is generally more supervised than most students.

Anyway, I?m betting that James and Sirius generally got a lot more detentions than 
Harry generally does. And. . . does it actually say that the Marauders ?worked up? the 
mirrors? I mean, were the mirrors something that they invented?

> I think James was indeed a Gryffindor, Sirius was in Slytherin, 
> Lupin was in Ravenclaw (in the Pensieve, he's the only one who 
> wants to study) and Peter was Hufflepuff. 

Okay, but why these particular placements? 

James=Gryffindor. Okay, that I can go with, that seems pretty self-explanatory. If only 
one of them is a Gryffindor, then it should be Harry's dad. But. . . 

Sirius=Slytherin? Er. . . no offense, but Sirius has never struck me as being particularly 
cunning. Actually, he's always struck me as being in some ways the most reckless and 
impulsive of the Marauders, from what we've seen of them so far. Mind, none of the 
other Slyths we see in canon -- excepting Phineas, and, obviously, Snape -- seem all 
that cunning either; and the bloodline might count enough to balance that out, so I 
suppose I can you that one. Oh, but one other thing: doesn?t the phrase (referring to 
ASRWLL) ?gang of Slytherins? sound like a phrase more likely to be used by someone 
who was never himself a Slytherins that by someone who was?

Remus=Ravenclaw. Okay, here we get *really* tricky. "Here's to a Gryffindor victory 
against". . . Ravenclaw, wasn't it? "Not that I'm supposed to take sides, as a teacher." 
Which implies pretty plainly that he *would* like to openly -- or even more openly -- 
take sides if he weren't, and that he'd be taking Gryffindor's side. (Another reading of 
the line is "I'm not supposed to take sides, *as a teacher,*" with the unspoken 
continuation "although I *have* taken sides under other circumstances as not-a-
teacher." Or, *as a student.*) Besides, I got the impression from the Pensieve scene 
that he was also using his work in order to avoid having to confront James and Sirius. 
Certainly by the time James and Sirius spot Snape, Lupin isn't paying that much 
attention to his work; he's paying enough attention to his friends to get that frown. 
Anyway, he can't possibly have been as much of a swot as Hermione's in, and she 
eventually got Sorted Gryffindor.

Peter=Hufflepuff. 

Um.

"Loyal?" If I had to pick one word to *not* describe Peter Pettigrew, that word would 
be "loyal." ?Ah, but couldn't that word also be ?brave??? you ask. Well, I agree that on 
the face of it, Peter does not, shall we say, seem to be possessed of a great deal of 
derring-do; but it's okay, because Elkins explained all of that. 

(I was planning to snip, but realized that the whole thing was just so darn *good* that 
I might as well provide a link to it.)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/45291

But even if I *did* agree with your particular hypothetical placements of MWPP, I'm 
not sure I could agree on your general scenario.

> I think that in their time 
> the Sorting Hat also begged the Houses to unite --

Very probably.

> -- and I think 
> these four originally tried to do that. But their idealism --

Idealism? *Idealism*? D'you honestly think that the arrogant little prats that were 
James and Sirius, and the hero-worshipper-of-the-arrogant-little-prats-that-were-
James-and-Sirius that was Peter, were going to all independently -- and it would kind 
of have to be independently, I think -- come up with the idea to go out of their way, 
out of their class schedule, out of -- probably -- the good favor of their dorm mates, 
to try and *improve inter-House relations?* Out of *idealism?* Lupin, maybe. Lupin 
might have tried it, maybe. But even that I'm not too sure about. It could easily make 
a person unpopular, and Lupin "does like to be liked."

Me, I think MWPP heard the Hat?s warning, if the Hat did give a warning, and carried 
right on behaving like ?arrogant little berks? and torturing Snape. Well, two of them 
tortured him, one of them got uncomfortable with it but still kept his trap shut, and 
one of them auditioned for his SYCOPHANTS membership.

> -- faded in 
> the face of the difficulty of their task (as Hermione's plans to free
> House Elves seem to peter out in each book). 

> So instead of 
> uniting their houses, MWPP formed a "little gang" of their own, as 
> McGonagall calls it, and spent their energies hedonistically in 
> ways that brought out the worst traits of the four houses --

Sorry. Here goes. . . 

> Slytherin paranoia (in the Prank)

Are Slytherins especially paranoid?

Is Sirius especially paranoid?

> Gryffindor recklessness ( the werewolf rambles)

But we don't know whose idea those were. And Gryffindors do seem to be reckless, 
but would you really assign that trait primarily to James, rather than to Sirius? After 
all, back to the Prank, Sirius was the one who cooked it up; James was the one who 
stopped it.

> Ravenclaw lawlessness ( the only house 
> without a moral philosophy) 

is Lupin "lawless?" Again, I'd assign that more to Sirius, or James. Anyway, it is House 
Slytherin, and not House Ravenclaw, that has the "certain disregard for rules"; I don't 
know that I'd call "use any means to attain their ends" a "moral philosophy," exactly.

