How many students [was Re: Random ideas]

[Scott <snorth@ucla.edu>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51707



Tom:
> Using my previous response as a basis: maybe Harry's year is a 
small 
> one for Gryffindor House. There's absolutely no reason to assume 
that 
> each house gets the same number of boys and girls per year per 
house. 
> And really, if you think about it, it's hard to even consider such 
a 
> question, because the question itself presupposes one of two things 
> (that I can come up with now):
> 
> 1) Wizards and witches are born in perfect proportion to match the 
> Hogwarts classifications each year, or
> 2) The Sorting Hat has some predetermined quotas for the number of 
> students for each house.

Yikes, I'm going to agree with Tom, and propose something.  

Okay, if you are one to believe that each house specifically matches 
up with one of the 4 Keirsey Temperments, then I could see Gryffindor 
and Ravenclaw being MUCH smaller than Hufflepuff and Slytherin.  
Someone wrote a book re: Keirsey Temperments (I forget who, but I 
think it was called "People Personalities"), and they used the Houses 
to provide easy examples for each temperment.  Gryffindor consists of 
Idealists (NFs), Slytherin the Artisans (SPs), Hufflepuff the 
Guardians (SJs), and Ravenclaw the Rationals (NTs).  Now, if we go 
based on how often each of these temperments is found in the total 
population, about 40% of the students are in Hufflepuff, 40% in 
Slytherin, and the remaining 20% would be sorted into Gryffindor and 
Ravenclaw, with slightly more Gryffindors than Ravenclaws.  Actually, 
doing the math in my head, I think that would be about 700 students, 
based solely on the number of Gryffindors of Harry's year.

Of course, I think the guy who wrote the book in question is a moron, 
who based his entire analogy on the Sorting Hat song.  Frankly, 
having done more research on Kiersey Temperments, I'm not sure I can 
name one person in Gryffindor that I know for FACT is an Idealist. I 
know of a few Rationals, Artisans, and Guardians in Gryffindor, but I 
don't think any of the characters has proved to be an Idealist just 
yet. 

So my personal belief is that the number of Gryffindors is low, with 
maybe a few more Slytherins and Ravenclaws, and a whole mess of 
Hufflepuffs (Sorry Hufflepuff fans, their traits just don't seem that 
rare to me). 


Tom:
> Exactly: Occam's razor – the simplest answer is usually the
best. 
So, 
> why would JKR mislead us on the population of Hogwarts in 
> interviews?  Answer: she's not.

Damn straight.

-Scott