The Sorting Hat and Houses

[Juliet <lilpurplealdy@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52951

Andrea:
> The individual Founders would probably be ABLE to speak if they
> chose to, but for the Sorting they just let the Hat voice take over.

If you're suggesting(though I'm not entirely sure you are) that a 
Founder is able to speak through the hat whenever they want, then I 
have to disagree.  I would think Salazar would have had a few things 
to say during that scene in CoS, when his Heir was in his Chamber of 
Secrets(though, I think I'm thinking of different words than you are, 
with the way you paint him in your fic ;).

I find it more believable that it takes some magic to bring out one 
of the Founder's personality, so that it is the sort of 
main "voice".  IOW, the Hat's voice/personality is probably sort of a 
default setting, or maybe a colaboration of all of their's.  But to 
be able to speak to, say, Godric Gryffindor(alone) through the Hat, I 
personally think some sort of magic is in order to get the Hat's 
voice to reliquish control to him, and only him.

The more I think about it, the more plausable it seems to me that the 
Four Founder's essences that are in the Hat are definately there, but 
rather docile(atleast, until some magic can draw them out) in terms 
of communicating.

Ah, I just read your fic(well, the two shorts ones ;), lol.  Very 
amusing!  And pretty much exactly what I would venture really goes on 
in the Hat. "Salazar hissed. 'Why doesn't the boy just try talking 
to -- Godric, did you just drop a SWORD on his head?'"  Lol, love 
that. ^-^  But, that makes so much sense.  The Founders can argue all 
they want, not scare the ickle first years, and the Hat's "voice" can 
convey their decisions(and their uncertainties) in it's own way.

Andrea:
> But the enchantment would've had to then transfer the "brains" to 
the Hat itself
> regardless of the object, or there wouldn't be a Gryffindor 
presence in
> the Hat anymore. (The sword is on display in Dumbledore's office 
now,
> IIRC.)

*nods*  Yes, exactly.  I was just pondering if inserting a personal 
object isn't just part of the spell used to personify the Hat.  And 
that would mean that there are three other relics inside, one from 
Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.  But, who knows if we'll ever 
see a member of those three Houses with a chance to ask the Hat for 
help.


~Aldrea, starting to think the Sorting Hat is a *much* more 
powerfully magical object than she'd thought it was before.