> and Hufflepuff sycophancy and/or 
> underachievement. 

<indignantly>

Hey! Hey, hey, hey, whoa! What in the world gives you that idea! What did Hufflepuffs 
ever do to deserve *that*? They're supposed to be "true" and "loyal," and neither of 
those categories squares away very well with flattery or sycophancy. (Or, as 
mentioned above, with treachery.) They're also supposed to be hardworking, or 
"unafraid of toil." If you are hardworking, you may still not be achieving very much, 
but you're probably achieving pretty close to your potential (unless you have a really 
lousy study plan or something). You're not underachieving. Hufflepuffs are salt-of-
the-earth types, I always thought. If occasionally pompous.

> For this alienation and failure, MWPP will all, as I see it, pay the 
> price. Sirius may indeed have become so alienated from 
> Slytherin that he transferred to Gryffindor, if that's possible. I
> find it a bit suspicious that JKR has hinted it's possible without 
> letting us know for a fact whether it is or not. 

Er, I should probably know things like this before I write a long and vehement post, 
but where's that hinted?

Oh! I've read your response to Terry. Harry's dream certainly does seem to imply that; 
but I thought that the line about Seamus being moved just meant "living somewhere 
else in the castle," and not "transferring Houses." Of course, I'm not entirely sure 
where else, if anywhere, he could live if he stayed a Gryffindor.

> I think all the
> others remained with their original Houses but became 
> alienated from them too. It could be as a symptom of that 
> alienation that James calls Lily by her surname though they are 
> (apparently) in the same House. 

I think he does that primarily because she hates his guts and told him he couldn't call 
her "Lily." He either decided not to antagonize her or did it once and regretted it.

> Anyway, the awareness of this 
> failure could be why the older generation is reluctant to reveal to 
> Harry which Houses they were in. 

But they aren't. I mean, are they? It's simply never come up, has it?

> As for the current generation, the Sorting Hat didn't take any time 
> with Ron, but hesitated over Hermione, Harry and Neville. Ron is 
> therefore the quintessential Gryffindor, while Harry would have 
> done well in Slytherin

"Not a bad mind, either," is, I think, a hint that Harry might have been briefly 
considered for Ravenclaw, unless the Hat is listing that as a Gryffindor or Slytherin 
trait.

The Elkins once wrote:

> The possibility that the Sorting Hat's dilemma with Harry was due to 
> Harry's role as the possible unifier of all four Houses has been 
> discussed here often in the past. People have pointed out that in 
> the Hat's musings, it touches upon all four of the Houses' criteria 
> before offering Harry a place first in Slytherin, and then in 
> Gryffindor. Some have speculated that this might represent Harry's 
> role as a kind of exemplar, an embodiment of all *four* of the 
> founders and thus, by extension, of a holistic unification of the 
> wizarding world. 

> If we accept this premise, and if we agree that Harry and Neville can 
> be read as shadow images, or as mirrors, to one another, then what do 
> we make of the Hat's long hesitation over Neville? Could it be that 
> just as Harry reaps both the benefits and the drawbacks of his 
> heritage, while Neville accepts neither of them, so Harry answers the 
> Sorting Hat's fundamental question with "All of the Above," while 
> Neville answers: "None of the above?" 

(Here. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/38398. Go read the 
whole thing, everyone. Everyone.)

I consider this line of thought to be *vastly* more intriguing than a Four Houses 
breakdown of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville.

And I actually think that this analysis has gained in some ways from OOP. The 
revelation that Neville was the other possible answer to the Prophecy makes him a 
mirror to Harry in a humongous way that we didn't know that he was before, and that 
simply no other character is. And the -- IMHO -- increased likelihood that Harry will 
die at the end of the series makes the rebuilding of the Wizarding World a distinct 
phase in need of a new leader. I am seriously proposing Neville.

Pippin:

> Neville in Hufflepuff 

See the above, and, in another Elkins quote:

> 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.  

(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/39980)

Back to Pippin again:

> and Hermione in 
> Ravenclaw. 

But why this specific breakdown? Why Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville? How can 
you *have* Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville, without also including Luna and -- 
perhaps especially -- Ginny in that group? We don?t *have* four major characters, at 
least not as of OOP. We have either three or six. 

> I think the Hat deliberately put them together in 
> Gryffindor, trying once again to unite the Houses against the 
> threat of Voldemort.

But. . . but it *isn't* uniting the Houses if they're all in the same House! Really, if the 
only way the Houses can unite is if there's only one of them -- if the previous attempt 
of the Marauders failed -- doesn't that tremendously *undercut* the whole breaking 
down of House barriers that we see in OOP?

Derannimer, with apologies for being so grouchy about this one, and further 
apologies for her formatting, which has been dreadful lately, for some reason or 
other